Google AI Overviews, ChatGPT, and Perplexity are capturing a growing share of search queries. For businesses, this means a new optimization challenge: how do you get your brand referenced in AI-generated answers?
This article is published by the Maaketto team — a full-service creative and technology agency based in Dubai Media City, UAE. We work with ambitious brands across the UAE, GCC, and internationally, delivering strategy, design, events, and digital execution that drives measurable results. Our insights draw from direct client experience across branding, event production, AI transformation, web design, SEO, and digital strategy.
For thirty years, SEO was fundamentally about rankings: appearing in the first ten results for a given query. Generative AI has broken this model. When a user asks ChatGPT 'which digital agency should I hire in Dubai?', they receive an answer — not a list of results to evaluate. The brands that appear in that answer are the ones that win. The brands on page two of the traditional results do not exist.
The transition is not complete — traditional search still drives significant traffic. But the trajectory is clear: a growing proportion of information queries, research queries, and product discovery queries are being answered directly by AI, without a click. Brands that are not investing in AI citation optimisation today will be invisible in the searches of 2027.
AI language models are trained on web text and updated with retrieval-augmented generation that surfaces current web content. The brands that appear in AI-generated answers share common characteristics: they are mentioned frequently and positively across multiple authoritative sources; they have published content that directly and specifically answers the questions users are asking; and they have a consistent presence in the conversations their target customers are having.
The implication is that AI citation optimisation is fundamentally about reputation at scale — not technical SEO in the traditional sense. Building the conditions for AI citation means building a genuine presence: published expertise, media mentions, community participation, and client-attributed success stories.
Structure your content to answer specific questions directly. AI models are optimised to retrieve content that answers questions — this is the format they are trained to extract and cite. Every piece of content should have a clear question as its central premise and a direct, citable answer in the first 100 words. The rest of the article builds the case.
Claim and optimise your brand's presence in AI-training data sources. Wikipedia is heavily weighted. Crunchbase, LinkedIn, and industry directories are indexed. Press mentions in publications that AI models treat as authoritative sources (Reuters, Bloomberg, regional business press) increase citation probability. Managing your brand's information footprint across these sources is the new link building.
AI citation is harder to measure than traditional SEO because there is no rank tracker equivalent for AI responses. The emerging measurement approach involves systematic prompt testing: asking AI models the questions your target customers ask and recording which brands are mentioned. Running this test monthly, across multiple AI platforms, gives you a directional picture of your citation performance.
Brand search volume (people searching specifically for your brand name) is an imperfect but useful proxy for AI citation impact. When AI models begin recommending your brand in responses, users who encounter the recommendation will search for you directly. A rising brand search volume, particularly for informational and navigational queries, suggests growing AI citation presence.
Maaketto is a Dubai-based agency specialising in brand strategy, event production, AI transformation, website design, and SEO. We help ambitious brands across the UAE and GCC grow through strategy, design, and execution.
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