Will AI Recommend You?

Simon Young - Question.Marketing Founder

Will AI recommend your business, or your competitor's? Will AI Recommend You? is the podcast about AEO (Answer Engine Optimisation): how UK businesses get named by ChatGPT, Google AI Overviews, Gemini, Claude and Perplexity when a buyer asks who to use. Hosted by Simon Young, founder of Question.Marketing. Thirty years in search, and publishing on AEO since October 2019, 1,153 days before ChatGPT launched. Each episode answers one question business owners are actually asking. What gets a company cited? What's just SEO with a new sticker on it? What do the numbers say, and where are they still small? Plain English, a receipt for every claim, and guests who have done the work. Ask an AI about your industry today. Does your name come up? Full transcripts and show notes at question.marketing.

Episodes

  1. 1d ago

    Stop thinking about keywords: how conversational search really works

    Keywords are no longer the unit of search. The conversation is. In this episode Simon Young of Question.Marketing explains how search has turned into a conversation. Google AI Mode, ChatGPT and Gemini take one long question, break it into many hidden searches, and write a single answer from what comes back. He covers what Google's People Also Ask box was telling us for a decade, two worked examples (a Doncaster accountant and a South Yorkshire recruitment agency), why a top 10 ranking is now closer to a raffle ticket, and a practical plan for this week. Read the full article and transcript: https://question.marketing/library/stop-thinking-about-keywords-conversational-search-2026 Watch the video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RgOnpI5vxHM Chapters 00:00 Why stop thinking about keywords? 00:47 From typing keywords to asking questions 01:50 Why so many Google searches are brand new 03:01 What People Also Ask was telling us 04:41 Who writes the People Also Ask answers now? 07:27 Search is now a conversation 08:23 What is a fan-out query? 10:52 Fan-out examples: lawn care and headphones 11:57 Why your keyword tool misses the questions that matter 14:09 Why a top 10 ranking is now a raffle ticket 15:53 How fast is AI Mode growing? 18:10 Longer questions get the machine's answer 19:02 Ad money is following longer searches 20:05 UK searches are getting longer 20:47 How many follow-up questions do people ask? 22:36 Worked example: choosing a recruitment agency 25:44 Is this still just SEO? 28:18 Keywords are no longer the unit of search 28:35 What to do this week: start with questions 30:00 Use People Also Ask as a free map 30:45 One page per conversation 31:15 Say what only you know 32:23 Ask it the long way and check if AI names you 33:07 Sources and wrap-up Notes on figures as spoken 01:25 Semrush's 23 words is for ChatGPT prompts without web search, against about 3 to 4 words for a Google search (2024 data). 03:41, 06:18 and 32:04 Google's 15% new-searches figure covers Google Search only, not AI platforms or the wider web. 10:57 Google's own lawn example lists herbicides, weeding without chemicals and weed prevention. Grass types and watering are my additions. 11:41 No study shows that queries with a date or statistics get cited more. That's my observation, not a published finding. 15:56 Google's billion is monthly active users of AI Mode, not searches. 27:31 AI referrals were about 1% of traffic on Conductor's 2025 US data and 0.14% on Semrush's 2026 data. Key sources Google 15% new searches (Search Engine Journal): https://www.searchenginejournal.com/google-revisits-15-unseen-queries-statistic-in-context-of-ai-search/543160/ People Also Ask answers now AI Overviews (Brafton, AlsoAsked data): https://www.brafton.com/blog/seo/google-ai-overviews-are-taking-over-people-also-ask-heres-what-marketers-should-know/ Query fan-out in Google AI Mode (Search Engine Journal): https://www.searchenginejournal.com/query-fan-out-technique-in-ai-mode-new-details-from-google/552532/ Gemini 3 fan-out research (Seer Interactive): https://www.seerinteractive.com/insights/gemini-3-query-fan-outs-research AI Overview citations from top 10 pages (Ahrefs via Search Engine Journal): https://www.searchenginejournal.com/google-ai-overview-citations-from-top-ranking-pages-drop-sharply/568637/ Pew Research Center on AI summaries and clicks (The Decoder): https://the-decoder.com/pew-finds-that-only-1-percent-of-users-click-a-source-link-directly-from-googles-ai-overviews/ How AI Mode is changing search (Google): https://blog.google/products-and-platforms/products/search/ai-mode-us-insights/ Google's AI search guide and scaled content abuse (TechWyse): https://www.techwyse.com/news/ai-search/google-ai-search-guide-seo-geo-hacks Semrush ChatGPT prompt length study: https://www.semrush.com/news/379285-new-semrush-study-reveals-chatgpt-search-trends-insights-from-80-million-clickstream-records/ Google Search Central guide to generative AI features: https://developers.google.com/search/docs/fundamentals/ai-optimization-guide AI referral traffic benchmarks (Conductor): https://www.conductor.com/academy/aeo-geo-benchmarks-report/ Traffic channel mix study (Semrush): https://www.semrush.com/blog/traffic-channel-mix-study/ Peec, what is a query fan-out: https://docs.peec.ai/research/what-is-a-query-fanout RealityMine, UK search behaviour: https://www.realitymine.com/articles/ai-powered-search-how-google-search-behavior-is-shifting Question.Marketing: https://question.marketing Simon Young on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/aeo/

  2. Sep 25

    Should we be worried about Meta's Muse Charm? Privacy, consent and your voice

    Should we be worried about our privacy now that Meta's Muse, and the Muse Charm device, are here? Simon Young of Question.Marketing has spent years targeting ads on Google and Meta. In this episode he talks about who owns the data, what "on by default" means, whether these devices should be anywhere near children, and why he thinks ads inside AI assistants will turn into sales agents that know your budget. What is on the record: - Meta hasn't said Muse Charm is always listening. The demo was tap-to-talk (TechCrunch, 23 Sep 2026). - Muse uses your interactions to train Meta's AI by default. Meta calls that "a good default" in its Muse safety post (Meta, 8 Sep 2026, https://research.meta.ai/blog/security-and-safety-for-ai-agents-our-approach-with-muse; also quoted by Business Insider, 21 Sep 2026). You can switch it off in Muse under Settings, then Data controls (Meta Help Centre). - Meta says Muse conversations aren't shared with its ad systems (Meta Newsroom, 8 Sep 2026). - Muse is 18+ (Muse terms and the Apple App Store listing, via Daily Caller News Foundation, 10 Sep 2026). The UK's under-16 social media ban is expected to come into force in spring 2027 (GOV.UK, 15 Jun 2026). - Muse has no UK launch date yet (as of 25 Sep 2026). - Meta has launched camera-free Ray-Ban Meta Audio glasses alongside its camera models (The Verge, 24 Sep 2026). - Instagram head Adam Mosseri said in October 2025 that Meta does not use the phone's microphone to eavesdrop on you (The Verge, 1 Oct 2025). That was a general statement, not about Muse. When Simon says his phone is listening, that is his personal view. The sales agent scenario is Simon's prediction, not a Meta announcement. Full transcript and receipts: https://question.marketing/library/muse-charm-privacy-should-we-be-worried-2026 YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dC3vAfGNzXE Would you want your voice built into a training model for an AI? Chapters 00:00 Should we be worried about our privacy? 00:48 Muse, Muse Charm and the AI assistant race 01:39 Who owns our data? 02:07 Voice assistants and answer engines 02:54 Should these devices listen to children? 03:42 Living with an AI pocket device 05:05 Who's learning everything? 05:34 Influence, elections and social feeds 06:34 When AI assistants become sales agents 08:27 Opt out, not opt in 08:49 Is the phone listening? (Simon's view) 10:12 Controls for kids 10:35 A knowledge race 11:13 Your voice in a training model? Question.Marketing: https://question.marketing/

About

Will AI recommend your business, or your competitor's? Will AI Recommend You? is the podcast about AEO (Answer Engine Optimisation): how UK businesses get named by ChatGPT, Google AI Overviews, Gemini, Claude and Perplexity when a buyer asks who to use. Hosted by Simon Young, founder of Question.Marketing. Thirty years in search, and publishing on AEO since October 2019, 1,153 days before ChatGPT launched. Each episode answers one question business owners are actually asking. What gets a company cited? What's just SEO with a new sticker on it? What do the numbers say, and where are they still small? Plain English, a receipt for every claim, and guests who have done the work. Ask an AI about your industry today. Does your name come up? Full transcripts and show notes at question.marketing.