Waters Deng

[Waters Deng @waters_deng]

@BTCDANDANA 谢谢！

[Waters Deng @waters_deng]

Everyone is talking about SEO, AEO, and GEO.

But I think we're defining the problem too narrowly.

Here's how I see it:

SEO optimizes pages.

AEO optimizes answers.

GEO optimizes entities.

SEO is about helping search engines understand and rank your website.

AEO is about helping answer engines surface your content directly in responses.

GEO is different.

The goal isn't simply getting cited by ChatGPT or showing up in an AI Overview.

The real challenge is making sure AI systems understand:

• Who your company is
• What products and services you offer
• How you compare to competitors
• What evidence supports your claims
• When you should be recommended
That's not primarily a content problem.
It's a knowledge representation problem.
As AI increasingly becomes the first stop for buyers, discoverability is shifting from:
Search → Click → Evaluate

to:

Ask → Recommend → Choose

The battle is moving upstream.

If your company never enters the AI's consideration set, it doesn't matter how good your website is.

This is why I believe the next evolution won't simply be:

SEO → AEO → GEO

It will be:

SEO → GEO → AI-Native Competitive Intelligence

Because once every company can technically be crawled by AI, the more important question becomes:

Why does the AI recommend Brand A instead of Brand B?

The answer won't be found in keyword density or prompt tricks.

It will come from the quality of the signals surrounding your business:

• Structured facts
• Reviews and reputation
• Third-party mentions
• Product data
• Market position
• Competitive differentiation
• Demonstrated expertise

The companies that understand this shift early won't just rank higher.

They'll be recommended more often.

And in an AI-first world, recommendation may become more valuable than traffic.

What do you think?
Will GEO become its own discipline, or will it eventually merge with competitive intelligence and brand strategy?

[Waters Deng @waters_deng]

@LingLiAI Thank you!

[Waters Deng @waters_deng]

@GuardianDaoist @seemoon50233865 @Daoge2020 😃

[Waters Deng @waters_deng]

@Ingrid__EA Building https://t.co/4k8zNBPL8F, a competitive intelligence and AI visibility platform.

[Waters Deng @waters_deng]

@ShouZhe64776 😅

[Waters Deng @waters_deng]

@Molson_Hart 😃

[Waters Deng @waters_deng]

@JunaidAckroyd Hi, Junaid, I am building https://t.co/4k8zNBPL8F. Would love to connect.

[Waters Deng @waters_deng]

AI is making execution cheap.

That's why I think judgment is becoming the new bottleneck.

For decades, organizations competed on their ability to execute.

Now AI can generate reports, code, analyses, forecasts, marketing campaigns, and workflows at near-zero marginal cost.

The scarce resource is shifting:

Execution → Judgment

Workflow orchestration → Decision orchestration

The winners won't necessarily be the companies with the most AI.

They'll be the ones that consistently focus attention on the right problems.

New essay:

Decision Orchestration: The New Competitive Advantage in the Age of AI https://t.co/xCM3olJQxY

[Waters Deng @waters_deng]

@Brennan_Lup Hi, Brennan, I am building https://t.co/4k8zNBPL8F. Would love to connect.

[Waters Deng @waters_deng]

@Molson_Hart I'd venture to say that most ethnicities are artificial constructs.

[Waters Deng @waters_deng]

One of the biggest shifts happening right now is that your website no longer has just one audience.

It has two:

Humans
AI systems acting on behalf of humans

When a potential customer asks ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, or Perplexity about a product category, the AI often researches, compares options, and forms recommendations before the customer ever visits a website.

That changes how companies think about digital presence.

For years, we optimized websites primarily for search engines and human visitors.

Now we also need to help AI systems understand:

• Who we are
• What we sell
• Why we're different
• Why we're credible
This isn't about gaming AI.
It's about making expertise easier for AI systems to discover, interpret, and trust.
The companies that adapt early may gain a significant advantage in the next phase of online discovery.

The companies that ignore it may find themselves becoming increasingly invisible in AI-generated recommendations.

We're still in the early innings, but one thing is becoming clear:

AI Visibility is becoming a new layer of competitive intelligence.

How is your organization preparing for AI-driven discovery?

[Waters Deng @waters_deng]

@LingLiAI Most people want something that their current tool doesn't provide, or presented in a way that they want.

[Waters Deng @waters_deng]

Spent months sending cold emails and LinkedIn DMs.

Today I joined a few niche LinkedIn groups and started asking questions instead of pitching.

The response was better than weeks of outreach.

A useful reminder:

People don't want to be interrupted.

They want to participate in conversations they already care about.

Founders: ask more questions.

[Waters Deng @waters_deng]

Just made a 60-second demo of RivalEdge.

No fluff. Just shows exactly what you get every Monday morning.

Watch → https://t.co/KIEZUoVk8m

If you're tired of digging through competitor websites, this might help.

[Waters Deng @waters_deng]

@jennyyalanliu He probably did, just didn't tell you. Haha

[Waters Deng @waters_deng]

Competitive intelligence is changing.

Traditionally, CI teams tracked things like:

• Pricing changes
• Product launches
• Hiring activity
• Messaging shifts
• Partnerships and acquisitions
All of those still matter.
But a new signal is emerging:
AI visibility.
Today, millions of buyers are asking ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, and Perplexity questions like:

"What's the best CRM for a small business?"

"Which protein powder is best for runners?"

"What are the top project management tools for remote teams?"

In many cases, AI systems return just a handful of recommendations.

If your competitor appears and you don't, that isn't just a marketing problem.

It's a competitive intelligence problem.

Why?

Because AI visibility reflects the combined effect of your brand authority, content footprint, customer sentiment, product positioning, third-party mentions, and market perception.

In other words, it reveals how AI systems understand your competitive position.

The question is no longer:

"What are my competitors doing?"

It's also:

"How do AI systems compare us against our competitors?"

The companies that monitor both will have a significant advantage as AI becomes a primary discovery channel.

That's why we've started treating AI visibility as a core component of competitive intelligence at https://t.co/4NGM57ZVsz.

[Waters Deng @waters_deng]

One thing I've learned over the last 3 months of building an AI-native startup:

AI dramatically reduces the cost of experimentation.

It does not eliminate the need to find real customer problems.

We can now:

• Build prototypes in days instead of months
• Research markets faster
• Reach thousands of prospects efficiently
• Analyze feedback at scale
But none of that changes the fundamentals.
Customers still pay to solve problems, not to admire technology.
The most valuable conversations I've had recently weren't about AI models, agents, or workflows.

They were conversations with actual users.

What are they trying to accomplish?

What's frustrating them?

What are they paying for today?

What would make them switch?

AI helps us test assumptions faster.

It doesn't make assumptions true.

The entrepreneurs who win in the AI era won't necessarily be the ones with the best AI.

They'll be the ones who learn the fastest.

That's what excites me most about this moment.

Not that AI is replacing entrepreneurship.

It's accelerating the feedback loop.

[Waters Deng @waters_deng]

@mynameisyahia Congratulations, Yahia!