The State of AEO: What 599 Marketers Told Us About AI Search
We surveyed 599 marketers on AI search. 40.6% said the same thing is their biggest challenge.
👋 Hey, I’m George Chasiotis. Welcome to GrowthWaves, your weekly dose of B2B growth insights—featuring powerful case studies, emerging trends, and unconventional strategies you won’t find anywhere else.
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I spent a few hours building an internal app with Agent A by Ahrefs.
The goal? Speed up how we build keyword universes at Minuttia.
The app takes brand context, pulls thousands of keywords from Ahrefs, classifies them by search intent, and exports everything into a searchable database. One test run generated 11,805 keywords in a few minutes.
No, it doesn’t replace keyword research. And yes, it still needs cleanup and refinement on our side.
But that’s not the point.
What’s exciting is how fast you can now build useful internal marketing tools on top of real search data. And I can already see dozens of use cases for agency workflows.
If you like building systems and automating marketing work, check it out:
A few months ago, Kevin Indig and I decided to run a survey.
The idea was simple:
AI search optimization (AEO) is the topic everyone is talking about. And even though there are many data studies on “what works” in AI search, there isn’t as much coverage on what companies are actually doing about it.
How many have a strategy? Who owns it? What are they spending? What is working?
We wanted answers. So we built a 16-question survey and sent it out to our combined audiences across Minuttia, Growth Memo, and GrowthWaves.
599 marketers, SEO professionals, agency owners and growth leaders responded.
Here is what the data tells us.
Key Findings
Before we get into the details, here are the key findings:
Over 80% of organizations are actively doing something about AI search. Only about 16% are still exploring or sitting on the sidelines.
SEO teams own AEO at over half of all companies. 52.8% of respondents said the existing SEO team handles AEO. The overlap between the two disciplines is real and growing.
40.6% say measurement is their single biggest challenge. That number should concern every tool company in this space.
39.9% have no dedicated AEO budget. Most companies are folding AI search work into existing SEO budgets rather than carving out new ones.
Over half of respondents expect their AEO budget to rise. 34.7% expect a moderate increase (10 to 25% more). 15.5% expect a significant increase (over 25%).
47.2% of respondents report organic traffic declines they attribute to AI search. But whether AI search is truly the cause is a question worth asking.
Now let me walk through each section of the survey.
Who Responded
The survey drew responses from across the marketing and SEO ecosystem, as shown below:
The biggest group by job title was SEO Manager / Lead respondents at 28.2%. Consultants, freelancers, and agency owners came in second at 24.5%.
Heads of SEO and directors accounted for 16%. VPs and C-Level executives at 12%, content strategists and managers at 11.5%, and growth marketing managers and leads at 7.7%.
Author’s Note: That last number surprised me. In a survey about AI search optimization, actual SEO practitioners are the smallest group. This is a leadership audience making budget and strategy decisions.
About a third of respondents (32.6%) work at companies with 1 to 10 employees. The 11 to 50 range came in at 21%, followed by 51 to 200 at 16.7%. Larger companies were represented too: 12.4% in the 201 to 1,000 range, 8.3% in the 1,001 to 5,000 range, and 9% at companies with over 5,000 employees.
SaaS and technology led at 30.9%. Agency and consulting came in at 26.2%. E-commerce at 13.4%, financial services at 4.8%, healthcare at 3.2%, and the rest spread across media, education, travel and other verticals at 21.5%.
One note on the audience composition:
Over a quarter of respondents work at agencies or consulting firms. You would expect people in that category to sit at the forefront of AI search changes.
But let’s keep in mind that not all of them offer AEO services. That context matters when reading the rest of the data.
How Companies Are Approaching AEO
This is where it gets interesting.
26.9% say AI search is a core part of their SEO strategy. Another 21.5% are actively implementing one.
Add in the 25.9% running early experiments and the 7.7% who have a dedicated team or program, and you get a clear picture. Over 80% of respondents are doing something about AI search.
Only 2.3% said they are not actively addressing it.
The 15.7% still exploring and learning represent the last meaningful holdout group. If you are in that camp, you are not behind.
But the window to experiment without competitive pressure is closing.
Let’s move on to the next one.
Who Owns AEO
The ownership picture is even more concentrated than I expected.
The existing SEO team owns AEO at 52.8% of organizations.
That is the single most important finding in this section. It tells us something we suspected but can now confirm with data: AEO and SEO are deeply intertwined.
The skill sets, teams, and budgets overlap.
Cross-functional teams (SEO plus content plus product or engineering, etc.) came in at 19.4%. Dedicated AEO specialists or teams accounted for 9.2%.
Nobody responsible for it at 9.3%. Content teams at 6.7%.
Here is what surprised me: external agencies came in at just 2.7%.
I expected this to be much higher. (I’m obviously biased because of Minuttia.)
When companies face something new and unfamiliar, they tend to outsource.
One possible explanation: over a quarter of respondents are agencies and consulting firms themselves. So, they wouldn’t be outsourcing to another agency.
But even accounting for that, 2.7% is low. It suggests that most organizations see AEO as an extension of work they are already doing in-house rather than a new discipline that requires outside help.
Author’s Note: To be fair, that could change as AI search becomes more complex, and it’s definitely not what we’re seeing at Minuttia, where the company has been experiencing record demand since the beginning of this year.
How AI Search Is Changing SEO Priorities
The priority shift is unmistakable.
44.9% say AI search has become a significant priority alongside traditional SEO.
Another 28.2% describe it as a growing but still secondary priority. Combined, that is 73.1% of respondents saying AI search is at least on the radar in a meaningful way.
13% said AI search is now their top SEO priority.
Author’s Note: I would guess many of these respondents work at SaaS or technology companies targeting technical audiences. Developer tools, for example, and generally, audiences that use AI search more heavily than average.
Only 10.7% said it has not changed their priorities much. And just 0.7% are deprioritizing after initial experimentation.
The shift is real. And it happened fast.
Let’s move on to the next one.
How Confident Are Companies in Their AEO Strategy
The confidence data tells an interesting story on its own.
Somewhat confident (43.4%) and neutral (27.2%) together account for over 70% of respondents. Most companies have a direction but are still figuring things out as the field evolves.
14% said they are very confident with a clear, effective strategy.
I would push back on that. Nobody should be very confident about a discipline this new, this untested and this volatile.
The platforms are constantly changing. The measurement tools are still immature. What works today may not work in six months.
If you are very confident, I would respectfully suggest you have not stress-tested your approach enough.
On the other end, 8.2% said they are not very confident, and 5.3% said they have no real strategy at all.
Keep this confidence data in mind. It becomes important later when we look at what respondents say about their biggest challenges.
How Content Strategy Is Changing
Content changes are happening on multiple fronts at once.
This was a multi-select question. Respondents could choose more than one answer.
The top response: 245 respondents said they have made multiple changes across content format, structure and targeting. That tells us AEO is not a single-lever optimization. Companies are adjusting along several dimensions at once.
The specific changes break down as follows:
220 are prioritizing E-E-A-T signals
208 are focusing more on structured data and schema markup
190 are shifting toward more conversational or question-based content
133 are creating more comprehensive, in-depth content
93 have not changed their content strategy at all.
Author’s Note: One observation on the “more in-depth content” response. Longer does not always mean more visible in AI search. AI models are very good at filtering content down to the specific information they need.
Length alone is not an advantage. Concise and well-structured content can perform better because the models can extract from it more efficiently.
Evergreen Content Investment
The evergreen picture is more interesting than I expected.
49.4% said their evergreen content investment has not changed much. Another 17.7% said they are investing somewhat less, and 5.8% are investing significantly less.
15.5% are investing more.
The data suggests that evergreen content is not where most companies are shifting resources in response to AI search. About half are holding steady. Close to a quarter are pulling back.
Whether that is the right move is debatable. Evergreen content is the type of content AI models train on and cite most often. Pulling back on it could mean losing ground in AI search results over time.
Which AI Search Engines Companies Are Optimizing For
The platform priorities are clear.
Google AI Overviews leads with 480 respondents actively optimizing for it. ChatGPT comes in close behind at 467.
Those two dominate the field. After that: Gemini at 332, Perplexity at 173, and Microsoft Copilot / Bing AI at 122.
69 respondents said they are not optimizing for any AI search platform.
One important note:
We made an oversight in this survey. Claude was not included as a response option. (The mistake is mine.)
Given Anthropic’s growing market share and the fact that Claude is increasingly used for search-adjacent tasks, this was a miss on our part. We will include it in future editions.
The Impact on Organic Performance
This question generated some of the most striking data in the survey.
26.7% report a significant decline (over 20%) in organic CTR or traffic. Another 20.5% report a moderate decline (10 to 20%).
Combined, 47.2% of respondents say they have experienced organic traffic declines they attribute to AI search.
32.1% described the impact as mixed, with some areas declining and others improving. 10.5% said they have not noticed any change yet. And 10.2% said they have not been able to measure the impact.
I want to add some context here. Correlation is not causation.
When a company sees organic traffic decline over the past 12 months, AI search is the obvious culprit. Google’s AI Overviews are absorbing clicks that used to go to organic results.
But other factors are at play too:
Algorithm updates
Competitive shifts
Content decay
Search trends
The companies reporting significant declines may be right that AI search is the primary driver. Or they may be attributing a complex, multi-factor trend to the most visible change in the market.
I do not doubt that AI search is impacting organic performance. The data from multiple sources confirms that. But I would take the “significant decline” number with a grain of caution.
What Metrics Companies Are Tracking
The metrics question reveals what companies care about and what the tools make visible.
Referral traffic from AI platforms leads with 429 respondents tracking it. Brand mentions and visibility in AI search engines is close behind at 382.
After that: citations and citation share at 274, conversions attributed to AI-referred traffic at 238, share of voice at 237, and average position in AI search at 150.
63 respondents are not tracking any AI search-specific metrics.
This data is worth interpreting carefully. The metrics respondents use are shaped by two things: what matters to them and what the available tools can measure.
The AI search tracking ecosystem has grown fast. I covered this in my research on AEO tools. At the time, there were 200+ tools in the space.
That number is likely higher now. (I’d estimate it at around 250-300 tools, including traditional SEO tools.)
These tools push users toward certain metrics: brand mentions, citation share, share of voice. The survey results reflect what companies care about, but also what the tools make easy to track.
Budget Allocation
The budget story is revealing.
Here is the headline: 39.9% of respondents have no dedicated AEO budget.
The rest is spread across brackets:
10.7% allocate 1 to 5%
12.2% allocate 6 to 10%
16.7% allocate 11 to 20%
13.5% allocate 21 to 40%
And 7% spend more than 40% of their SEO budget on AI search
The no-budget group at 39.9% is the story here. Most companies are treating AEO as part of their existing SEO work rather than funding it separately.
That tracks with the ownership data from earlier. If the SEO team owns AEO and the budget is not carved out, AEO spending is invisible inside the broader SEO line item.
This has implications. When AEO budgets are invisible, they are harder to grow, harder to justify and harder to protect when cuts come.
Budget Outlook
The outlook tilts toward growth.
34.7% expect a moderate increase (10 to 25% more). 15.5% expect a significant increase (over 25%).
20.7% expect budgets to stay about the same. And 11.9% said it is too early to tell.
Only 0.7% selected “decrease.” That is worth noting. In a market where nearly half of respondents report organic traffic declines, almost nobody is planning to spend less on AI search.
The signal here is cautious optimism. Most companies expect to spend more on AI search, but not dramatically more. They are increasing budgets, not doubling them.
16.5% said they do not have a separate AEO budget at all, which tracks with the 39.9% in the previous question.
The Biggest Challenge
This was the most revealing question in the survey.
40.6% said their biggest challenge is a lack of reliable measurement tools and attribution.
That is not a small number. Four in ten respondents pointed to the same problem. They cannot measure what is happening in AI search with enough confidence to make strategic decisions.
24.2% said unclear best practices, that they do not know what actually works. 18% cited unclear ROI and an inability to prove business value.
9.7% said keeping up with rapidly changing AI search features. 4.5% pointed to a lack of internal skills or expertise. And just 3% said budget or stakeholder buy-in.
Let me connect two data points here.
In the confidence question (Q7), only 8.2% said they are not very confident in their approach. But here, 24.2% say they do not know what actually works.
That is a gap. Some respondents are telling us they feel somewhat confident about their direction while simultaneously admitting they do not know what best practices are. Those two things sit in tension.
My read: confidence in this space is partly manufactured. Companies have a strategy. They are executing on it.
That activity creates a feeling of confidence. But when pressed on whether they know what actually works, the honesty comes through.
The measurement problem is the real story. As I said earlier, I covered the AEO tools market last year and found 200+ tools tracking AI search visibility.
Despite that, 40.6% say measurement is their top challenge. The tools exist. The confidence in those tools does not.
Author’s Note: Kevin has a lot to say about measurement and attribution from his time managing budgets in-house. I will let him share that perspective in his own piece.
Technology and Tools
The technology investments follow a predictable pattern.
AI search visibility and brand monitoring leads with 402 respondents using or investing in it. That makes sense. If measurement is the biggest challenge, monitoring is where companies start.
Content optimization for AI search came in at 311
AI-powered content generation or rewriting at 278
Structured data and schema automation at 262
Analytics and attribution for AI-referred traffic at 237
72 said they are not using any specialized tools, relying on manual processes or existing SEO tools.
Here’s one data point that caught my eye:
262 respondents are investing in schema automation, which tracks with the 208 who said they are focusing more on structured data in their content strategy changes (Q8).
There is clear interest here.
The AI-powered content generation figure (278 respondents) is worth watching. Companies adopting AI content generation for AEO need to be careful.
The same AI models that power search are increasingly able to detect and deprioritize content that feels AI-generated. I covered this in my note on Grokipedia.
Final Thoughts
This survey tells a clear story.
AI search optimization is no longer experimental for most companies. Over 80% are doing something about it.
SEO teams own the work. Budgets are slowly increasing.
But confidence outruns capability. Companies feel like they have a direction.
The data suggests many of them are navigating without a reliable compass. The measurement tools are not mature enough. Best practices are still forming.
The biggest tension in this data is between action and understanding. Companies are acting. That is good.
But many are acting without knowing whether what they are doing works. That is a problem.
If you are reading this and recognizing your own situation, here is what I would suggest. Invest in measurement before you invest in more tactics.
If you cannot measure the impact of your AEO work, you cannot improve it. And if you cannot prove the ROI, you will lose the budget as soon as the next priority comes along.
I’d love to run this survey again with Kevin in 12 months. By then, the market will have shifted and the tools will have matured.
And we will have a baseline to measure against.
Until then, the data in this note is the closest thing we have to a map.
Thank you for reading today’s note, and see you again next week.
Research Disclaimers and Limitations
GrowthWaves and its author are not sponsored by or compensated by any company mentioned in this note. This is independent editorial analysis and does not constitute investment, financial, or legal advice. The author may have relationships with, work with, or hold equity in companies referenced; however, no content in this piece was influenced, commissioned, or incentivized by any such relationship. AI tools were used as a research assistant in the preparation of this piece. All claims are sourced and linked throughout.
Note on Survey Methodology
This survey was distributed to the combined audiences of GrowthWaves and Growth Memo. The respondent pool skews toward marketing and SEO professionals who are already aware of and interested in AI search topics. Results may not be representative of the broader market. Some questions allowed multiple selections, which means percentages may sum to more than 100%.
Sources
Minuttia x Growth Memo, AEO Survey (2026), Survey Data
Kevin Indig, Growth Memo Newsletter
GrowthWaves, AI Search Tracking Tools Report
GrowthWaves, “The Rise and Reality Check of Grokipedia”