After two packed days exploring AI startup building and go-to-market growth, Day 3 of LA Tech Week shifted focus to the evolving world of AI Search, how new AI technologies are transforming SEO, discovery, and the future of content visibility online.
We hosted three full days of events at LA Tech Week:
- Day 1: AI Building Day – Exploring how founders are building and scaling AI startups
- Day 2: Startup Growth Day – Hands-on tactics for go-to-market and founder growth
- Day 3: AI Search Day – Navigating the new frontier of AI-driven search
This post covers Day 3: AI Search Day, which featured two thought-provoking sessions led by top SEO and AI experts:
Slides For All Sessions:
Session 8: Future of Search: AI, SEO & AEO Panel
This discussion gathered top voices in search and AI to explore how artificial intelligence is transforming discovery, visibility, and the future of online search. The conversation highlighted how traditional SEO practices are evolving in an era shaped by large language models, AI assistants, and generative search systems.
Panelists:
- Ethan Smith, CEO of Graphite
- Emily Richardson, COO of KNWN
Duane Forrester, SEO Expert; former Microsoft Bing, former Yext
SEO Is Evolving, Not Ending
Panelists agreed that SEO remains relevant but is changing fast. Core practices like backlinks and metadata still matter, but context and accuracy now play a bigger role in how AI models surface information. AI-driven search relies more on clear, structured, and authoritative content than on volume or keyword stuffing.
Ethan described Answer Engine Optimization (AEO) as an extension of SEO, not a replacement. Duane added that adoption of AI search is happening at a speed never seen before, requiring marketers to adapt their strategies quickly.
The Rise of Long-Tail and Conversational Search
Search queries are becoming more conversational, with users asking longer, more specific questions. Emily emphasized the importance of building long-tail content that mirrors how people naturally speak and search. Help centers, FAQs, and comparison guides are now performing better than traditional blog posts because they directly answer questions that users ask in AI tools.
Content That AI Can’t Replicate
Generic or automated content no longer performs well. Emily stressed the value of original insights, real data, and distinct voice. If AI could have written your article, it’s not unique enough. Founders and marketers should lean into their personal expertise, share anecdotes, and offer opinions that reinforce credibility.
Citations as the New Backlinks
Visibility in AI search depends less on backlinks and more on citations. Ethan explained that being referenced within ChatGPT or Perplexity responses carries more value than traditional link-building. Brands should identify where AI systems draw from and aim to appear in those sources, such as industry publications or niche forums.
Structure Over Length
The old model of creating long-form “skyscraper” articles is losing ground. Instead, Duane and Emily recommended shorter sections organized around clear questions and answers. Each section should start with the main point, followed by supporting detail. This structure helps AI models extract information efficiently and rewards clarity over word count.
Tracking Visibility in the Age of AI
Measuring performance for AI search remains complex. Emily noted that zero-click behavior and lack of referral data make it hard to quantify success. Some emerging methods include tracking brand mentions, AI visibility scores, and how frequently a company is cited in AI-generated answers.
AI and E-Commerce Convergence
Panelists discussed how integrations between AI and commerce platforms are reshaping buying behavior. OpenAI’s partnerships with Shopify and Stripe allow users to complete purchases directly through chat interfaces. This represents a fundamental shift toward condensed, intent-driven transactions similar to those on TikTok Shop or WeChat.
What Founders Should Focus On
Founders should concentrate on a few high-value questions their customers are asking rather than chasing every keyword. Ethan suggested focusing on problem-based content and tracking how often your brand appears in AI-generated summaries across multiple platforms.
Takeaways
- SEO is evolving alongside AI, not disappearing.
- Citations and mentions are now more valuable than backlinks.
- Structured, concise content outperforms long-form text.
- Real expertise and unique perspective drive better AI visibility.
- Attribution remains difficult, but visibility across AI tools matters most.
- AI-commerce integrations are collapsing the traditional search funnel.
The discussion closed with a clear message: the future of search isn’t about chasing rankings, but about earning trust and relevance within AI ecosystems. Founders and marketers who prioritize clarity, authority, and authentic insight will lead in the next wave of digital discovery.
Additional Insights
- Help center optimization: Ethan shared how well-designed help centers can become hidden engines of AI visibility. By directly addressing niche or unanswered user queries, these pages often appear in AI-generated responses and outperform general blog content.
- AI visibility measurement: Emily described a practical framework for tracking success through citation frequency, brand mentions, and position within AI-generated answers. Rather than relying on traditional click data, she emphasized measuring presence across multiple AI platforms.
Intent over keywords: Duane emphasized moving away from traditional keyword research and toward understanding user intent. He shared that instead of spending hours on keyword lists, he spends most of his time mapping the ‘query fan’, the different ways people phrase real questions, to create content that truly serves user needs.
Session 9: Dual Web: Preparing Your Site for AI Search
This session explored how websites can adapt for the new era of AI search, where large language models like ChatGPT, Claude, and Perplexity are changing how information is discovered online. The conversation, led by Emily Richardson, co-founder and COO of KNWN, focused on the launch of Dual Web, a system designed to make websites visible and accessible to both humans and AI crawlers.
The Generational Shift in Search
Search behavior is changing faster than any time in history. AI search traffic grew 150% year over year, now reaching over 7.5 billion visits in 2025. For every 4.4 Google users, there’s already one AI search user. Two-thirds of Gen Z rely on tools like ChatGPT to find information, and nearly half use them weekly.
Emily framed this as a generational shift, comparing it to the rise of the internet itself, a future where people will ask, “What did you do before AI?”
How Google Built the Web We Know
Before understanding the future, it’s important to look at how Google shaped the structure of the modern web.
- Crawling: Google indexes through links, creating link-heavy websites with menus, footers, and inter-page navigation.
- Indexing: Its keyword-driven model led to keyword-dense sites with FAQs and blog posts.
- Ranking: Factors like authority, speed, and backlinks shaped SEO strategies for decades.
AI search engines, however, don’t play by these same rules. They don’t crawl links or read entire pages; they read in chunks, not paragraphs. That difference changes how websites need to be structured.
How AI Search Works
Unlike Google’s index model, AI engines use a process called query fan-out, breaking user questions into sub-questions to refine intent. They then perform retrieval augmented generation (RAG), pulling data from non-Google indexes like Bing and EVA, and generate a single synthesized answer.
The result: 90% of pages cited in AI answers are beyond page three of Google or not indexed there at all. This means performing well in Google no longer guarantees visibility in AI search, and vice versa.
The Concept of Dual Web
Dual Web solves this tension by bifurcating web traffic.
It sends:
- Humans and Google to a traditional website built for user experience and SEO.
- AI bots to a mirrored version of that site, mathematically optimized for AI crawlers.
This mirrored version loads fast, uses clean HTML, detailed schema markup, direct answers, and FAQs, all elements AI models prefer when parsing information.
Structure, Speed, and Clarity
There are three key elements that AI crawlers prioritize:
- Structure:
- Replace long skyscraper articles with short, focused pages.
- Use clear headings that match search queries (“What are the benefits of an e-bike?”).
- Organize content in bullet points, tables, and FAQs to improve chunk retrieval.
- Speed:
- AI bots consider 500 milliseconds slow and will abandon pages that don’t load instantly.
- Use plain HTML instead of JavaScript where possible to prevent hallucinations or missed citations.
- Clarity:
- Lead with the answer, start pages and sections with conclusions, not long introductions.
- Use factual, straightforward tone and consistent schema markup for authorship, dates, and sources.
These practices not only improve visibility but reduce the likelihood of AI generating false or incomplete responses.
Measuring Success and Ensuring Trust
Dual Web tracks impressions and clicks from AI crawlers, allowing marketers to measure visibility similar to SEO analytics. The platform updates content weekly, keeping schema markup and timestamps fresh, a key signal for AI ranking.
Concerns about authenticity were also addressed. As bifurcated sites become more common, standards of trust and transparency will be critical to prevent misuse, such as misleading AI-only versions of websites. KNWN is working toward verification models similar to SOC 2 compliance for this purpose.
Training vs. Search Bots
Dual Web distinguishes between different types of bots. Training bots often do not announce themselves, while search bots identify clearly, allowing Dual Web to redirect them appropriately. This protects content from unauthorized model training while ensuring visibility in legitimate AI search.
Optimal Chunk Size
AI crawlers read in small segments, with an ideal chunk size of about four sentences per chunk and three beats per sentence. This structure helps maximize comprehension and citation accuracy.
The End of Backlinks
Unlike traditional SEO, backlinks play little to no role in AI visibility. Instead, semantic authority, factual clarity, and content structure determine ranking within AI-generated answers.
Proven Performance Gains
In recent testing, Dual Web–optimized pages saw a 2.3x increase in mentions across AI platforms and a 34% improvement in accuracy of citations, demonstrating the tangible impact of AI-specific optimization.
Looking Ahead
Dual Web is developing additional features to stay ahead of the evolving AI landscape:
- Personalized layers that tailor content for different audiences or AI agents.
- Optimizations for multiple bots (ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity, and others).
- Agent-ready infrastructure that allows AI systems to perform actions, such as transactions, directly through web integrations.
Emily closed with a practical takeaway: websites need to evolve from keyword repositories into machine-readable information hubs. The future of visibility will depend not on who ranks, but on who can be understood, quickly, clearly, and accurately, by both humans and machines.
Thank you Manatt, Phelps & Phillips, LLP for sponsoring and making it all possible.
