For years, creators have chased discovery through Google, YouTube, TikTok, Instagram and Reddit. There’s another system to think about now: AI.
Platforms like ChatGPT are becoming a way people find information, recommendations, products and creators themselves. Here’s the part most creators haven’t clocked. Your content is probably already shaping those answers.
AI is creating a new discovery channel
Creator agencies have started paying attention to answer engine optimization (AEO), the practice of improving the odds that your content turns up as a source inside an AI-generated answer.
On Aug. 26, creator marketing agency Influencer and AI marketing platform Profound announced a partnership they’re calling Creator-First AEO. Profound works out which creators and content types show up most often in chatbot answers. Influencer feeds that back into how it builds campaigns. Later launched a competing creator AEO product earlier this year.
It’s SEO with a different target. You’re not trying to rank on Google. You’re trying to become part of the answer.
Your videos could become AI sources
That opportunity has been tilting toward video. Reddit was the early favorite among chatbots, and its share of citations has since dropped to a fraction of what it was. YouTube picked up the slack.
The reason is straightforward. AI systems need evidence, and creator content carries something a generic product page doesn’t: firsthand knowledge. A creator who explains how a camera actually handles is a useful source when someone asks a chatbot which one to buy.
The same goes for gear reviews, tutorials, comparisons and demonstrations. Specific opinions count too. You don’t have to make content for AI. It just has to be useful enough that AI has a reason to point at it.
AEO is still a guessing game
One catch: nobody has AEO figured out. The systems change constantly, and there’s no proven formula that lets anyone tell you to do three specific things and get cited by ChatGPT.
So don’t treat it as a growth strategy. Treat it as something to watch. AI systems need trustworthy information, and creators produce enormous amounts of it every day.