Having a debate with our board about AI search investment.
Their position:
My concern:
What I need:
Help me build a compelling business case.
Let me give you the data to make your case.
The scale of change:
| Metric | Current State | Projection |
|---|---|---|
| Consumers using AI for recommendations | 58% | Growing |
| Expected organic traffic decline | - | 50% by 2028 (Gartner) |
| AI referral traffic for some brands | 10% of new sign-ups | Increasing |
| AI citations from brand-controlled sources | 86% | Stable |
The visibility math:
In traditional search, even if you’re not #1, you’re visible on the page. Users see your title, description, competitor comparisons.
In AI search, if you’re not cited, you don’t exist. Users get a synthesized answer from competitors without ever knowing you exist.
The compounding problem:
Every month you ignore AI search:
The opportunity cost formula:
Relevant queries × AI user percentage × Competitor citation rate × Your conversion value = Lost opportunity per month
Example:
1,000 monthly relevant queries × 58% AI users × 80% competitor citation (20% yours) × $50 average value = $23,200 monthly opportunity cost
Scale that up for your actual numbers.
That’s exactly the problem - and part of your argument.
The blind spot:
Right now, you don’t know:
This is the first opportunity cost:
You’re making marketing decisions without understanding a channel that 58% of consumers use.
The quick audit:
Do this right now:
Document:
This 10-minute exercise:
Will likely reveal gaps you didn’t know existed. That’s what you present to the board.
Then the investment ask:
“We discovered we’re invisible/misrepresented in AI search. Here’s what we need to fix it.”
I just went through this board conversation. Here’s what worked.
The wake-up call:
I asked ChatGPT: “What are the best [our category] tools?”
Our main competitor was #1. We weren’t mentioned at all.
The follow-up:
I asked why our tool wasn’t included. ChatGPT said it wasn’t aware of us having strong presence in that category.
That screenshot won the argument.
The business impact I presented:
Even conservative conversion:
At 1% conversion, 0.5% close rate, $10K ACV:
5,800 × 1% × 0.5% × $10,000 = $2,900 monthly lost revenue
That’s $35K/year from just one query category.
The investment comparison:
Am I Cited costs less per month than that ONE query’s opportunity cost.
The first-mover advantage argument.
Why waiting costs more:
Current state (early 2026):
Future state (2027-2028):
The SEO parallel:
Remember when companies said “we’ll get to SEO eventually”? By the time they did, competitors had years of authority.
AI search is following the same pattern, faster.
The compounding advantage:
Brands investing now:
By the time your board is “convinced,” competitors have:
The risk of waiting isn’t neutral - it’s actively costly.
Let me share our actual data.
Our monitoring results (6 months):
Started using Am I Cited in July 2025.
Month 1:
We were getting crushed.
Month 6 (after GEO investment):
The revenue correlation:
We can’t prove causation, but:
What we would have lost:
If we’d waited 6 more months:
The board presentation that worked:
“We’re invisible where 58% of consumers search. Here’s the competitor gap. Here’s the cost. Here’s the investment needed. Here’s the timeline to parity.”
Clear, data-driven, actionable.
The resource misallocation angle.
The hidden cost:
You’re probably already spending on content that doesn’t work for AI search.
Without monitoring, you don’t know:
Example:
We were publishing 20 blog posts/month. After monitoring:
The reallocation:
We didn’t increase budget. We redirected:
The opportunity cost of NOT monitoring:
Wasting content budget on things that don’t drive AI visibility.
The investment case:
“We’re probably misallocating $X on content that doesn’t work for AI. Monitoring costs $Y. Net savings potential: $X-$Y.”
The reputation blind spot cost.
What you might not know:
AI systems are already talking about your brand. Are they accurate?
Our discovery:
ChatGPT was describing us as “a budget alternative to [competitor]” when we’re actually premium-positioned.
The cost of that misrepresentation:
We only found out because we monitored.
Another company’s story:
AI was mentioning a product recall from 5 years ago prominently. They’d resolved it, but AI kept surfacing it.
The reputation opportunity cost:
Every incorrect/negative AI response shapes perception for 58% of searchers - and you don’t know it’s happening.
The argument:
“We need to know how AI represents our brand. Currently, we have zero visibility into this.”
The competitive intelligence angle.
What monitoring reveals:
Not just your visibility, but competitors':
The strategic value:
If your competitor is investing in AI visibility and you’re not, you only find out when:
By then, you’re playing catch-up.
The early warning system:
Monitoring gives you visibility into competitor strategy before results show up in your pipeline.
The board argument:
“AI visibility is a leading indicator. By the time it shows in lagging metrics (revenue, market share), we’ve lost ground we can’t easily recover.”
CFO perspective on the investment case.
What I want to see:
The framing that works:
Don’t say: “AI search is important, we need to invest.”
Do say: “We’re losing $X monthly in missed visibility. Competitors Y and Z are investing. Investment of $A will give us visibility in B months. Cost of waiting is $C.”
The risk framing:
Marketing tends to focus on opportunity. Finance responds to risk.
“If we wait 12 months, the cost to catch up increases by X. We’re choosing a more expensive path by delaying.”
The monitoring investment:
Is cheap compared to the cost of:
Easy to approve at most budget levels.
I’ve helped 20+ companies make this case. The patterns.
Arguments that DON’T work:
Arguments that DO work:
The minimum ask:
Don’t ask for full GEO transformation. Ask for monitoring.
“Let’s spend $200/month to understand our current position. Then we can make data-driven decisions.”
That’s an easy yes.
Once you have data, the bigger investment case makes itself.
This is exactly what I needed.
My board presentation will include:
My ask structure:
Phase 1 (immediate):
Phase 2 (based on data):
The key insight:
Starting with monitoring is low-risk, data-driven, and builds the case for larger investment.
Thanks for helping me build a compelling argument!
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