How to Reach Customers in 2027 - AI & SEO

AEO, SEO, GEO, EIEIO: in the end, the abbreviation doesn’t matter. What does, however, is the method behind it all. 

Look, we all get it; AI is taking over. Log on to any marketing forum or blog, and you’ll see it front and center.

SEO will never be the same, and the medium for reaching customers has changed entirely. However, when it comes to improving your online visibility, it actually doesn’t make that much of a difference. 

SEO is now a decades-old industry. Back in the old days, it was just a matter of creating quality content peppered with some well-chosen keywords on a fast, dynamic site. 

Now? Well, now it’s actually pretty much the same. 

Stay with me. 

People are creating a torrent of content around AEO, and it’s justified. According to G2, nearly three in four B2B software buyers rely on AI chatbots for software research, compared to 60% just seven months ago. Additionally, according to Gartner, 90% of all B2B purchases will be handled by AI agents by 2028.

50% of all the internet's traffic is now made up of bots. Your website is being scraped and presented into another medium that you essentially have no control over. It’s the same as a search engine results page, just with more copy. 

SEO vs AEO: Why Not Much Will Change in 2027...But Then Again...

SEO has always had one core foundation to every tactic: intent. 

Who is intending to use my site?

Why are they intending to use my site?

And, how do I get them to intend to buy my product or service? 

Google’s and the perpetual underdog, Bing’s, crawlers were always designed to provide quality, verified answers to users that fit their search intent.

With AEO (aka optimizing for AI), not only does that not change, it’s more central than ever. 

Your online brand is simply made of two things: product and personality. As a B2B SaaS company, it’s easy to get lost in the conditionals and the whataboutisms that stall every digital marketing campaign down to a crawl.

In reality, the key, regardless of your medium, is to focus on brand. This, thanks to the rise of AI, is more important than ever.

To rise above your competitors & reach customers going into 2027, be sure to integrate your core differentiator into your SEO & AEO strategies.

After all, one business may search Google for "Seattle marketing consultant" while another may search ChatGPT for "given everything you know about my business, suggest the best marketing firms for my business." ChatGPT is likely to recommend businesses with an overlap, such as "like your business, business xyz also focuses on eco-friendly solutions."

Naturally, there are differences in strategy between AEO & SEO, but the core overlap is the same: intent and quality.

Create a unique, trustworthy brand on a fast, mobile-friendly website, and you will have no problem ranking wherever you want to. Sounds an awful lot like 2016, doesn’t it? 

According to AI, It’s All About You!

People like to talk about how intelligent LLMs (large language models) are, but essentially they are just an incredibly complex, inflated mathematical calculator, using words as their equation.

LLMs are rewarded each time they present the right arrangement of words in front of users. Originally, the ‘user’ was an anonymous entity on the other side of the keyboard. Now, however, LLMs know you very, very well. 

Almost every major LLM uses your previous chat history to tailor their results, ensuring that they provide the best possible arrangement of words to you. 

What does this mean for AEO? 

Well, essentially, it means that every single user is receiving a different answer, tone of voice, and train of thought from their own personalised LLM. 

That means that, above all else, intent is still the ruler of the engine optimization game. 

So what does that mean for anyone trying to be seen online today?

So, How Do You Reach Customers in 2027 with AEO?

To get noticed by both humans and AI bots, your content strategy needs to shift from promotional to educational.

Essentially, stop selling and start showing.

Find a way to become the key authority for your core audience, and the revenue will come later. Here’s how:

• Focus on the Answer: Write to solve the user's specific problem immediately, not to talk about yourself or your sales offering.

• Establish "Information Gain": AI models scrape existing web data. If your article just repeats what is already on the top 10 Google results, the AI has no reason to cite you. You must offer unique data, contrarian opinions, or first-hand experience.

• Earn Real Authority: Backlinks from trusted, high-traffic domains are still the ultimate signal of trust. Find a way to have your links embedded into high-authority sites, either through link-sharing tactics or the tried and trusted method of being the supreme authority in your area.

At KC SEO, my team and I have taken this as the core of our marketing tactics, and the results speak for themselves.

We partnered with a B2B firm in 2026 and took their online presence from invisible on AI prompts to surfacing for 25+ ChatGPT prompts.

And the best part? This resulted in our client obtaining multiple, high-quality leads in just a few weeks!

What does this mean for you?

How the KC SEO Method Works 

When KC SEO pairs with a new partner, we approach the SEO challenge with the same core idea: what is the customer intent, and how do we provide a unique answer? 

As soon as we understand what our clients’ customers want to know, and how to provide it for them, we build out the content engine that will get them results.

For each of our projects, we have consistently seen higher traffic, better conversions and an improvement in search visibility in just a few months...all just by focusing on unique brand voice & customer intent. 

Instead of diving into the keywords, impressions and clicks, we look at your business’ personality, market fit and unique voice. By combining these three elements, our team can then write the quality content needed that will directly lead to sales. 

With our focus on intent, it doesn’t matter whether SEO or AEO is the goal. In the end, providing the answers and solutions to key users will continue to be the best possible method for quality, consistent online visibility. 

In this constantly shifting world of content marketing, it pays to be an open book. If you’re looking for a partner to help you boost your online presence, regardless of whether it’s on a Google search or an AI model response, you can book a consultation with us.

Let’s personalize your online for customers, whether they're searching on Google or ChatGPT.