Transcription
Welcome back to the EForge podcast, where overwhelmed operators become empowered leaders and where we forge businesses, influence, and legacies that last. I'm your host, Corey Long.
Today's episode is a solo one, and it's an important one because what I'm about to share with you is something I'm seeing every single week with business owners, doctors, contractors, agencies, and entrepreneurs across the country. AI has already changed how people discover businesses. The problem is, most business owners don't even realize that they're already being judged and filtered by AI systems before a prospect ever sees their website.
In this episode, I want to teach you how AI search actually works, what it's rewarding, why traditional SEO is no longer enough, and what you can start doing right now to position yourself as the AI authority and be recommended. This isn't theory. This is what we're actively implementing with clients through something we call the AI authority engine. So, let's dive in.
Look, here's the deal. This shift is happening, and most people are missing it. AI is no longer a tool. It's a decision maker. ChatGPT, Google AI Overviews, Google AI Mode, voice search, Perplexity, AI assistants. These systems are answering questions before someone clicks a website. Here's the scary part: If AI doesn't recognize you as credible, authoritative, and trustworthy, you're invisible.
Even if you rank well in Google, there was a study done this week that—I, it's something like 90% AEFs did this. They studied like 750,000 different searches across Google, Google AI Overviews, and Google AI Mode across the three. And this is all Google. This isn't even going outside of that to Chat and Grok and Perplexity and Claude and all the others. This is just inside of Google. In those three different buckets, they had completely different answers most of the time. I think it was like 8% across all three might have been the same. But most of the time, like 90% of the time, the three different answers had three different either businesses, products, customers, whatever it was, across those three different buckets. So whether you were searching in Google AI Mode, whether you're searching in Google AI Overviews, or just Google, you're getting a different answer.
So, as a business owner, what does that mean? It means basically that you are losing clients daily right now. You're losing phone calls, you're losing customers in the door, you're losing emails, you're losing leads. Whatever it is that you track in your business, you are losing them daily right now to AI if you are not actively, consistently working on your reputation and authority online.
SEO used to be about keywords. It used to be about backlinks. It used to be about all these other things. It used to be about ranking on Google. That's what I've literally taught. I've got thousands of students that I've taught how to rank on Google, how to create Google Business Profiles, websites, all of that stuff. Thousands of students that I've taught how to do this. That's great, but it's only a part of the equation now. The equation's bigger than that. There's a lot more to it than that.
So, most agencies are still stuck in 2018, even 2023. Look, I'm seeing businesses that are ranking on page one, that have solid, great websites, that have reviews, that pay thousands of dollars for SEO, but when you click on ChatGPT or you click on AI Overviews or you click on AI Mode in Google, or you look in voice search, or you look in Grok or Claude or Perplexity or wherever it is that you look, they do not show.
Why? Because AI doesn't just read websites. It reads signals. AI looks for who is who's mentioned consistently, who is cited across platforms, who shows up in video, who is referenced as an expert, who has topical authority. If your business doesn't show up outside of your website, AI assumes you're not the authority.
This is huge. This isn't just for businesses. If you are a ministry, if you are a nonprofit, and you are trying to hit a certain demographic of people that you want to help, serve, guide, and you don't have other things out here that are saying, "This is what you do, this is where you do it, this is who you are, this is who you serve," you're not going to show up. And if you don't show up, then people are not going to see you.
Over 60%—I think it's 65%—of searches right now terminate on AI. Whatever the overview says, whatever ChatGPT says, whatever Claude, Perplexity, whatever it is you use, people are searching, they're getting an answer, they're finding the answer, and then they're moving on. They're not clicking through and looking at the rest of the links. They're not checking the maps. They're not checking any of that stuff. They're looking at one company or one service, many times, or maybe three, sometimes up to five, but most of the time it's one. Especially on Chat, it's looking at one. It's giving you one answer. And if you're not that one answer, you're missing out.
I'm guessing right now that many companies are starting to slow down. They're starting to lose traffic. They're starting to lose business. And they're wondering, "Oh, it must be the economy," or "It must be people, you know, the belts tightening up," or whatever it may be. The truth is that there are some businesses that are thriving right now, not because they know what they're doing, because I—my guess is a lot of businesses don't even realize they're showing up, but they're showing up in AI and they're getting the bulk of the traffic right now. Because this isn't a traffic problem. This is an authority problem.
If you're not the authority online, AI doesn't know to show you. AI is asking, "Who do I trust? Who do I recommend? Who is the safest that I can actually surface and show?" If your digital footprint doesn't answer those questions clearly, AI moves on.
This is where most business owners feel frustrated. "I'm good at what I do. Why aren't the leads coming?" If AI can't verify you yet, there's no authority there. Authority is no longer optional. It's the currency. You can rank on Google all you want and still be seen maybe just 50% of the time. My guess is by next year. Look, I'm going on—this is going to be on podcast. This is going to be on my YouTube channel and across all these podcasts for who knows how long. This is December. We're at the end of the year. This is going to be coming out January 1. And guys, look, bottom line is, in 2026, if you're not in AI, you're probably missing at least 50% of the traffic, if not more.
They're already saying that inside of Google that at least 40 to 50% of all searches inside of Google go straight to an AI overview. And they're saying that that could be 70% or more by the end of 2026. That means that just because you show in Google like normal search, you don't—there is nothing that guarantees that you're going to show in Google AI Overviews. That means you could show in Google. You could have all the greatest reviews. You could show great on Google. You could be on Maps. All the goodness, all the stuff that I've taught for the last 11 years. All the stuff that I've literally ranked hundreds of websites around the world. By the way, we've outranked the IRS. We've outranked all kinds of companies all over the place. We've built 1,000-plus websites. We've worked with clients that have 300 locations. So, we understand what it means to rank on Google. It's different for AI.
AI Overviews, AI Mode, ChatGPT, whatever it is that people are using, wherever it is that they're going, even inside of Google, half of the results are going to be AI Overviews. If you're not showing in AI Overviews, you're missing clients. You're missing leads. If you've seen a slowdown in your business, it's not because of the economy. More than likely, it's not because people are still probably buying whatever the services that you have. You just are losing market share because you're not showing in AI Overviews, ChatGPT, and these other places. That means if you don't start to show in those places, guess what? It's just going to get more and more and more and more saturated as far as there's going to be certain companies showing in AI, and then everybody else. That's it. Whoever shows in AI is the ones that are going to be winning.
AI is actually rewarding some of these people right now. And here's what it does reward: It rewards clear positioning. It rewards consistent messaging. It rewards expert-led content. And it rewards FAQs and structured answers and structured data. It rewards video authority. It rewards reviews with context. It rewards citations across trusted sources. It rewards brand clarity.
This is why we don't chase hacks and shortcuts and all that. So, there are people out there literally right now that are teaching a bunch of garbage that's going to end up causing them a ton of pain in the coming months and years because when they do all of these hacks and shortcuts and all this stuff, it's—it's going—it's literally going to end up hurting them more down the road. This is why we build authority ecosystems. This is why we create your full entity online. You need to be a brand online.
Now, this is why we built the AI Authority Engine training. This is also why HRock has its own AI Authority SEO packages. So whether you want done-for-you or whether you want done-with-you, we have both of those now available. The AI Authority Engine is not software. It's not a gimmick. It's not a dashboard. It's a system. We're three weeks into that training. By the time this podcast goes out, we'll probably be four weeks into that training. We're literally teaching the system from everything from the site structure to the content and the different types of credibility sources that are out there to citation sources to your reputation management that has to be done. And this is way different than ranking on Google.
We help businesses understand how AI sees them. Not just businesses, ministries, nonprofits. We fix blind spots that are killing their visibility in AI. We build AI-readable authority. We structure content that AI trusts. We become the recommended answer. This is how you future-proof your business. This isn't gaming algorithms by becoming the obvious.
But like, look, this isn't about like setting up a bunch of stuff anymore out there online and setting up a bunch of backlinks and doing all the stuff that we've done for SEO. This is literally about becoming the authority online so it becomes obvious and AI just recommends you because you are the go-to company. You are the go-to service. You are the go-to ministry. You are the go-to nonprofit. Whatever it is that you do, the coach, the trainer, the restaurant, the boutique, the pool cleaner. It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter what you do. You better get on board with this because next year, if you don't get on board—I should say this year, because this 2026, guys, this is—this is going to change the way people do business. And not only is it going to change the way they do business, this is probably going to put businesses out of business.
I don't know if y'all are seeing this in your area. I live in Levelland, Texas right now. In Levelland, I am seeing almost weekly businesses that are posting in groups saying, "Hey, we're doing a going out of business sale." One business this last week has been in business over 30 years in the Levelland community, and they just posted this last week and said, "I'm sorry, but we just don't have enough business to stay open anymore." My guess would be, because I asked some people around me, "Do you even know about this business?" They were like, "I didn't even know what that was." My guess would be is there's plenty of business for them. They just don't have enough people seeing them. There's not enough visibility. There's not enough people that actually know that they're in business, what they do, what they offer, what they serve, who they serve. Like, it's—they just literally are not marketing in a way that fits the current marketing.
So, if you want to be a business who wants long-term visibility, entrepreneurs that are tired of chasing tactics, leaders who want to be trusted, not loud, companies that want inbound demand, look, that's who this is for. This is for anybody that owns anything from a restaurant to a boutique to a contractor to somebody that does—that's an attorney to an accountant to somebody—somebody that does maybe like LLCs and business work and somebody that does shipping and somebody that runs a trucking company and some—it doesn't matter. It literally does not matter what you do. If somebody is looking for your services online, you better get into AI.
So, we have multiple different things that we can do. Whether it's through WRock Consulting as a done-for-you, so you just pay us, we just do the service for you, or it's done through the AI Authority Engine training that I just launched. That AI Authority Engine training is going to give you the tools like week by week, this is what you do to build your presence online until you are the authority in your marketplace. This isn't for shortcut seekers, trend chasers, people who don't want to build real authority. This isn't the hackers and all of that mess. That's not what this is for. That's not who this is for.
Here's what I believe: AI isn't replacing entrepreneurs. It's not going to. It never will. It's replacing noise. There's been a lot of noisy people online. They come out and they put a lot of content out and and—these guys that do tons of blog posting and all this stuff. That's great, and there's still a place for that. You still need to do Google Business Profiles. You need to do Bing profiles, by the way. You still need to do your social media. Facebook and Instagram still huge. Do you guys realize Instagram right now is the second largest search engine on a daily basis? It has more people searching on it than YouTube does. Like, it's moved into that second place now. Instagram. Crazy, right?
Google still owns it, but even on Google, like we just talked about, there's three different buckets. Even on Google, you might be showing in one, but you might not be showing in the other two. That means that you might be showing in one place on Google, but never be seen in the other places. You may be losing a third, half, or more of your audience that's looking for you right now. And you're thinking, "Oh, it's slow because of the economy or whatever it is." It could just be slow because you're not showing up anymore to the people that are looking for your services.
So whether you cut hair, or whether you're digging ditches, whether you're putting in ponds, whether you're putting up metal buildings, it does not matter. You're going to have to create authority online so that you can actually win in 2026. Marketing in 2026 is going to be a shift. There are going to be companies that are going to slowly disappear and they're not even going to even realize why. They are going to start to see things start to kind of fade off into the sunset and they're going to think, "Oh man, like I—I wish we could have done more." This, that, these, those, and maybe they rank great on Google, by the way. Maybe they're number one on Google for whatever it is that they're doing. Great. Doesn't matter anymore. Just because you rank on Google doesn't guarantee anything else. Doesn't even guarantee that you'll rank on AI Overviews inside of Google. Doesn't definitely doesn't guarantee that you'll rank inside of Bing.
You don't need more content. You need aligned authority. You need authority online to where all of these different places, all of these different people say, "This person is it." It says something like, "Corey Long is the go-to AI authority for AI SEO online. Corey Long is this, right?" YRock Consulting does this. Like, I'm a business coach. I also own businesses. I'm a serial entrepreneur. I've built and sold and done all kinds of things. We've sold multiple businesses this year. AI though needs to know who I am, who I serve, where I serve them, and how I serve them. It needs to know the same thing for you.
Here, I want to give you a tip before we get off on this call. You're listening to this podcast today because this fascinates you. It interests you. AI interests you. You want to become the go-to person recommended for your service, your product, whatever it is in your market online. Great. I would challenge you to go ask right now. Chat, Google, all these places. Here's one simple thing that you can go do. Go ask all of those different places. Just ask the simple question: "If I was going to look at all the reviews online for whatever your business is or your name is, if I was going to look for all of the reviews online for YRock Consulting and you were going to tell me what this company does and who it serves, can you give me a summary?" And see what it spits out. And then start to ask it questions about where do they serve? Like, where where are they located? Who do they serve? Where do they serve? What do they serve? Right? How do they serve? Those are questions because as you start to ask, if there's not very many reviews, guess what? AI is not going to see authority. If there's not very many places out there that say that you do what you do, they don't even know what you do. If there's not anything out there that says, "This is who you serve," how is AI supposed to serve you up as the answer for somebody if they don't even know who you serve?
If you're a ministry that's out there serving, like I ran a children's home for all girls, and it's called Carpenter Place. It's in Wichita, Kansas. You're welcome to go look it up. Great place if you're dealing with issues and you've got a young lady in your household that you're not really sure what to do with. Maybe they're struggling. We had young ladies that were struggling with abuse, neglect, alcohol, drugs, all kinds of stuff that came to the home, and they would live with a house parent in a home with a bunch of other girls and house parents that took care of them. We had everything from therapy to classes and school and training and all kinds of stuff for them to be able to grow in their time that they were at the home. If I didn't go out and I didn't tell AI, I didn't tell Google, I didn't tell Bing, I didn't tell LinkedIn, and I didn't tell all these different places online, "This is who I am, right? I'm Carpenter Place. I serve these young ladies from this age group to this age group. This is the kind of family that I'm serving. This is what we offer." AI is going to have no idea to go serve that up for that mom or dad or grandparent or aunt and uncle or whoever it is that's taking care of that young lady. AI is going to have no idea that Carpenter Place is a solution for them if they're struggling.
We had girls that would come to us that were famous because they had fought somebody online and they went viral and then they got kicked out of their school and then the parents are trying to figure out what to do with this kid because now they're suspended. They can't go back to that school. They got in trouble with the police. Like all these problems, right? We would bring them in, nurture them, ex—literally share with them and show them what life should look like, share God with them, put them into our online school or our classes that were on campus. We we would teach them and watch them grow. What—what are you doing? If somebody asked AI right now who you are, who you serve, where you serve them, how you serve them, would it be able to tell them? And then would it be able to go find things out there that say, "This is who you are"? Not from you, not from your website, not from your stuff, not from your social media, not from your YouTube, not from your stuff out there, but from other people. Would there be people out there that are saying, "Yes, Carpenter Place is a great place to send a young lady that's struggling that needs some help"? And not only that, but they'll help you put your family back together. We met with families on a weekly or bi-weekly basis. We would meet with them and do all kinds of different exercises with them to help them start to reconnect with their kids and start to help them get that kiddo back to their family. We had all these families that the kids got to go back with because of that.
So, what are you going to do about your business today? Look, AI is not coming. It's here right now. You are losing business right now if you're not showing in AI today. Right now, January 2026, you are losing business right now if you're not showing in AI. So, what are you going to do about it? Are you going to change something about what you do? You can either learn about it. There's lots of ways to learn. If you watch my channel, if you follow me, if you subscribe to the things, I'm giving out tips, tricks, ways to go out and put things out there online to help you in your AI presence online all the time on all of my channels. You can find me across any of the social media that's out there. You're on—you're probably listening to me either on a podcast platform or on YouTube right now. Great. Follow, subscribe, make sure that you actually are paying attention to what I'm saying because in the end, this is where you need to go.
I'm telling my customers, you can still do SEO if you want to, but it's only a part of the puzzle. Now, SEO is not going to give you the advantage with AI. You need to be doing AI SEO. It's different. It has a nuance to it. There are different things that AI is looking for than what traditional SEO offers. It just is. I've done this a long time. Do AI SEO over basic SEO. The old-school way of doing SEO is not going to get you in AI. It's just not. So, I would shift gears. I would look at what you need to do to go into 2026, 2027, and beyond.
If you want to rank and you want to show in AI, you want your business to show up in AI and you want actually to be recommended by AI as the go-to expert in your field, whatever it is that you do in the location that you do it in, then you need to start working on your reputation online, your brand online, your presence online, your entity online. And we do all of that. We teach all of that.
So, if today's episode opened your eyes, I want you to take one simple step. I want you to pay attention to how often AI mentions you or doesn't or doesn't. So do some searches. Go do that exercise I mentioned a minute ago. And if you're ready to build authority the right way, learn more about the AI Authority Engine. Reach out to us. You can reach out to us through whatever platform you're on. Leave a comment. We'll—we'll answer you. You can reach out to me at the real Corey Long on any of the Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube, you name it. Find me, reach out directly to me. I will—I will answer you. We will get the help for you that you need. This is how we help businesses become trusted answers in AI-driven search.
Look, make sure that you subscribe to this channel. Leave a review. Do I just told you how important those things are? Guys, if you love what you're hearing, if this brought value to you, would you leave a review for me? Look, and share this episode. Share this episode with a business owner that you know that may be struggling. And again, it doesn't matter what kind of business they own. It could be any kind of business. Any kind of business from a jewelry business to a cattle company. It does not matter. Share it with the business owner that you know who needs to hear this now, not later. Not when things are struggling. Not when they're failing. Not when they're trying to figure out, "Where did my business go? I don't know what happened to all the people that were looking for me online that don't—I just—I don't know where the calls went. I don't know where the emails went. Something's happening. Nobody's walking in the door anymore for the food or the bakery or the this or the that." Whatever it is, it doesn't matter. People are going to be looking on AI for you, and you need to show up. Give us a call. Find us online. PM us. DM us. Leave a comment.
And until next Thursday, keep forging forward. Stay aligned with your calling. Build with clarity, confidence, and conviction because this is the forge where leaders are made and legacies are built.