Who Leads AI Search Results? AIO Is Rewriting the Rules

In this Sky News Arabia feature, Oxford-certified AI expert Hilda Maalouf Melki argues that the era of traditional search is giving way to a new reality shaped by AI chatbots such as ChatGPT, Gemini, and Perplexity. Instead of competing for blue links on Google, brands now need to ensure they are visible to generative AI systems that synthesize information into a single answer.

She describes this shift as a transition from classic Search Engine Optimization (SEO) to Artificial Intelligence Optimization (AIO)—a new discipline focused on making content understandable, learnable, and quotable by AI models, not just searchable by keyword-based engines.

From SEO to AIO: A New Language of Visibility

Hilda Maalouf Melki explains that SEO relied on keywords, backlinks, and technical signals to rank pages in Google search. In contrast, AIO is about structuring and expressing information so that conversational AI systems can interpret it correctly and surface it in their generated responses.

In this emerging environment, content that is not formatted, labeled, and contextualized in ways AI models can learn from is effectively invisible. For brands, failing to adapt to AIO could mirror what happened to companies that ignored the early web in the 1990s: they gradually vanished from the digital forefront.

Startups Racing to Help Brands Be “Seen” by AI

The article highlights a wave of startups building tools to measure and improve brand presence inside AI-generated answers. Profound tracks how chatbots present brand information to users and helps companies understand what AI is “saying” about them. Athena analyzes how models discover and interpret brand-related content, offering recommendations to adjust web pages for better AI visibility. Scrunch AI works with clients to reformat and rewrite website content so that generative models can parse and reuse it more accurately.

Compared to the mature SEO industry—worth around 90 billion dollars—this AIO sector is still small. But the complexity of generative AI, which must pull and combine information from multiple sources into a single reply, is driving rapid growth and new client demand.

The Rise of the AIO Engineer

As AI models become more sophisticated, Hilda Maalouf Melki sees the emergence of a new role inside marketing and digital transformation teams: the AIO Engineer. This specialist connects digital messaging strategies with the way AI models are trained and how they quote or summarize sources.

Rather than being just a content writer or a technical SEO expert, an AIO Engineer will analyze how models interpret brand information, identify gaps or misrepresentations, and adjust content formats and signals so that brands are represented accurately and consistently across AI platforms. Hilda Maalouf Melki expects this role to become critical in the next few years, especially in sectors that depend heavily on trust such as health, education, and financial services.

Fragmented AI Ecosystems and a Hidden Challenge for Brands

Journalist Patricia Jlad adds that brands now face a more fragmented landscape than ever. Each AI system—whether it is Perplexity, Gemini, or another model—draws on different data sources and training pipelines. Some pull content live from the open web, while others rely on internal datasets or selected partners.

This means the same brand may be read, interpreted, and presented differently from one AI platform to another. The rules of visibility are no longer unified as they were under a single dominant search engine. As a result, companies must adopt multi-platform AIO strategies, ensuring that their content is structured and accessible in ways that various AI models can understand.

A Strategic Imperative in the Age of AI Search

For Hilda Maalouf Melki, the lesson is clear: we are witnessing the beginning of the end of the classic search model built over two decades. Users increasingly expect immediate, tailored answers from AI assistants rather than lists of links. Brands that do not invest in AIO risk becoming invisible to a generation that treats AI chatbots as their primary gateway to information.

She frames this not as a passing trend, but as a structural shift in digital communication—one that will define which organizations remain discoverable, trusted, and relevant in the age of AI-driven search.