Answer Engine Optimization (AEO) is here… is Public Relations Ready?

Emily Page (00:02):

In the 1940s during radio's, golden age, two giants sparred. They hurled insults, traded jokes, and audiences couldn't get enough. Sponsors loved it too. Ben came television. One of the giants adapted and thrived. The other faded. This is the story of Jack Benny and Fred Allen

Jonathan Mast (00:37):

From Hollywood, the Jack Benny program with his special guests, the Smothers Brothers.

Doug Downs (00:48):

Here's something you may not know, Jack Benny and Fred Allen were not enemies, although they made their listeners believe they were. Their mock feud became radio's longest running comic rivalry. Barb's like Benny was born ignorant, and he's been losing ground ever since. Made millions laugh beneath the laughter, though a friendship sparkled that feud suspected on radio, both men, Sean, Fred Allen's witty, topical commentary earned him the reputation as radio's most admired comedian.

Fred Allen and Jack Benny (01:21):

Well, cheer up, Jack. At least we have our memories. We've known each other for 30 years. Yep. The first time I met you, Fred, I was just a kid in school. A Diller, a dollar, a 10 o'clock scholar. You were the only 10 o'clock scholar I ever saw was five o'clock. Shadow

Doug Downs (01:38):

Jack Benny with his perfect timing, self-deprecating pauses and penny pinching persona was a national treasure.

Fred Allen and Jack Benny (01:46):

All of a sudden, my teeth, I won't even eat in the sun. My shadow might ask me for a bite. Your shadow has teeth, Jack, don't, don't get excited. Look, if you're cheap, you're cheap. That's the way I look at it.

Doug Downs (02:06):

Yet, when television arrived, the rules changed. Jack Benny leaped into the new medium and audiences followed. He reinvented his radio format for tv carrying familiar characters and signature pacing onto the small screen. He picked up right where he'd left off and continued to flourish for years to come. Fred Allen though equally talented, had reservations. He once quipped television is a medium because nothing is well done. He did not relish live cameras, crew chaos or the unpredictability of early TV production, and he doubted that his radio style would translate to visuals so he stayed behind. The result was clear. Jack Benny became a TV staple. Fred Allen's star for all its radio brilliance dimmed. Many of Allen's routines rooted in timing and imagination could not survive in a medium where visuals took precedence. His Allen's alley and sarcastic news parodies thrived on imagination. Television was not the place for subtle wits.

(03:12):

The irony is that their legacy remains intertwined. Allen's radio genius is celebrated by comedy historians. Benny's adaptability made him a household name across two media. The laughter they shared reminds us that talent must meet the new stage. Today's stage is more visual and increasingly AI driven. Just as radio stars of old faced a crossroads to adapt or vanish, so do PR professionals today, SEO was once enough. Now, credibility must connect a new, almost answer driven environments today on stories and strategies. It's the era where visibility demands not just volume, but trust, authority, and expertise. As Fred Allen might say, at least somebody knows what they're doing on purpose. My name is Doug Downs,

Farzana Baduel (04:17):

And my name is Farzana Baduel. Our guest this week is Jonathan Mast joining us from Fremont, Michigan. Hi, Jonathan.

Jonathan Mast (04:25):

Hello. How are you both this morning? Good,

Farzana Baduel (04:28):

Great, good. How are things in Michigan?

Jonathan Mast (04:31):

Well, I'm glad to say that I'm not going to be here much longer. I'm just about ready to head back to Alabama, which is warmer and sunnier, but today is a beautiful day. We're in early autumn, late summer, so it's a little bit cooler and the sun is shining today, which is unusual in West Michigan. So it's a beautiful day.

Farzana Baduel (04:49):

Oh, sounds heavily. It's been raining nonstop in London today.

Doug Downs (04:53):

Well, there you go. It's London, right? Doesn't it? Every day.

Farzana Baduel (04:56):

Yeah, always on brand. Now,

Doug Downs (04:58):

Jonathan,

Farzana Baduel (04:59):

You are an AI strategist starting in digital marketing in 1995 and now a seven figure entrepreneur behind Valor Circle and White Beard Strategies. You have built and nurtured AI focused communities with over half a million members and are regarded as a sought after speaker and mentor in the AI prompt engineering space. You teach that the real power of AI lies in amplifying deep expertise, encouraging trusted leaders to do what they do best, but faster and smarter.

Doug Downs (05:32):

So Jonathan, I want to start with this little mini bone of contention between Farzana and me. SEO search engine optimization is now evolving into either AEO answer engine optimization or GEO generative engine optimization. I, in my world, see, a EO is dominating, but when Farzana searches on Google for what it's worth, GEO comes up as by far and away the number one term that people, which term are we using and does it matter? And blah, blah, blah.

Jonathan Mast (06:08):

Great question. Well, I'm probably not going to make either of you happy because I don't think the term really matters. I really believe that when we're talking the average business person out there that cares about how do they rank on search engines, how do they rank with AI models, that it's still search engine optimization. One thing that in my mind hasn't changed from day one of search, and again, I'm far older than Farzana, so I can certainly remember back to the early days of the internet when we had things like Ask Jebs and Alta Vista. When Google started, it was really simple to give us the most accurate and relevant results to our search query. That's still what everybody's trying to do. It's just that game has changed because now we're using things like chat, GPT and Gemini and Claude and other tools instead of using Google. In fact, I don't remember the last time I actually used Google to do a search.

Farzana Baduel (07:02):

Do you know That's so true. But why should PR professionals care about SEO and AEO and do you see them running just in parallel as just separate sort of channel approaches from a PR lens? Or do you see that a EO is likely to make traditional SEO obsolete?

Jonathan Mast (07:21):

I think from a PR perspective, AEO or answer engine optimization is really where the game is moving, so to speak. And the reason I believe that is that search engine optimization to most people implies keywords. Am I going to be the best chiropractor in Tallahassee, Florida or wherever that we want to search and answer engine optimization, which is really where Google's pushing, where they're trying to get us to. And where I think the AI engines are going is based on are you an expert in your niche? And when it comes to pr, we're either trying to deal with a problem or we're trying to demonstrate that our client is indeed an expert in their niche. And based upon that, I really believe that it's answering questions. Marcus Sheridan wrote a great book about this called They Ask You Answer and what wasn't a PR book per se? I think it really fits because our audiences are looking for answers to their questions, and if through our PR work we can make sure that we're helping our clients provide those answers to their audience, then naturally they're going to rank well and they're going to have positive impact from what we're doing.

Farzana Baduel (08:32):

Jonathan, what's going to happen to Google then? I mean, I've stopped Googling. I mean, I'm just chacha. BT is like the third in our person in our marriage. I ask Chacha, bt everything

Jonathan Mast (08:45):

I do too.

Farzana Baduel (08:46):

I just don't use Google anymore. And I've tried to use it and they've got this AI search in the beginning and the results, but it's just, I don't know. It's just not as intuitive and easy to use. As I say, Chacha, bt, and I've got these little voice note things that I do on the app and it's just become a part of my life. So what's going to happen to Google?

Jonathan Mast (09:08):

Well, the good news is that despite my fears, Google actually is becoming a powerhouse on the AI side. Now, the interesting move, and I don't know how deep we want to get into this, is Google Ads is the cash cow that has made Google what it is. I mean, Google does a lot of things, but it's Google ads platform that has made it the billions and billions of dollars that it has that is going to be changing, and they're actively trying to figure out how do they effectively monetize that now in an AI world. So their AI tools are fantastic, and I think that's going to change where some of that revenue comes from. But again, I also think it's getting more and more difficult because of the fact that it's not just based on keywords anymore. We've learned that through various filings that Google actually wasn't reading most of our content anyway despite what we thought they were looking at, how people interacted with it and things like that. And so when you pull all of that together, I think that that search in Google will probably never be the same. Google was synonymous with search up until, well even say now today, but I don't believe moving forward that Google will be synonymous with search any longer.

Doug Downs (10:25):

So it went from SEO to sentiment based analysis, right? The whole keyword thing really is in most algorithms that's seven, 10 years old, that concept. Correct. It's evolved. Does that mean sentiment analysis is now evolving into what questions did you answer and what authority do you display?

Jonathan Mast (10:44):

I believe so. That's my opinion. Yes. Yeah, and again, think about it from a consumer's perspective. If I've got questions, I want answers, I'm going to Google, I'm going to chat GPT not to get whatever, but I'm going to get answers. And so if I can find people in businesses that are answering my questions innately, those businesses and individuals, those brands are going to have improved credibility with me because they've demonstrated that expertise, they've demonstrated that experience, hopefully that authority and in a good world or the perfect world trust from their customers. Along with that,

Farzana Baduel (11:24):

I've noticed a lot of chat GPT generated content flying around on my LinkedIn feeds, and I know some of the people who are posting them, and I know they don't have that insight and they don't write like that. And so are we going to be in a position where everyone and their grandmother is now a thought leader and they are churning up this thought leadership content, but then there's a total disconnect between the expertise that they are optically putting out and then the reality and how are consumers going to be able to navigate that difference?

Jonathan Mast (12:04):

Well, I think it's an excellent question, but I think that's where the experience in the authorit part of the model come through. It is going to be very difficult for that intern to demonstrate experience, and they may be able to write a good article. They may be able to write two or three good articles. They're not going to be able to write a hundred good articles because they're simply not going to be able to prompt it well enough. They're not going to have the experience to know the minutiae to be able to take one concept and turn it into four articles.

Doug Downs (12:34):

So this pulls on where I kind of think the functionality of a lot of junior and mid-level PR roles are going, how well we prompt the ai, then how well recraft what the AI originally produces. And I'm not saying there won't be great writers. There will be people who write so darn

Jonathan Mast (12:54):

Absolutely,

Doug Downs (12:55):

And they don't need AI and blah, blah, blah, but for the vast 99% of us, it's how well we prompt the AI and how well we shape it on the other side. Any ideas on especially that prompting part? How do we become the best prompt engineer we can be? Is it simply to tell the AI answer a lot of different common questions within this, and do I have to use different, not just chat GPT, but should I be using Gemini and cloud and perplexity and all of them to craft one blog?

Jonathan Mast (13:28):

As an expert, what we need to do is we need to be training the AI on who we are. Let's say you're going to write a press release for me, Doug. I'm not going to walk into your office and go, Hey, Doug, I need a press release. I need it on Monday and turn around and walk away because you're going to go, Jonathan, no problem, but hang on, I cut some questions and oh, no problem. I'm then going to answer the questions you've got. That's the part that we so often miss with ai. We go, I need a press release and I need it by Monday. And then we press go and chat GPT or whatever engine we're using tries to fill in some blanks. Maybe we gave it a little context, but it's not very good context because we're treating it like a slot machine where we want to pull that lever and we want the perfect response back out of it.

(14:17):

That's not how it happens. It's no different than Doug. You could probably write a press release at absolutely what I was working wanted after we'd worked together for a year or two because you'd know me that well, but the first interaction, it's not going to work that way. And so it's the same thing with ai. As an expert, you need to work with ai, you need to let it know who you are, you need to give it information about you, and you need to go back and forth. It is a collaborative experience, not a slot machine experience.

Farzana Baduel (14:50):

I think we do have this slightly naive approach to chat debut and others where it's almost like this magic genie just give it a single prompt and then magic will happen. Hold the letter so we don't Yeah, exactly. It's exactly, it's like a slot machine. And actually the way we should be looking at it is the way that we perhaps manage a junior is we give them the context. We understand that they need to understand and grasp certain insights in order for them to create the first draft, and when they bring it back, just like you would with a colleague to go back and forth and discuss it, that's a really interesting, and I think maybe we should look at it like a human as opposed to looking at a slot machine that it needs that. Can I give it a

Doug Downs (15:35):

Name?

Jonathan Mast (15:36):

Would that help if that makes you feel better? I don't think the AI cares one way or the other, but again, much just like you're talking to Ana, when I bring a new intern in or a new person on my team,

(15:50):

I don't trust that they know everything about my organization or that they know everything about me. I have to teach them that I have to give them information. So I give them our annual report to review. I give them proposals that we've done. I give them copies of our marketing material. That's the part I fear that too many of us we fail at with ai or we give it a little bit and it comes back, as you were saying, farana, maybe it gets us 80 to 90% of the way there, but it doesn't get us all the way there. And then we're like, well, that AI stuff that just stinks. Well, no, because if it was a coworker, we'd go, wow, this is really good start. This is solid, but here, this section we need to take a look at and let's flush this out a little bit over here. That's what we do. We go back and forth, and we don't tend to do that with ai. We tend to take what it gives us and then we read it and we judge it based upon what we have right there as opposed to treating it as an iterative collaborative process like we would with an intern, a really smart, really fast intern, but that still needs direction.

Farzana Baduel (16:54):

Yeah, absolutely. Last question, Jonathan. Any AI tools that you think PR people tuning in should start looking at and playing around with? Particularly for SEO and AEO? I know a EO is more your thing.

Jonathan Mast (17:08):

Yeah. If you're not looking at some of the new agen software that's being released, you really need to start using that. Tools like Manus, M-A-N-U-S, there are other tools like Gen Spark, GEN, spark, and then of course Chat GPT has now released its own version. Perplexity has kind of released its own version. Those are all tools that you need to be looking at because the big difference is that genic ai actually, we can now give an objective. It will develop a task list for that, and it will then proceed down to execute multiple tasks in order to achieve an objective as opposed standard ai, which is still very helpful, but where we basically have to prompt it, give me the outline now, break down each section, now write each section. Agen AI will go through that entire process and will take just as long, except that you won't have to be directing it.

Farzana Baduel (18:08):

So basically what you're saying, resistance is futile.

Jonathan Mast (18:12):

100%.

Farzana Baduel (18:14):

Okay. That's Brave New World. Thank you so much.

Jonathan Mast (18:19):

Absolutely.

Farzana Baduel (18:22):

Before you go, one last question from our previous guest, Susana Mendoza, are you ready?

Jonathan Mast (18:29):

I am.

Farzana Baduel (18:31):

And you can't use your agent ais or

Jonathan Mast (18:33):

No problem. Hands up. I'm not typing anything.

Farzana Baduel (18:35):

Yeah, I want a human response. No problem. Your hands. Okay. Right. This is what she asked. What tools do other

Doug Downs (18:43):

PR professionals or agencies, what do they use to make their lives easier on the day to day?

Jonathan Mast (18:49):

Well, I'm going to just double down on a portion of the agents that I talk about the genic ai, and it's going to be actually genic browsers. So we're seeing new web browsers come out getting, I'm going to date myself. I remember when it was Netscape and Internet Explorer and all those types of things.

Farzana Baduel (19:04):

Yeah. Remember

Jonathan Mast (19:05):

We got excited every time they had a new release because it'd be new features. We're seeing an entirely new breed of web browsers come out, and they're AI based genic browsers. That's what I used to do. The email that I talked to you about the other day, it's built into the browser. There's a number of them that are out, very few major players. Perplexity has a great one. I just totally forgot the name of the other one. There's one called dia. So there are some out there that to me, if I'm in the PR world, I need that because not only do I have access to ai, but as I'm going through, let's say I'm doing research or something like that, that AI now through my browser can access every tab I have open. Imagine having a tool in your browser just built in that says, I want to take everything that I'm looking at related to this topic, and I want you to summarize it for me. And instead of having to copy and paste and put in URLs, it literally looks at the 17 tabs that you have open on your browser, identifies which ones are about this, and then helps bring all that into a summary for you in seconds. So I think the tool that is just now coming out is going to be AI based web browsers.

Farzana Baduel (20:18):

You heard it here.

Jonathan Mast (20:29):

Oh, don't overshadow what this could be. I'm a really simple guy. My question for the

Doug Downs (20:36):

Next your turn, Jonathan, what question would you like to leave for? The

Jonathan Mast (20:38):

How is very simple.

Doug Downs (20:39):

I'm expecting something from here. I'm expecting

Jonathan Mast (20:42):

Something from, are they going to help their team embrace AI as opposed to getting replaced by ai? Because as leaders, I believe that's our responsibility.

Farzana Baduel (20:57):

Yep.

Jonathan Mast (21:02):

Dozens of times. And the results are always the same. We have fear mongering on the front going, oh my gosh, the world's going to come to an end. It doesn't matter whether we talk the printing press, the steam engine, the Concur combust. This is

Doug Downs (21:15):

Played out company for matter through the course

Jonathan Mast (21:17):

Of history, right? All kinds of things. The reality always ends up being there are people that get displaced. This is what happens with technology. By the way, the same thing happened when electricity came on. Cities no longer have positions. Automobile for computers, internet people light with flame. Yeah. That's where that came from. Those positions don't exist anymore and we're thankful they don't. But there technology always displaces some positions. To me, the difference is it displaces positions, not people gaslighting, and it doesn't have to displace

Doug Downs (21:53):

People. Amazing. Jonathan, really appreciate this today. Thought provoking all the way.

Jonathan Mast (21:59):

Thank you for having me. Always a pleasure.

Farzana Baduel (22:01):

Thank you. So here are the top three things that we gleaned from our convo with Jonathan Mast. Number one, a's importance over keywords. Jonathan emphasizes that answer engine optimization is the future for pr. Shifting focus from keywords to demonstrating expertise and answering audience questions. Number two, Google's evolving role in AI search. Jonathan predicts in his crystal ball that Google will no longer be synonymous with search as AI models are changing how content is consumed and monetized with a new emphasis on expertise, experience, authority, and trust. And we have a shiny mnemonic for you. EEAT, expertise, experience, authority, and trust. Now, number three, experience amplified by ai. Jonathan asserts the AI acts as a multiplier for experienced professionals, enabling them to produce more high quality content and maintain their advantage over less experienced individuals as consumers seek helpful content regardless of its AI origin.

Doug Downs (23:16):

What did you think? I saw, heard all the tools that he was talking about. I felt like that little boy at Christmas, and there's all these shiny presents and I want to play with them. All right.

Farzana Baduel (23:28):

I mean, we already, just listening to him just started downloading Manus and we're already just using it. So, my God, there is so much. And what's really exciting, it's going to be like Christmas every day with AI because actually it's going to be exponential. Just the constant updates of the tools, let alone new tools. And I think the biggest challenge will be figuring out which ones should we be learning about, because actually we just can't learn them all,

Doug Downs (23:54):

And the treadmill gets faster and faster and faster and faster, and we better be able to keep pace what's happening.

Farzana Baduel (24:01):

Yeah.

Doug Downs (24:02):

If you'd like to send a message to our guest, Jonathan Mast, we've got his contact information in the show notes. Stories and Strategies is a co-production of Curzon Public relations, JGR Communications, and Stories and Strategies, podcasts. If you like this episode, please leave a rating, possibly a review. Thank you as always, to Gold Star producers, Emily Page and David Olajide. And lastly, do us a favor forward this episode to one friend. Thanks for listening.