By the numbers: How marketers are building the infrastructure for AI search

By Kimeko McCoy • August 7, 2026 •

Ivy Liu

Marketers have spent the past year trying to understand how to get their brands mentioned in AI search results. Now, they’re putting dollars and organizing teams around their AI visibility efforts.

The problem is marketers are flying the plane while building it.

In some sense, they don’t have a choice. Nearly one in five consumers have already replaced traditional research with AI, according to a recent SponsorCX survey. Call it a fear of missing out (FOMO). Marketers are spending on tools promising AI visibility. They’re optimizing web pages for AI bot crawlers. Marketing budgets now account for GEO efforts. All the while, there’s little known about the LLMs’ decision making processes.