In late 2024, Stacy Simpson, chief marketing officer at healthcare software and services provider Athenahealth, started asking artificial intelligence chatbots like ChatGPT questions about her company. The results were not ideal.
The chatbot didn't know about some of Athenahealth's services, so it didn't mention the company's name as an option when asked. They pulled the details from an internal software website that hadn't been updated in years.
Simpson realized she had to find a way to market her AI chatbot. “This is one of the biggest changes we've seen in decades,” she said in a recent interview.
Similar realizations are occurring across corporate America as companies grapple with how AI and chatbots will change not only the way people work but also the way they consume information. This means that companies no longer just need to promote themselves to potential customers, they also need to win over robots.
“There is a new influencer that we need to reach, and that is this AI model,” said Brian Stempek, co-founder of Evertune, an AI startup that helps companies analyze what chatbots are saying.
Digital marketing has been in flux since the first banner ads came online in 1994. From video to podcasts to social media, each new digital format has spawned its own set of technological tools and self-proclaimed gurus who promise killer results, as many skeptics warn against the hype. Spending on digital advertising overtook traditional media in 2019 and soared to $350 billion in the U.S. last year, according to research firm eMarketer.
Chatbot marketing is on the rise with the mass adoption of AI tools like ChatGPT, Claude, and Gemini. OpenAI says 800 million people use ChatGPT every week, while Google says its Gemini chatbot has more than 750 million monthly users.
Some people think of AI marketing as an extension of the old-school search engine optimization (SEO) that brands have been doing for decades to ensure they appear on the first page of Google's search results. The new AI marketing is called AEO or GEO, which stands for “Response Engine Optimization” or “Generation Engine Optimization.” Similar to SEO, it involves running test queries, analyzing the results, and making recommendations on how to improve.
For AI companies like OpenAI, this represents a business opportunity. The company announced that it will start selling ads along with the answers ChatGPT provides. (OpenAI did not respond to a request for comment.)
Meanwhile, companies are trying to influence what chatbots say. To do this, we focus on providing specific information (a lot of information) that the chatbot can absorb. And they are targeting specific online corners that chatbots deem trustworthy and authentic, such as Reddit, LinkedIn, and Quora.
Experts say there is an urgent need to absorb messaging while chatbots are still relatively new and flexible. “The first-mover advantage is not going to last long,” said Athena Health's Simpson.
This change also means new opportunities for entrepreneurs like Stempek, who co-founded Evertune in April 2024. Since then, the company has raised $20 million and has more than 200 customers.
Healthcare and pharmaceutical companies are also early adopters of Evertune's tools, as are automakers, luxury brands and electronics companies, Stempek said. His clients ask chatbots an average of 1 million questions each month, checking for instances where the models are wrong, outdated, or missing important context.
Stenpek said chatbots are hungry for detailed information, especially in empty areas. So companies that want to influence what the program spits out can flood the zone with granular information. He said one luxury fashion brand went from publishing five pieces of content a month to about 100 pieces of content a month, while car manufacturers now always publish their entire owner's manuals.
Over the past six months, AthenaHealth has published 250,000 words of “highly targeted, highly tailored content” aimed at “educating” the AI chatbot, Simpson said. As a result, the company is more likely to be cited in relevant queries than it was a year ago.
All of this changes for branding purposes. You don't need a story hook or a fresh idea to use a chatbot. Mitch Stoller, co-founder of Literate AI, an agency with 25 clients focused on influencing AI algorithms, said he emphasized to clients that chatbots require clarity, thoroughness, and an extremely high level of detail.
“In a way, it's become more essential,” he says. “You can't win with a vibrator here.”
There are also challenges. Chatbots may not have access to quality information from professional media outlets as they are hidden behind paywalls. Also, old information may be regurgitated as current facts. Often they are just making things up.
(The New York Times sued OpenAI and its partner Microsoft, alleging copyright infringement of news content related to the AI system. Both companies denied the claims.)
Even one negative post on a message board like Reddit or Quora (even one from years ago) can have a huge impact. Dimitry Apollonsky, a marketer who runs Parse, an AI marketing and data agency, said Reddit was the most cited website out of 27 million AI responses to “seeking a solution” prompts in the past 30 days, beating out YouTube, Wikipedia and news sites. More than half of ChatGPT's responses to these prompts cite Reddit, he added.
As a result, brands are trying to figure out how to navigate Reddit, an internet powerhouse whose users don't respond well to aggressive sales pitches. Haley Friedman, co-founder of Growth Marketing Pro, an SEO agency she founded in 2017, said her company started helping brands decide what to do about Reddit last year as clients continued to ask for help. The agency currently has more than 50 clients, mostly on Reddit.
“I don’t have space on my calendar to write all the inbound interest,” she said.
Athenahealth has worked to clean up all outdated content on our website and social media channels. Google's search engine generally prioritizes new content in search results, so this has never been an issue. But AI chatbots can dig up anything, “even if it was wrong 10 years ago,” Simpson said. “We must be more vigilant than ever.”
