I was chatting with a client last week. They asked: “What kind of companies will thrive in this AI search era?” My answer: “The ones that either already have, or will eventually grow, branded search demand.”

I was chatting with a client last week. They asked: “What kind of companies will thrive in this AI search era?” My answer: “The ones that either already have, or will eventually grow, branded search demand.”

Because branded search isn’t just a volume number.

It’s proof that people find what you’re building valuable enough to seek out by name.

And here’s the kicker: that kind of intent is hard to fake, and LLMs know it.

AI Overviews. ChatGPT. Perplexity.

They all love citing brands that show up with signals that are hard to game.

Think about the kinds of businesses that did well in the old search world, but never really built a brand:

➜ Random SEO-first affiliate websites
➜ Micro SaaS tools that live off long-tail non-branded traffic
➜ Marketplaces trying to rank for everything under the sun
➜ Listicle factories built purely for ad revenue

They ranked. They drove traffic. They made short-term money.

But they never created demand.

You can’t “rank your way” to branded search demand.

That requires real momentum:
✅ A product people actually love
✅ Messaging that clicks
✅ Positive sentiment across channels

And when branded search grows, it drives growth for you on many fronts:

➡️ Reddit threads talking about you
➡️ YouTube creators reviewing your product
➡️ Blogs adding your tool to their listicles

That’s what LLMs are picking up when choosing what to cite in response to a prompt.

I am certain that branded search is the new moat.

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