S4 Capital's Monks Launches White Paper "Owning the Answer: The Marketer's Playbook for AEO, GEO and the AI Search Era"

NEW YORK, Oct. 30, 2025 /PRNewswire/ -- The rise of AI-driven search is forcing brands to rethink how they remain visible in an increasingly machine-mediated world. Recognizing this fundamental shift, Monks, the global, purely digital, data-driven operating brand of S4Capital plc, launches a new white paper titled "Owning the Answer: The Marketer's Playbook for AEO, GEO and the AI Search Era," a strategic guide for CMOs and digital leaders, asserting that the shift from keyword-based search to AI-mediated answers has rendered traditional SEO incomplete, demanding the urgent adoption of Engine Optimization (EO) to maintain and grow brand discoverability.

The white paper highlights a fundamental fracture in online discovery: AI agents such as Gemini, Google AI Overviews and ChatGPT are increasingly delivering direct, "zero-click" answers that bypass brand websites entirely. According to Search Engine Land's 2025 data study¹, AI traffic is up 527% comparing the first months of 2025 with the same period last year, underscoring the rapid shift in consumer behavior.

To address this, the paper introduces Engine Optimization (EO), defined as the strategic discipline of shaping how AI systems interpret, retrieve, and reference a brand across the web. Central to this framework is AI visibility, a new metric that measures how frequently, accurately and favorably a brand and its products are cited in AI-generated responses, replacing traditional rank and clicks.

The report was born out of a think tank within the Monks Asia-Pacific team, where trends in EO have long been growing given the rapid consumer adoption of "zero-click search" in the region. The report builds upon these local market trends and learnings with a global view, taking into account learnings for brands at the global scale.

"In the age of unified growth, our focus must always be on what drives maximum client value and competitive advantage," said Sir Martin Sorrell, Founder and Executive Chairman of S4Capital. "The strategic imperative is clear: you must be where the consumer is. As discovery is being rewritten by AI, a disciplined, data-led approach like Engine Optimisation is essential for brands to stay visible, trusted, and recommended in every emerging digital ecosystem."

Alasdair Forsyth, VP, SEO at Monks, said, "Consumers have changed the way they interact with brands and search for information to get answers for their everyday needs. Consider how far we've come in the last year with AI-driven search and how much further we could go. Now's the time to act, to figure out a game plan, and build a base that will likely change multiple times and in multiple ways. This new strategy will force you to optimize in ways that push the boundaries of traditional SEO and build holistic, integrated web optimization strategies, helping you stay ahead of the curve."

"The definition of value in search is fundamentally changing," said Tory Lariar, Head of Search at Monks. "Success is no longer just about ranking for keywords. It's about owning the conversation across the generative AI and agent-based platforms our audience now relies on. This demands a holistic approach. Paid, organic, and generative search must be strategically interwoven to mirror modern user behavior and maximize our digital footprint."

The report provides the new playbook for discoverability for brands looking to capture leads in a zero-click world. Brands that fail to adapt risk being optimized out of the conversation by the machines. Owning the Answer outlines a practical roadmap for CMOs to build an EO capability, prioritizing structure, citations, and trust signals to influence Large Language Model (LLM) responses.

Monks is actively partnering with clients to audit their AI-readiness, benchmark their AI visibility, and implement iterative EO strategies to secure long-term discoverability. Owning the Answer is available for download at https://monk.media/owningtheansweraeo.

Source
1. Search Engine Land, "AI traffic is up 527%. SEO is being rewritten." (2025) https://searchengineland.com/ai-traffic-up-seo-rewritten-459954

About Monks
Monks is the global, purely digital, data-driven, unitary operating brand of S4 Capital plc. With a legacy of innovation and specialized expertise, Monks combines an extraordinary range of global Marketing and Technology Services to accelerate business growth and redefine how brands interact with the world. From crafting tailored, outcome-focused campaigns to modernizing critical infrastructure for the ever-evolving digital landscape, Monks delivers solutions that engage audiences in real time, drive cultural relevance and sustain long-term impact—a tripartite approach that establishes it as a trusted partner to the world's most innovative brands.

Monks was named a Contender in The Forrester Wave^™: Global Marketing Services, ranks among Cannes Lions' Top 10 Creative Companies (2022-24) and remains the only partner featured in AdExchanger's Programmatic Power Players list every year (2020-24). Named Adweek's first AI Agency of the Year (2023) and The One Show's inaugural AI Pioneer Organization, Monks was also awarded Business Intelligence Group's 2025 Excellence in Artificial Intelligence Award in both the Organizational and AI Product categories. As a trusted partner to cutting-edge innovators in tech, Monks earned titles such as Optimizely Experimentation Partner of the Year (2025), runner-up for the Adobe Firefly Partner Award (2024), and Workato's AI Visionary Customer Impact Award (2024). Additionally, Monks was named Webby Production Company of the Year (2021-24) and achieved a record-breaking number of FWAs.

About S4Capital
S4Capital plc (SFOR.L) is the tech-led, new age/new era digital advertising, marketing and technology services company, established by Sir Martin Sorrell in May 2018.

Our strategy is to build a purely digital advertising and marketing services business for global, multinational, regional, and local clients, and millennial-driven influencer brands. This will be achieved by integrating leading businesses in two synchronised practices: Marketing services and Technology services, along with an emphasis on 'faster, better, cheaper, more' execution in an always-on consumer-led environment, with a unitary structure.

The Company now has approximately 6,900 people in 33 countries with approximately 80% of net revenue across the Americas, 15% across Europe, the Middle East and Africa and 5% across Asia-Pacific. The longer-term objective is a geographic split of 60%:20%:20%. At the Group's last full year results, Content accounted for approximately 60% of net revenue, Data&Digital Media 24% and Technology Services 16%. The long-term objective for the practices is a split of 50%:25%:25%.

Sir Martin was CEO of WPP for 33 years, building it from a £1 million 'shell' company in 1985 into the world's largest advertising and marketing services company, with a market capitalisation of over £16 billion on the day he left. Prior to that Sir Martin was Group Financial Director of Saatchi & Saatchi Company Plc for nine years.

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SOURCE Monks