AI Doesn't Just Create Demand. It Nurtures It.

Welcome to Zero Click Marketing Field Notes, where we look at what’s changing in marketing, search, social, and buyer behavior — and what to do about it.

Today, I want to talk about a new piece of research from Similarweb called, “The Downstream Impact of AI Visibility.” It gives us a clear signal that AI visibility can influence what buyers do next — even when that influence does not show up as an AI referral.

I’ve been saying (and so have others) that AI mentions can drive visibility, and that AI visibility is a leading indicator that you’re building brand awareness. But now I think we can take that a step further and start to see AI as a needle-mover when it comes to demand generation and lead nurture.

Through the ways we’ve been using AI, we can see how it can shape demand. It can nurture demand by helping someone go from interest to evaluation. And then, when that person finally shows up in your analytics, your dashboard may give credit to branded search, direct traffic, paid search, or some other final touchpoint.

Meanwhile, the AI interaction that helped create confidence, preference, or urgency is basically invisible.

So first off, this is a new attribution problem.

Or maybe more accurately: it is the old attribution problem wearing a little AI hat.

First, let’s talk about Similarweb’s research. They looked at real user journeys across three industries: finance, travel, and beauty. They looked at people who asked ChatGPT industry-relevant questions, received a recommendation for a brand, and then tracked what happened over the next 7 days.

Other things of note: 1) They excluded people who had already visited that brand before, and 2) they excluded people who had already mentioned the brand in the prompt.

This is important to note because if someone asks ChatGPT, “Is Sephora better than Ulta?” and then later goes to Sephora’s website, that’s interesting, but it’s not necessarily evidence of AI influence. The person already had the brand in mind.

Similarweb was trying to look at something more specific: when AI introduces or recommends a brand, does that recommendation appear to change what people do afterward?

Their answer was yes.

Users who received an AI recommendation were 2 and a half times more likely to visit that brand’s website within the next 7 days.

And when they did visit that website, how did they show up? Through branded search.

That means someone might ask ChatGPT for a recommendation, read the answer, close the tab, go back to their life, and three days later search for that brand on Google.

In analytics, that looks like branded organic search.

Or maybe they type in the URL directly.

In analytics, that looks like direct traffic.

Or maybe they see a paid search ad for the brand and click that.

In analytics, that looks like paid search.

But the actual buyer journey was messier than that. The measurable touchpoint was not necessarily the influential touchpoint.

Now… let’s be careful. Because this isn’t: “Oh wow, branded search actually comes from AI now.”

No, no. That’s too simplistic.

Branded search has always been downstream of other marketing.

People search your brand because they heard about you somewhere. Maybe from a podcast, LinkedIn post, YouTube video, from a colleague, or somewhere else.

Branded search has always been a receipt.

It tells you someone had enough awareness, curiosity, or intent to go looking for you by name.

Most good marketers know this already. But the problem is that they don’t always know what produced branded search, how to influence it, or how much budget to give the upstream work that made it happen.

And now AI makes that even harder because that’s one more platform that we can’t track.

Let’s say someone is already problem-aware.

They know they need a new tool. They know their current workflow is broken. They are not randomly discovering the category for the first time.

They ask ChatGPT:

“What’s the difference between SparkToro, Semrush, and Similarweb?”

Or:

“What should I use if I want to understand where my audience spends time online?”

The AI answer may not create the underlying demand.

The person already had the pain.

But it may shape the shortlist.

It may validate one vendor over another.

It may make them feel less risky about taking the next step.

And then later, that buyer searches the brand name, visits the website directly, or clicks on an ad. Or finally replies to a sales email.

In the CRM, maybe that looks like an MQL becoming an SQL.

In analytics, maybe it looks like branded search.

In reality, AI may have been a nurture touchpoint.

This is where I think the conversation needs more nuance.

A lot of the AI visibility conversation right now is framed around discovery.

Are we showing up when people ask for recommendations?

That matters.

But in B2B especially, I think AI visibility is just as important for consideration.

If these tools are explaining our products and value prop to our audience, and comparing us against competitors, then that’s not demand creation. That’s demand movement.

I’m thinking of this as AI can impact demand in 4 ways in the buyer journey:

Create, capture, nurture, and protect.

First: create demand.

Someone asks an AI tool a question, and the AI introduces them to a brand they didn’t already know.

Maybe they ask, “What are the best travel cards for families?” or “What are the best skincare brands for sensitive skin?” or “What are the best audience research tools for marketers?”

The AI recommends a brand.

The person had not heard of it before.

Now they have.

That is demand creation, or at least awareness creation.

The Similarweb research supports this kind of idea because recommended brands were more likely to receive visits afterward.

But this is only one role.

Second: capture demand.

This is where branded search comes in.

If AI introduces or validates a brand, the next action likely still happens on traditional search. (Remember about 81% of search still happens on a traditional search platform.)

This where your organic and paid search, review presence, and third-party mentions all matter.

If AI creates or shapes curiosity and the SERP captures it, those teams cannot operate in separate universes.

This is one of the points Seer Interactive made in their piece about why paid media teams should care about AI visibility.

Their argument is basically: the work that improves AI visibility often looks like brand building. Showing up on trusted third-party sites. Getting cited by credible sources. Building a footprint across the web that AI systems can recognize and reference.

That’s not only an SEO problem. It’s a problem for all of marketing, which includes brand, performance, PR, and content marketing.

Third: nurture demand.

AI is not only a place where someone says, “What should I buy?”

It is also a place where someone says:

“Help me compare these three options.”

“What are the pros and cons of this vendor?”

“Is this product worth it for a small team?”

And in a B2B context, these AI prompts can be the difference between someone being a casual lead and someone being sales-ready.

If your brand shows up well in those answers, AI can nurture that lead.

If your brand shows up poorly, AI can stall that lead.

If your brand is missing, AI can give that lead to someone else.

Fourth: protect demand.

If AI increases the likelihood that someone later searches for your brand, then the SERP becomes a battleground.

Competitors can bid on your branded terms.

Third-party sites can rank for your brand and alternatives to your brand.

Old reviews can shape perception.

AI answers can pull from outdated or inaccurate sources.

So if you are investing in AI visibility but not protecting what happens after the AI interaction, you may be creating demand that someone else captures.

This is especially frustrating because the team that created the demand may not be the team that gets credit for protecting it.

The brand team may create the awareness.

The content team may shape the public record.

The SEO team may influence AI visibility.

The paid team may protect the branded query.

The sales team may close the lead.

That framework again: Create. Capture. Nurture. Protect.

Different parts of the journey. Different teams. Different metrics. Same buyer.

Amid all this chaos, we have to be more disciplined. We can’t overclaim and we can’t say AI created all this demand. Sometimes it did, sometimes it didn’t. And we shouldn’t underclaim either..

We should not look at a tiny number of AI referral visits and decide AI has no business impact.

Because that is the exact measurement mistake Similarweb is pointing to.

If someone sees your brand in an AI answer and then searches for you 3 days later, your analytics almost certainly will not connect those dots.

Remember, this isn’t new.

Someone sees a billboard, then visits a store.

Someone hears a podcast ad, then searches the brand.

Someone gets a recommendation from a friend, then clicks a paid search ad.

This is how marketing works.

So what should marketers do with this?

I’d start with five moves.

First, track AI visibility, but do not worship the score.

Ask where you’re visible, for which prompts, with what descriptions, what proof points. Remember, you can check your AI visibility in tools like HubSpot AEO Grader.

Second, separate discovery prompts from evaluation prompts.

Don’t just test things like “best tools for X.”

Also test:

“Compare us to our competitors.”

“What are the best options for a company like mine?”

“What should I know before buying this category?”

Those prompts may tell you more about whether AI is helping or hurting demand movement.

Third, watch branded search differently.

Look for changes after major awareness pushes, PR hits, launches, events, podcasts, AI visibility work, and category conversations. This will hep you get a better read on whether upstream visibility is creating downstream behavior.

Fourth, protect the handoff.

If AI is sending people into branded search, your search result needs to be ready.

Your website needs to be clear.

Your positioning needs to be obvious.

Your comparison pages need to be honest and useful.

Your third-party presence needs to be credible.

Your paid team needs to understand when branded search is harvesting demand that other channels created.

And fifth, align the teams.

This cannot live only with SEO.

AI visibility touches brand, content, PR, paid, product marketing, sales, and analytics.

If one team is trying to improve AI visibility while another team is optimizing only for last-click efficiency, you’re gonna have a bad time. Because what creates, nurtures, captures, and protects demand, are all probably pretty different. It’s messy. And it’s our job to live in the mess, make sense of us, and guide our prospects in the right direction.

So Similarweb’s study is evidence that AI influence can show up where you can’t track.

This is the core of zero-click marketing.

The value of a touchpoint is not limited to whether it gets the click.

Sometimes the touchpoint creates awareness or trust. And sometimes, the most important marketing interaction is the one your analytics never sees. AI doesn’t always send the click. But it makes it likelier the search happens. And when it does, a better-qualified buyer is landing on your website.

That’s it for today’s Field Notes.

Really, I promise, next week is my interview with SEO and GEO expert Kevin Indig. See ya then!