Ad Age – Marketing winners and losers of the week
May 29, 2026
Is your board or exec team asking you about whether your company is showing up in AI-generated answers? If so, you aren’t alone.
Corporate Ink’s latest research found that 88% of CMOs and VP-level marketers are being asked by their boards or leadership about what they’re doing to optimize for AI visibility.
But while the pressure to influence LLMs is rising, our research also uncovered a big readiness gap: Most marketers are investing in GEO without the market-specific intelligence that will help their brand actually get surfaced by AI engines.
Here’s what every CMO needs to consider right now, based on findings from Corporate Ink’s GEO and AI Visibility 2026 Report. The research is based on a survey of 150 B2B tech marketing professionals across the U.S., including 75 CMOs and VP-level marketers.
- AI visibility is market-specific.
GEO is not a universal playbook. The outlets, channels and credibility signals that influence LLMs in one market won’t necessarily work in another.
Yet most marketing teams are running market-agnostic strategies. Only 26% know which media outlets AI engines crawl in their market. Just 17% have earned coverage in those outlets in the past month. Only 17% know which third-party credibility sources LLMs trust in their market. And just 36% say they know the specific content pieces they and their competitors have created that are currently being cited by AI engines.
This indicates marketers are investing in content and earned media without knowing if they are reaching the specific sources that actually influence AI engines in their specific category. Before spending another dollar on GEO, make sure you have the right roadmap.
- The companies seeing pipeline growth from AI visibility have mapped their landscape.
Forty percent of marketers report a 5-10% increase in qualified inbound pipeline attributed to AI visibility in the past year. Nineteen percent are seeing more than 10% growth.
The marketers seeing pipeline results from AI visibility have done the foundational work of mapping their landscape first. Among the companies reporting pipeline growth from AI visibility, 55% know which channels have the strongest influence over LLMs in their market, compared to just 15% of those seeing no or decreasing pipeline impact. Thirty-eight percent know which media outlets AI engines crawl in their space, versus just 13%. Twenty-four percent have earned coverage in those outlets in the past month, compared to just 8%.
Pipeline leaders are going deep and building their strategies around this critical intelligence.
- AI is likely getting your brand wrong. The cost is deals you don’t know you’re losing.
Seventy-two percent of marketers have seen AI describe their company, category, or value proposition inaccurately – and 29% of those marketers are doing nothing about it. A buyer who asks an AI engine about a vendor and receives a description that is wrong, whether it includes an old product, a mischaracterized differentiator, or positions the company in the wrong category, may never make it to the company’s website to correct that impression. This is an active pipeline risk.
LLMs draw on signals that may be 12-18 months old. Without active management, that lag compounds. Your action: Audit what AI engines are saying about your brand and make a plan to address any issues.
- GEO is primarily a PR and content outcome.
Nearly half (47%) of marketers said digital marketing and SEO should own GEO internally. Only 17% said PR and communications. Eleven percent said content. That mindset will limit results.
The brands’ AI engines surface and recommend are winning because they’ve built genuine authority in the places LLMs trust, and that is fundamentally a PR and content outcome.
- The right PR agency is a material factor in AI visibility outcomes.
The pipeline data shows that having the right PR agency is a core differentiator. Among companies experiencing pipeline growth from AI visibility, 55% say their PR agency is prioritizing AI visibility and actively integrating GEO into their strategy. Among companies not seeing pipeline growth, half say their PR agency has raised the topic of GEO and is trying, but doesn’t have the expertise to make a meaningful difference.
Earned media is one of the highest-leverage channels for AI visibility. But it only works when GEO and PR strategies are intertwined. Evaluate your agency on GEO. They should know which outlets AI engines crawl in your market, demonstrate coverage in those outlets, and map their coverage strategy to the buyer-centric prompts your target audience is using in AI engines.
Dive deeper into the state of AI visibility in Corporate Ink’s GEO and AI visibility 2026 report.
Where does your company stand on AI visibility? Take Corporate Ink’s AI visibility assessment to benchmark your GEO readiness and identify your highest priority gaps.
