Estimated reading time: 3 minutes

The Marketing Minute: AI Is Watching Your Marketing Habits

Last summer, I decided I wanted to get better at skateboarding.

I had no aspirations of becoming the next Tony Hawk; I simply wanted to feel more comfortable on the board. Like many people learning a new skill, I wanted progress to happen fairly quickly.

It didn't.

For weeks, every ride felt awkward. Then one day, I realized I wasn't thinking as much. I had better balance, and I felt more natural on the board. Progress had been accumulating through repetition. I've been thinking about that lesson recently because it reminds me of marketing, particularly as generative AI begins to change how customers discover companies and products.

Marketers know that consistency improves visibility, and regularly publishing credible content through trusted channels strengthens search rankings, builds brand awareness, and establishes thought leadership. Companies that maintain an active content presence generate significantly more website traffic than those that don't because they create more opportunities to be discovered organically.

What has changed is that those same behaviors are now influencing AI-powered search.

When someone asks ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude, or another AI platform for recommendations, suppliers, technologies, or industry expertise, the system isn't simply looking for the webpage that ranks highest on Google. It evaluates a much broader set of signals: websites, articles, industry publications, social media activity, podcasts, interviews, citations, and other indicators of authority and credibility. This shift has given rise to generative engine optimization (GEO), the practice of improving how companies and content appear in AI-generated answers and recommendations.

In other words, AI is increasingly asking, "Which source appears trustworthy?" not "What page should I show?" This means that where your expertise appears can matter as much as what you publish on your own website.

That shift has enormous implications for marketers.

One of the biggest mistakes companies make is treating marketing as an event rather than a habit. Publish a few articles, launch a newsletter once, and maybe you see social media activity spike for a quarter. When lasting results fail to materialize, marketing efforts are often scaled back or abandoned altogether.

Unfortunately, visibility doesn't work that way because consistency matters. GEO is achieved through consistently publishing credible expertise and building the authority signals that AI platforms use to evaluate and recommend companies.

The most effective programs combine consistent content with credible industry exposure through multiple distribution channels, such as I-Connect007’s magazines, newsletters, podcasts, and books. It helps companies build the kind of digital authority that increasingly influences GEO.

When competitors are easier to find, more recognizable, and more frequently recommended, the explanation is often surprisingly simple: They've made marketing a habit.

The companies that will benefit most from AI-powered discovery are unlikely to be the ones that suddenly flood the internet with content. They will be the companies that strategically build a library of expertise and ensure that expertise appears in the places their industry already trusts. Publishing through established industry media outlets, such as I-Connect007, helps companies extend their reach beyond their own websites while building the kind of third-party credibility that search engines and AI platforms increasingly value.

I recently spoke with a marketing leader whose company committed to a simple goal: Produce useful content every month. There weren’t massive campaigns or viral ambitions. Just a commitment to showing up consistently in trusted sources.

The first few months felt uneventful: Traffic increased only slightly, and engagement was modest. There was little evidence that anything meaningful was happening, something marketers expect.

By the end of the year, however, they started hearing, "I've been following your content for a while." Marketers love that! Their articles in industry publications like I-Connect007 were discovered through AI searches, shared throughout the electronics community, and referenced by prospects.

Just as importantly, each published piece strengthened the company's digital footprint, creating the kind of authoritative industry presence that search engines and AI platforms increasingly use to assess expertise and credibility. They didn’t just create content; they made sure it appeared where industry professionals were already looking for expertise.

Meaningful progress comes from showing up repeatedly, especially when the results aren't yet obvious. These days, you need AI search engines to notice even before customers do, particularly when connected with trusted third-party sources. The individual actions may seem small, but the smart habit is what makes them powerful.

Brittany Martin is the digital marketing manager for I-Connect007.