AI Doesn’t Care About Your Brand

The quaint age of search engines is fading, ushering in an era that’s smarter, quicker, and murkier than ever. Perplexity AI’s foray into shopping this week isn’t just another tech upgrade; it’s a full-on declaration of war in the battle for AI search dominance. But here’s the rub: while it dazzles with its ability to transform questions into actions, nobody, not even the engineers, can fully explain how it works. That uneasy blend of brilliance and opacity? It’s the hallmark of today’s AI arms race.

Perplexity: Taking a Swing at Google’s Throne

Perplexity AI isn’t here to nibble at 谷歌 ’s edges; it’s chomping at it's jugular. This week's pivot from a cool answer engine to fulfilling shopping orders is not some incremental evolution. It’s a revolution. Imagine asking, “I want to build an indoor library. Help me find everything I need to buy”, and instead of a list of links, you’re led directly to a group of purchase-ready recommendations. There are no middle steps. There is no friction. It's just a streamlined decision handed to you on a digital platter. See for yourself in the Perplexity video below:

Sounds dreamy, right? Sure, but let’s curb your enthusiasm for just a minute. Aren't you interested in who’s deciding what gets recommended and why? Perplexity CEO Aravind Srinivas’s confession, “We don’t fully understand it ourselves today”, should raise alarms, not applause. Answer Engines are flashy and impressive, but much like the Wizard of Oz, they often hide some chaotic truths behind the curtain. If a product is favoured, is it due to actual superiority, or is the AI churning out biased or incomplete outputs from its training data? Consumers are left blissfully ignorant, and brands are left in the dark about how to win.

This isn’t just a “tech transparency” problem. It’s a trust crisis. We increasingly rely on systems that don’t (and can’t) explain themselves. For consumers, it’s a gamble. For brands, it’s war.

From SEO to AEO: The New Rules of Visibility

For decades, SEO was the holy grail for businesses; if you mastered the art of keywords and backlinks, you could bask in the glory of page-one visibility. For those who don't know much about the power of SEO, take it from someone with first-hand experience. There are large and often cross-functional matrixed SEO divisions, with multimillion-dollar budgets at some tech companies and whole SEO outsourcing support industries dedicated to moving your company's ranking up even to just one spot in the search engine results pages. Why? Because it matters, it really matters. Being able to slowly shoehorn your site over a period of months and months of concerted effort into the coveted No.1 ranking spot for organic search can be the difference between hundreds of thousands of visitors to your site and hundreds. This traffic trickles down the conversion funnel, turning into cold, hard cash in the bank for companies that count on rankings for bottom-line income. But here’s the cold, hard truth: (...and I will stick my neck out a bit here) SEO is becoming a relic of the past. Answer Engine Optimization (AEO) is the future, and the rules radically differ. (Many people will probably disagree with me here when I say, "SEO is becoming a relic", so I tell those people to remember that a similar conversation probably took place when cartwrights saw the first Model-T.)

Answer Engines don’t care about how clickable your link is. It’s about whether your business is deemed worthy of being the answer. That means no more singular focus on page-one rankings or playing the click-through-rate game like it's the only game in town. Platforms like Perplexity, ChatGPT, and Google SGE are cutting straight to the chase, prioritizing crisp, authoritative answers over exhaustive lists. Consumers love it because it’s fast and effortless. Brands? They’re scrambling to figure out how to even show up.

This shift isn’t cosmetic; it’s fundamental. Consider this: more than 65% of Google searches already end in zero-click results. People aren’t browsing; they’re skimming and trusting the first, often only, answer they get. To win in this game, brands need to overhaul their strategies. Schema markup, conversational content, and structured data are now non-negotiable. And if your content doesn’t align with user intent? Forget about it.

But here’s where it gets trickier. AI platforms are increasingly tailoring answers based on intent, context, and sometimes wild guesses about user behaviour. So, the question isn’t just whether your brand can optimize for visibility; it’s whether you can predict and manipulate the AI’s priorities before your competitors do. The stakes are existential.

Transparency: The Double-Edged Sword

Let’s talk a bit about Perplexity’s big “selling point”, transparency. Its ad-free model and source citations should set it apart from Google’s ad-soaked search results, where the line between answers and sponsored content is thinner than ice in spring. On paper, this is a win for consumers and brands alike. But peel back the shiny PR layer, and things get fuzzier.

For instance, while Perplexity eschews traditional paid placements, it also offers a merchant program that boosts a retailer’s chances of being featured. That sounds innocent until you realize they’re not spelling out how this boost works. Are recommendations weighted toward merchants with better data integration? Is it purely transactional? Or worse, is it another black-box decision hidden behind layers of AI logic? Transparency is a promise; opacity is the execution.

For marketers, this creates an almost existential dilemma. You can’t bribe Perplexity’s algorithm with ad dollars like you might with Google’s. So, you’re left trying to reverse-engineer its logic, often with incomplete information. The stakes? Either you master the nuances of these platforms, or your brand becomes an afterthought in a consumer’s decision journey.

And let’s not forget the consumer. Perplexity’s transparency may look good now, but as competition heats up, will it stay true to its ideals? History suggests otherwise. The more competitive a platform gets, the more Enshittification tends to creep in, and the more likely it is that tech platforms compromise ethics and consumer promises in favour of profits.

The Japan Puzzle: AEO Meets Precision Obsession

If you think AEO is tough in Western markets, try cracking Japan, where precision isn’t just valued; it’s demanded. Japan’s high smartphone penetration and cultural emphasis on efficiency make it a prime battleground for AI-driven search. Voice search adoption is skyrocketing, with platforms like LINE’s Clova, Google Assistant, and now Siri's ChatGPT-enabled offerings embedding themselves into everyday life.

But here’s the kicker: succeeding in Japan isn’t about translating your Western strategy. It’s about deep cultural alignment. Japanese consumers don’t just want answers; they want answers that reflect their preferences, values, and aesthetic sensibilities.

Take the humble coffee machine. Generally, a Western consumer might care about capacity or price. In contrast, a Japanese consumer might be looking for compact design, energy efficiency. Perplexity’s visual search tools are already capitalizing on this mindset, offering direct, hyper-relevant recommendations. But brands that fail to adapt their structured data and marketing strategies to these nuances won’t just lose; they’ll never even enter the conversation.

The Bigger Picture: Trust and the AI Tug-of-War

Here’s where things get messy. AI promises to make life easier by turning searches into seamless answers and purchases, but convenience has a dark side. The answer engines behind the decisions are built on imperfect data, which will inevitably reflect biases, gaps, and outright inaccuracies. Worse, they’ll do it with the confidence of a used car salesman. Consumers may not realize they’re being misled until it’s too late.

Perplexity’s attempt to combat this with source citations is admirable but insufficient. Transparency isn’t just about listing sources; it’s about explaining why one recommendation was chosen over another. And as the line between “data-driven insight” and “algorithmic hallucination” blurs, trust becomes the ultimate battlefield.

For brands, the challenge isn’t just about staying visible; it’s about earning trust in a landscape designed to obscure it. Winning AEO isn’t just about data markup or conversational content; it’s about navigating a system designed to give answers without explanations. You're already losing if you’re not asking how to build trust in this opaque environment.

Who Owns the Answers?

At the heart of this shift is an oft-cited but unanswered question: Who decides the right answer? AI platforms like Perplexity can shape consumer choices, influence spending, and ultimately control knowledge. That’s not just power; it’s dominance.

As businesses adapt to this new reality, the winners won’t be the ones who yell the loudest. They’ll be the ones who crack the code, align with AI priorities, and claim the answer box. For the rest, the future is bleak. In a world where zero-click answers and AEO are becoming the norm and not just a quirky side effect of an AI upgrade to a traditional search engine, being invisible isn’t just bad for business; it’s fatal.

Brace yourself. The answer engine era is here, and it’s not waiting for anyone.

For the latest info on Answer Engine Optimisation, check this ulpa blog post from last month:

https://www.ulpa.jp/post/answer-engine-optimization-aeo-the-complete-guide-for-2024

I write a monthly magazine called UZU with commentary, interviews and articles on Japan, branding, marketing, and life in Japan. Subscribe here to download the latest edition for November. ?? https://lnkd.in/gH-drv6B

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