The State of AEO 2026

ZeroClick New York and Mozgon 2026 full research deck from Josh Blyskal .

Transcript

1. The State of AEO in 2026 Josh Blyskal Head of Special Projects, Profound
2. Get on Reddit Write the listicle Stay fresh ChatGPT loves Wikipedia Perplexity loves the forums
3. Claude is criminally underrated
4. So we built the world’s first frontend dataset
5. May 7, 2026 May 22, 2026
7. ChatGPT referral traffic jumped 60% overnight
8. Before After
9. 1 in 4 Clicks land on your homepage Data courtesy of Profound
11. Google moved AI Mode into the main search bar
12. May 7, 2026 May 22, 2026 Massive increase in homepage citations GPT 5.5 is released ChatGPT ads go to self-serve Referral traffic increases 1.6x globally Brands now overwhelmingly hyperlinked in ChatGPT
14. Traditional Search Ads Keyword based, one generic ad
15. AI Search Ads Context based, hyper-specific ads
16. Traditional search ads were mass-marketed. AI ads will be the most targeted ad type in history.
19. All conversation intents trigger ads Data courtesy of Profound
20. The biggest determinant of relevance is your ad title and description Cosine similarity of each ad component to prompt
21. 1 ad per minute 1 ad per conversation
23. More users More ad placements/turn More chat turns Improved relevance
24. Prediction #1 One answer, three ads
25. Prediction #2 Ads spread deeper into the chat
26. Prediction #3 Suggestions lead to ads
27. Prediction #4 Relevance improves drastically
28. Prediction #5 Ads go global
29. Where I think ads in ChatGPT are going OpenAI needs to revenue maximize 1 Multiple ads per response 2 Ads at any turn 3 ChatGPT will try to prolong conversations 4 Best-matched ad wins 5 Ads go global
30. Claude is criminally underrated
31. Gen AI Traffic Share: Last 12 Months
32. Gen AI Traffic Share: Last 12 Months
33. Anthropic now has more business customers than OpenAI
34. So how does search?
35. Claude is pulling directly from
37. 79.2% of all Claude citations come from Brave ranks 1-10
39. But there’s a catch…
40. Claude only searches 36.6% of the time With 'web search' set to enabled on both models
42. Best men’s running shoes 2026 top running shoes near me Grocery store near me HubSpot vs Salesforce for CRM
43. Things that trigger search versus don't Triggers web search Does not trigger web search “Best” “How does” “Near me” “what is” “2026” “Steps to”
44. 8% Average domain overlap
45. What % do ChatGPT and Claude overlap with the Google SERP?
46. Claude overlaps 64% with Google ChatGPT only overlaps 37%
47. Claude versus ChatGPT: top-cited content Claude ChatGPT Listicles 36.4% 19.7% Brand Product Pages 17.6% 21.2% Blog/opinion 13.2% 7.2% News 8.4% 11.0% Research reports ~7-8% ~7-8% Forum/UGC 0.9% 15.8% Wikipedia 0.6% 2.8%
48. Put years in titles Claude stamps “2026/2025” on 94% of its fanouts, compared to 17% in ChatGPT
49. Claude’s fanouts are near-deterministic Same strings appear ~65% of the time
50. Anthropic passed OpenAI in business adoption - 34.4% vs 32.3% Claude only searches ~1/3rd of the time, but it’s predictable 85% of Anthropic’s revenue is enterprise and API 8% average domain overlap between Claude and ChatGPT 79.2% of Claude citations come from Brave rank 1-10 Claude cites listicles at 36% vs ChatGPT at 20% Fanouts are the same 65% of the time Reddit/forum gap: ChatGPT 16% vs Claude 0.9% → 17x Brave’s order is preserved, no re-ranking Claude stamps “2026” on 90% of its fanouts You can check your Brave rank for free at search.brave.com Adding the year = 17% more aligned with Claude’s queries
52. Every prompt takes one of two routes Google reads its own data about the place or product “Brunch spot near me” “In stock in my area” Google reads third-party pages - no Google property involved “Is the new iPhone worth it? “Best budget CRM”
54. “best running shoe store NYC” “best ai startups in union square”
55. Before After Brooklyn Running company is well-known for beginners Every Super Runners Shop location has full foot-scanning
56. Two real lines AI Mode has to read “It’s filet mignon is the best in the city” “the signature oversized sole cushioning” the city · (New York City) Hoka · (Hoka Shoes)
57. “Its filet mignon is the best in the city” “the signature oversized sole cushioning” “Boucherie Union Square’s filet mignon is the best in New York City” “the Hoka running shoes’ signature oversized sole cushioning”
64. Make yourself legible to the agent
65. Make the machine say your name