Clients are hungry for AI visibility aids, but buyers are skeptical of specialized markdown ads

Time claims it’s the first time a publisher has offered such a channel. In the eyes of some media experts, it’s a potential shortcut to solving AI visibility concerns.

“If you know that the ads you’re buying are actually going to show up in the LLMs, then it’s definitely certainly worth a test,” said Jeff Eisenfeld, director of search at Media by Mother.

More consumers are using AI search tools, like ChatGPT, for product research and discovery. That’s an issue for advertisers because they have so few means of knowing what AI chatbots are saying about their brands, or of influencing them to give a more favorable impression to consumers. 

Jonah Goodhart, co-founder and CEO of Mobian, the company working with Time to run the special ad inventory, told Digiday that paid ads can influence an LLM. “LLMs and AI want trusted information about brands,” he said. 

That’s music to the ears of marketers worried about the zero-click future. Most brands have looked to emerging generative engine optimization (GEO) practices, including ramping up branded content production, guided by AI search visibility tools like Scrunch and Profound, to improve their standing in ChatGPT or Gemini. Those are remedies that take time, and their impact isn’t guaranteed.

“Right now there’s a lot of testing based off of building content and hoping that it shows up within the LLMs,” said Eisenfeld. “Is that going to show up in the prompt? Is that going to have enough authority? Is that going to get crawled?”

A shortcut, therefore, is an idea worth weighing up. “The real opportunity lies in uncovering whether strategic placement alongside high-quality information can meaningfully shape how brands surface in AI-powered search,” said Jaquie Hoyos, chief media officer at Moroch. 

“It’s something we will test,” said Sam Huston, svp of media at Dept. “There’s not a client that would say no to testing something like this, depending on the cost, because there’s so much focus on GEO right now. It has been very disruptive to some businesses.”

Businesses with “high consideration” products that customers take a while to make their mind up over, like a car, are particularly vulnerable to the traffic changes wrought by zero-click search tools, Huston noted. “LLMs are playing a larger role in that purchase process,” he said.

But there’s plenty of skepticism among other buyers.

Danny Weisman, co-founder of indie agency Obsessed Media, argued that brands hoping to influence LLM responses would be better off investing in brand-building advertising. “It doesn’t strike me as something I’m gonna pursue today,” he said. “It feels like something that should be added value from these publishers versus like a main campaign.”

A recent study published by WARC and conducted by agency Charlie Oscar, estimated that 63% of a brand’s visibility was due to long-term brand equity; just 26% resulted from current marketing activities. 

“It’s going to be a magical thing,” joked Weisman. “You’ll influence not only LLMs, but real people too.”

Stephan Kopp, managing director of Mediaplus Performance, made a similar argument. “You can try it to influence LLMs with the ad content, but it will not happen,” he said. 

In any case, Kopp suggested it would only be “a matter of time” before AI developers tweaked their tools to ignore such workarounds for AI visibility, as Google has done repeatedly over the years with its search algorithm updates. Instead, Kopp advised CMOs to eat their digital vegetables.

“Write good content, help the users, and try to find strategies where you [encourage] users to cite your brand and talk about your product,” he suggested.

For those up for trying out the markdown ads, budget is likely to be pulled from programmatic display, rather than search — despite the end goal being improved AI search performance, noted Huston. Alternatively, brands might pull from dedicated testing pots to fund such experiments, in the same way they’ve funded ChatGPT ads. 

Rita Steinberg, vp of media at full-service agency FUSE Create, said the opportunity should, at best, be considered an experimental bet, rather than a component of a media plan.

“I think it’s interesting and worth testing, but as a discoverability test and potentially as part of a broader GEO strategy, not a new media channel,” she said. 

Beyond the intellectual debate, most buyers landed on the same conclusion. “You can influence AI visibility,” said Steinberg. “I just don’t think you can reliably buy it yet.”