Our newsletterPractitionerLily Ray, 18 Mar 2026
Optimizing for Google organic search remains the main way to get cited in major AI search products.
Optimisation methods
- Reader Note:
- A practitioner commentary by Lily Ray, an SEO specialist, rather than a study — the argument that strong SEO underpins AI visibility is also an argument for her own field. What it rests on is other people's work: she lists eight independent pieces converging on ChatGPT using Google for retrieval, from The Information, Search Engine Land (twice), Semrush, Backlinko, Search Engine Journal and Tom's Guide. One of those, a Search Engine Land analysis, reports that ChatGPT sources 83% of its carousel products from Google Shopping — that figure is about shopping carousels specifically and is not a measure of retrieval in general.
- Evidence:
- Expert judgment
- Vendor interest:
- Moderate — This comes from a company with a commercial interest in this market, so it is not a neutral source.
- Sample:
- A commentary article drawing on public case studies, selected company traffic examples, Microsoft security research, Similarweb trend data, and the author's review of roughly 30 case studies from AI content tool companies.
Reader Note:
Evidence:
Vendor interest:
Sample:Good for
Hearing how someone who knows the field reads it, and deciding what to check yourself.
Not for
- Anything that needs a measurement. Nobody counted or tested this.
- This comes from a company with a commercial interest in this market, so it is not a neutral source.
- The source says how much it looked at, but not how any of it was chosen.
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