VaynerX and Profound Release The CMO's AEO Guide, Revealing How AI Answer Engines Decide Which Brands to Recommend

NEW YORK, June 25, 2026 /PRNewswire/ -- As consumers increasingly turn to AI answer engines for recommendations, a new report from VaynerX and Profound reveals a fundamental shift in how brands are discovered, understood, and ultimately recommended.

Announced during the 2026 Cannes Lions Festival of Creativity at VaynerX's Chez Vayner, The CMO's AEO Guide: Winning Brand Discovery in the Recommendation Era analyzes thousands of brand recommendations across six leading AI platforms such as ChatGPT, Google AI Overviews, Google Gemini, and Microsoft Copilot, revealing that brand visibility is no longer determined by what brands say about themselves, but by what the broader internet says about them.

The report finds that the internet is moving from a Search Era, where consumers searched and brands competed for clicks, to a Recommendation Era, where consumers ask questions and AI curates the answers. As a result, brand visibility is increasingly determined not by what brands say about themselves, but by what the broader internet says about them.

To understand what AI trusts enough to recommend, VaynerX and Profound identified four key findings:

• AI Learns From Ecosystems: Social, creator, review, and user-generated content are becoming a larger share of what AI answer engines cite. Across five of six major answer engines, social and UGC citations increased over the last six months. YouTube emerged as one of the fastest-growing and most influential sources shaping AI recommendations.
• There Is No Single AI Ecosystem: Each answer engine builds authority differently. Google's AI products lean heavily on YouTube, ChatGPT relies more on Reddit and review platforms, while Microsoft Copilot increasingly draws from professional and LinkedIn-driven signals. There is no universal AI optimization strategy.
• The Rise of Creator Authority: AI increasingly favors content that explains, evaluates, and educates. Reviews, comparisons, tutorials, how-to content, and creator-led recommendations are becoming some of the most valuable signals influencing how AI understands brands and determines recommendations.
• AI Operates at the Speed of Culture: AI answer engines continuously ingest new information. The median time between publication and citation is just 6.8 days, and 90% of content is cited within approximately 37 days. The findings suggest brands must adopt an always-on publishing model rather than relying solely on episodic campaigns.

The report also highlights an important distinction between visibility and recommendation leadership. While social content is becoming a larger part of the information pool AI uses to understand brands, social presence alone does not guarantee recommendation leadership. The brands most frequently recommended are those that have built broad authority across multiple sources, including creators, publishers, reviews, communities, and owned properties.

"For years, marketers optimized to be found. The harder truth now is that AI decides what to recommend based on what the entire internet says about your brand, not what you say about yourself," said James Cadwallader, Co-Founder & CEO of Profound. "It's forming that judgment continuously, in days rather than quarters. The brands building that authority now are the ones that will be hardest to displace later."

"AI recommends the brands it understands best, and it builds that understanding from content: the reviews, tutorials, comparisons, and creator coverage spread across the internet. The brands investing in that content footprint now are teaching AI what to recommend later." Said Zubin Mowlavi, EVP of Digital Commerce at VaynerX.

The report emphasizes that treating social content as an infrastructure is what leads to success in the newly AI Era. To build recommendation authority, brands must invest in creator ecosystems, platform-native content, and a broad foundation of trust across multiple third-party sources. Visibility gets a brand into the conversation, but authority earns the recommendation.

The report concludes that success in the Recommendation Era will require marketers to build for both attention and recommendation. Brands must first win social and user-generated content to enter the conversation, then build broader authority across creators, publishers, reviews, websites, and trusted third-party sources to earn recommendation leadership.

As AI systems continue learning and evolving in real time, the brands that invest now in building recommendation authority will be best positioned to influence how consumers discover, evaluate, and choose products in the years ahead.

Individuals can connect with VaynerX and Profound to learn more about the findings and how to adapt your marketing strategy for the AI era.

About VaynerX

VaynerX is a family of companies building brands for the now. Founded by Chairman Gary Vaynerchuk in January 2017, the modern-day parent company is home to relevance-driving businesses including VaynerMedia, ChukMedia, Tamara Group, Gallery Media Group, Tingley Lane Trading, and VaynerSpeakers.

About Profound

Profound is the marketing platform for the era of AI. Thousands of teams use Profound's Agents to understand, control, and scale how they appear across AI Search and all digital channels. Trusted by Figma, Walmart, Ramp, MongoDB, Chime, and U.S. Bank, Profound arms visionary marketers with the tools to win the zero-click internet.

Contact

Layla Baradaran | [email protected]

Kimberly Llewellyn | [email protected]

SOURCE VaynerX