Recommended by AI chapters

What does each chapter argue?

Each of the 14 entries below has its own page, with a summary and the book’s opening and closing lines.

The question, and how AI decides

1. Introduction: The Question That Changed

   For twenty years lead generation meant ranking when customers searched, and the introduction says that question is being replaced by customers asking AI assistants directly.

2. Chapter 1: How Customers Choose Now

   Chapter 1 says the move from searching to asking changes the customer’s whole route to a purchase.

3. Chapter 2: The Invisible Pitch

   Chapter 2 argues that the most important sales conversation about a business now happens without it, and the business never sees a transcript.

4. Chapter 3: What Is AEO? The Discipline of Being the Answer

   The chapter names the work: Answer Engine Optimisation, or AEO, which makes a business visible, understandable and recommendable to the AI systems that answer customers’ questions.

5. Chapter 4: How AI Decides Who to Recommend

   Chapter 4 says an AI system that assembles a recommendation draws on four foundations: digital signals, entity authority, topical relevance and online reputation.

The five rules

1. Chapter 5: Rule One: Be a Clear Entity

   Rule One says the machine must be able to state exactly who a business is, because a system cannot recommend what it cannot resolve.

2. Chapter 6: Rule Two: Answer the Questions

   Rule Two is to publish the answers in public, in the shape of the questions customers ask.

3. Chapter 7: Rule Three: Get Third Parties Talking

   Rule Three holds that the machine files what a business says about itself as claims and what others say as evidence, so the independent record decides.

4. Chapter 8: Rule Four: Show Your Working

   Rule Four answers one test, whether a business is safe to vouch for, by having it show its working everywhere.

5. Chapter 9: Rule Five: Be Everywhere the Machine Reads

   Rule Five turns the first four rules into a habit of presence, because the machines keep reading and their picture of a market keeps updating.

Local business, measurement, timing and the plan

1. Chapter 10: The Local Goldmine

   Chapter 10 says local service businesses are where AI recommendation bites first, because their questions are the ones people ask assistants.

2. Chapter 11: Keeping Score: Measuring AI Visibility

   Chapter 11 replaces rank trackers with a simpler scoreboard: ask the machines and write down what they say.

3. Chapter 12: The First-Mover Decade

   Chapter 12 says every marketing shift gives early movers an advantage followers never fully claw back, and places AI recommendation at the start of that period.

4. Chapter 13: Your Twelve-Month Plan

   The final chapter turns the book into a twelve-month calendar, from invisible to recommended.

How is the book organised?

The book opens with a note and an introduction, sets out how AI decides, gives five rules in Chapters 5 to 9, then turns to local business, measurement, timing and a twelve-month plan.

The contents, as printed The five rules