About Danny Tessler
Danny works on answer engine optimization (AEO) strategy and product development at HubSpot, following HubSpot’s acquisition of XFunnel in December 2025.
Before AEO had a name, Danny and the XFunnel team were rigorously exploring a simple question: when someone asks an AI tool like ChatGPT, Gemini, or Perplexity for a recommendation, why does one brand show up instead of another?
Danny and his colleagues have developed industry-leading tools designed to help brands navigate the rapidly evolving AEO landscape and measure their impact with greater precision.
Q: Let’s start with the basics… what's the difference between SEO and AEO?
Said simply, traditional SEO focuses on ranking your website highly in search results to drive clicks.
But AEO focuses on getting your brand mentioned within the AI-generated answer itself, even if users never click through to your site. And success with AEO is measured by brand mentions, citations, and how accurately AI represents your brand. Not just by traffic.
Q: When comparing SEO to AEO, how is search behavior changing?
When comparing a regular Google search to, say, ChatGPT, the tools are very different, so naturally, people use them differently. A typical Google search is usually just 3 or 4 words, something like “best sushi in Milwaukee.”
AI Answer Engines have changed that. With AI, people ask much longer questions, often 25 to 30 words, and then keep going with follow-up questions in a back-and-forth way.
As a result, those queries become much more specific to the person asking, their situation, and what they actually need.
Q: How should legal marketers measure AEO success?
Great question. The way we think about measurement is pretty simple. We look at visibility, citations, and accuracy. For example:
- When users perform a relevant query, are you even mentioned?
- Are you showing up in the sources the AI is referencing in its citations?
- When you do appear, is the description correct?
Here’s an important thing to know: you can’t judge the results from one run.
These systems are probabilistic, so you never get the exact same response twice. That’s why we track results over time and look at trends across weeks or months.
Q: Are there any key metrics that you rely on?
One metric that we focus on is “citation influence rate.” If a prompt returns 10 citations and your brand shows up in 1 of them, that’s a 10 percent influence rate. This is important because, as that number climbs, the likelihood of your brand being mentioned in the response climbs with it.
Q: How important is a firm’s website for good AEO?
Your website matters a lot, and it’s usually the easiest place to start optimizing because you control it. But it’s only one input.
These systems pull from a lot of places: blogs, directories, industry publications, social media, video, and third-party coverage. And they’re looking for agreement across sources.
So, if the story about your firm only lives on your website, you’re making it harder for the model to gain confidence.
For maximum visibility on the AI Answer engines, you want the same crystal-clear messages to be echoed across all the places AI reads and cites.
Q: How quickly do these AI platforms respond to new information compared to traditional search?
AI platforms respond very quickly. Recently, we’ve seen newly published content show up in citations on answer engines within a day or two of going live.
That means that there is a very fast feedback loop. If you identify specific prompts you want to optimize for, you can publish content tailored to those prompts and start tracking results within days.
That is very different from traditional SEO, where it can take weeks or even months to see meaningful movement.
Q: What’s the best strategy for influencing the answer engines?
Improving performance on answer engines requires influencing the citations they reference. To do that, you need to build authority across the entire web. There are three key areas to focus on:
- Your website. Start by creating website content that is information-rich, clear, and structured to work for both people and AI. Q&A-style content with direct, conversational answers is a strong format.
Also, your site needs a solid technical foundation so AI bots can easily access and interpret your content. Schema markup helps tremendously for AEO by allowing machines to understand what each piece of information represents. - Social channels. Amplify your expertise by publishing content on the channels where people (and AI systems) are likely to encounter it. LinkedIn and YouTube are among the biggest. Don’t just post on these platforms; engage.
- Paid and earned media. If there are specific prompts you want to show up for, look at which publications are most often cited in those answers, then target those outlets strategically.
Q: What roles do tools like the ones HubSpot is developing play in making AEO practical?
Tools, like the kind we’re developing at HubSpot, are designed to make AEO measurable. Without the tools, you find yourself stuck in a cycle of reacting to anecdotes. “I saw us in ChatGPT yesterday, and I don’t see us today.”
HubSpot’s AI optimization capabilities have been created to remove the guesswork by tracking:
- Which AI platforms are mentioning your firm
- Which prompts you’re gaining (or losing) visibility on
- Which pieces of your content are being cited
- How patterns change after you publish new content
You can also see a breakdown of your performance on, say, ChatGPT vs Perplexity. And you can look at trends over time, which matters because results can vary significantly from run to run.
Q: Any final thoughts for marketers who are just getting started with AEO?
One interesting fact to consider: HubSpot’s research shows that leads from answer engines convert at a much higher rate, about 13 times higher than other leads. A big reason for that is that by the time someone reaches out, they’ve already done a lot of research and come in much more informed.
For marketers just getting started with AEO, the key is to remember that answer engines are pulling signals from all over the internet. So your story needs to be clear, credible, and consistent wherever your brand shows up.
Your website is the first place to focus, of course, but you also need to think more broadly. That includes places like LinkedIn, directory listings, media mentions, videos, podcasts, and other third-party sources that help reinforce who you are and what you’re known for.
Written by Robert Algeri and Dion Algeri. Originally published on Great Jakes