The Long Game
Three Dinosaurs Talk AEO (with Benji Hyam & Devesh Khanal)
Episode Summary
Benji Hyam and Devesh Khanal (Grow and Convert) explain why AI search is a positioning problem, not a tactics game, and how B2B brands should respond.
Episode Notes
In this episode of The Long Game Podcast, Alex Birkett sits down with Benji Hyam and Devesh Khanal, co-founders of Grow and Convert, to separate what's real from what's noise in AI search optimization. Drawing on their work with 100+ brands and their own AI visibility tracking data, they challenge popular narratives around listicle penalties, Reddit citations, and one-size-fits-all GEO tactics.
They discuss how personalization and context-rich prompts make AI search fundamentally different from Google, why long-form content is losing its role in the buyer's journey, and the rise of cold inbound leads who arrive with no prior connection to the brand. The conversation also covers why positioning, reputation, and on-site source material matter more than mass third-party mentions, why attribution is getting harder as marketing becomes multi-channel, and how brands need to rethink where they earn attention.
Key Takeaways
- Self-promotional listicles are not penalized by default; the widely cited examples involved thousands of AI-generated pages with misleading claims, while human-written, category-relevant comparison content has stayed stable through Google updates.
- Aggregate citation studies overweight Reddit and Wikipedia because their datasets skew toward high-volume consumer queries, whereas Grow and Convert found 86% of citations for B2B buying prompts came from industry-specific sites.
- YouTube shows up in citations across B2B clients far more often than the industry discusses, making video a real opportunity for reaching buyers.
- Roughly 80% of sources cited by LLMs in Grow and Convert's research ranked in Google for ordinary keywords with search volume, which suggests SEO fundamentals still drive much of AI visibility.
- AI summaries strip out the differentiated arguments that used to win readers over, producing cold inbound leads who compare several vendors on deliverables and need to be educated on your point of view during the sales process.
- Personalization means the same prompt can return entirely different recommendations for different users, so prompt-tracking tools cannot capture many of the moments where a brand actually wins a lead.
- Positioning and voice-of-customer research are now root-level requirements, because content on topics outside your core category can weaken the brand associations LLMs form about you.
- Hyper-specific, pain-point content lets smaller brands beat incumbents in AI search, and there is no 301 redirect for LLMs, which makes rebrands, pivots, and reputation fixes much harder than in traditional SEO.
- Holding a defined experimentation budget with expected-value thinking keeps low-cost tests like FAQs separate from expensive bets like newsletter sponsorships that rarely justify their cost.
- Third-party mention strategies work best when they back into the specific topics and sites that influence your category, while strong on-site source material is both more persuasive and more defensible against inaccurate claims.
Show Links
Description
Past guests on The Long Game podcast include: Morgan Brown (Shopify), Ryan Law (Animalz), Dan Shure (Evolving SEO), Kaleigh Moore (freelancer), Eric Siu (Clickflow), Peep Laja (CXL), Chelsea Castle (Chili Piper), Tracey Wallace (Klaviyo), Tim Soulo (Ahrefs), Ryan McReady (Reforge), and many more.
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Episode Transcription
- [00:00] – Intro and overview of what's changing in AI search optimization
- [01:35] – Debating whether Google is penalizing self-promotional listicles
- [05:23] – The confounding variable problem in aggregate citation studies
- [08:38] – YouTube citations and shifting content consumption habits
- [11:23] – The disappearing binge-read lead path and the rise of cold inbound
- [16:47] – LinkedIn as a megaphone and the problem with unsourced GEO claims
- [29:55] – Balancing experimental bets with proven, pattern-based work
- [35:25] – Personalization, invisible prompts, and the limits of prompt tracking
- [46:09] – Underdog SEO, specificity, and the incumbent disadvantage in AI search
- [53:12] – How AI search forces brands to fix real reputation problems
- [58:41] – Attribution challenges and the shift to multi-channel marketing
- [01:08:34] – Why third-party mentions aren't everything and your own site still matters
- [01:14:15] – Rethinking thought leadership and distribution at Grow and Convert