Why AI visibility belongs on the leadership agenda, and how to get it right

Sometimes a conference comes down to one sentence. For me it was this one, which Nadine Wolanke, Managing Director of Adobe Central Europe, brought back from a conversation with a CMO: "We're running as fast as we can, but we really don't know where we're going" (translated from German).

She says she hears that from a lot of customers right now, whether they are large enterprises, midsize companies, or startups. I see the same thing in my GEO workshops. Everyone is experimenting, everyone is building pilots, everyone is testing tools. But the strategic question is framed too narrowly. The question is not whether your company uses ChatGPT. It is how AI systems understand, categorize, and recommend your brand. Answer that, and you have a direction. Skip it, and you are just running.

At a glance

• What this is about: AI visibility, meaning how visible a brand is in AI answers (ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, Google AI), has become a leadership job, not an add-on to SEO.
• The occasion: Adobe Summit 2026 in Munich: a press briefing, the keynote, and interviews with Adobe CTO Hartmut König and AI Evangelist Julian Kramer.
• The numbers: AI traffic to retail sites up 393% in Q1 2026, traditional organic traffic declining, and according to Adobe, visitors from AI search convert significantly better.
• The core message: Visibility decides relevance, and relevance decides growth. A brand that is invisible in search and discovery stays invisible as a brand.
• What to do: Measure first, then act. Substance over AI content mills, machine-readable product facts, quick wins, new KPIs, and a learning loop.

The numbers: is the shift already here?

Yes. The shift is here, not "coming soon." In Munich, Adobe presented data that should end every debate about whether to wait or get started. AI traffic to retail websites grew 393 percent in the first quarter of 2026, while traditional organic search traffic is declining. Adobe also reports that 80 percent of consumers make decisions based on AI-driven recommendations in 40 percent of their searches. And according to Adobe, visitors who arrive at a website from an LLM convert significantly better, because they finished their research long before they clicked. Adobe cited 46 percent on stage at the Summit. Its public report puts the conversion advantage over other sources at about 31 percent.

Hartmut König summed it up in our conversation: "By the time they come to your website, they've basically already been through the awareness and consideration phase, and that's why they convert better" (translated from German).

At the morning briefing, Julian Kramer described the same development from a brand's point of view, and he didn't sugarcoat it: "The traffic that still comes is extremely high-quality, but there's less and less of it" (translated from German). That is the new reality: fewer visitors, and the ones who do arrive have already made up their minds. The interesting question is no longer "How do I get clicks?" It is "What happens in the phase before that, when the AI shapes the opinion?"

How is the customer journey changing?

It is turning inside out. The traditional journey of awareness, consideration, and conversion is falling apart. In our interview, König described what is replacing it: "Today you basically have a journey that goes: I have a problem, I explain the problem to the LLM, the LLM orchestrates the answer, and then I arrive at a solution. That's a completely different journey" (translated from German).

People no longer search for "best running shoes." They describe their injury history and ask for a recommendation for the right shoe. The consideration phase happens inside the AI, before anyone visits a website. The website doesn't disappear, but its role changes. It is no longer where the opinion forms. It is the final proof of trust just before the decision.

König showed how big Adobe thinks this shift is with a comparison I didn't expect to hear so bluntly: he put its impact on par with the arrival of the smartphone.

"It used to be about being found on Google. Today it's about being understood by an AI. And tomorrow, that is exactly what will decide which brands we choose."

Adobe, brand visibility session, Adobe Summit 2026 (translated from German)

Why is this a leadership priority and not an SEO task?

Because AI visibility can't be delegated away. That was the most important thread running through the day, and there are three reasons for it.

• It is about brand leadership, not rankings. König talked about "new places where people get advice" (translated from German): AI chatbots that explain, compare, and recommend brands, outside the brand's own control. His core message: "If we're invisible in search and discovery, we'll stay invisible as a brand" (translated from German). A brand that gets categorized wrongly there doesn't lose a ranking. It loses control over how its own story gets told.
• The knowledge it takes sits deep inside the company. LLMs need verified, machine-readable facts: product data, differentiators, use cases, prices. Julian Kramer made clear that this is exactly the content traditional brand communication has been missing, and that the bigger the brand, the less information its website often contains. No agency can invent these facts. They come from product management, engineering, sales, and service. Only leadership can bring them together.
• AI is an operating model, not a pilot project. König's image for it: "AI is not the one muscle that can suddenly lift something, but the interplay of the whole organism" (translated from German). AI becomes the central nervous system that connects data, content, and processes. Pilots fail one after another because they lack exactly that nervous system. The next step is moving from pilot to transformation, and that decision doesn't get made at the team level.

Why are hidden champions sitting on a huge opportunity?

Because AI answers can give them a reach they never built through marketing. This was my favorite moment of the day. König talked about German mechanical engineering companies that lead their global markets that never learned how to be visible on Google, and never had to. His scenario: a researcher in Hong Kong or Kuala Lumpur asks an AI for a highly specialized solution. If the global market leader from the Black Forest doesn't come up, she buys from a competitor, without a single website visit ever taking place.

The flip side is an enormous opportunity, which König called "a gigantic opportunity, especially for our market" (translated from German): "If they get it right, these brands will gain a visibility they never would have gotten through branding" (translated from German).

Instead of pouring millions into ads, niche suppliers can "inoculate" the models with the expertise of their engineers: describe their competitive advantages so that an AI understands them and recommends them, the way a good advisor would. For Germany's midsize companies, this may be the biggest marketing opportunity in years.

How do you get it right? Five steps

1. Measure first, then act

König quoted a management classic at the Summit: "You can manage what you can measure" (translated from German). Where does your brand show up in AI answers today, for which questions, and next to which competitors? You can start with a small Semrush subscription. Larger setups use tools like Adobe LLM Optimizer to test prompts against the models dynamically.

2. Substance over AI content mills

Generic AI-generated content doesn't solve the visibility problem, because generic content gets filtered out. König in our interview: "You can't shortcut the work of developing the content itself" (translated from German). The workflow that works: interview your experts and engineers, write it up the way a journalist would, publish it, and only then have AI turn it into 15 versions for LinkedIn, trade publications, and other channels.

3. Make product facts machine-readable

Sizes, weights, specs, prices, use cases: get them out of the PDF behind the login and away from pure marketing speak. The advice I give more often than any other fits here perfectly: say on your website what you actually do. "Pure passion" in the hero section helps neither people nor machines.

4. Grab the quick wins

Maintain your Wikipedia article, pull existing white papers out of the hidden corners of your website and make them accessible to LLMs, and check your presence on the platforms that matter. It costs little and works fast.

5. Set new KPIs

Julian Kramer's farewell to the old way of measuring: "This whole number-go-up thing is basically over" (translated from German). Qualitative metrics replace traffic, clicks, and likes: mentions and how you are positioned in AI answers, share of voice against competitors, and conversion of pre-qualified traffic.

What ties it all together?

A learning loop. Measure, find the gaps, close them, measure again. That loop needs someone who owns it, which is exactly why this belongs with leadership.

"In the age of agents, visibility determines relevance, and relevance determines growth."

Closing of the brand visibility session, Adobe Summit 2026 (translated from German)

Conclusion

The tools exist, the numbers are clear, and the rules of the game are known. What many companies still lack is the decision to take real ownership of AI visibility instead of treating it as an SEO add-on. The brands that make that decision in 2026 will become tomorrow's default answers.

Ready for an AI visibility check?

Book your free GEO quick call, and let's find and prioritize the moves that matter most for your brand. By the way, this report first appeared in GEO-Briefing, my LinkedIn newsletter on AI visibility, which is published in German.

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Frequently asked questions

What is AI visibility?

AI visibility (often called Generative Engine Optimization, or GEO) describes how visible a brand is in AI answers: whether ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, or Google AI name the brand for relevant questions, categorize it correctly, and recommend it. Unlike SEO, it is not about rankings. It is about being understood and cited by AI systems.

Why is AI visibility a leadership priority and not an SEO project?

Because it is about brand leadership rather than rankings. Because the knowledge it takes (product facts, differentiators, prices) sits deep in product management, engineering, and sales, and only leadership can bring it together. And because AI is a company-wide operating model, not an isolated pilot project. These decisions don't get made at the team level.

Do visitors from AI search really convert better?

Yes. According to Adobe, visitors who reach a website through an LLM convert significantly better, because they have already completed awareness and consideration inside the AI. Adobe cited 46 percent on stage at the Summit. Adobe's public report puts the conversion advantage over other sources at about 31 percent. So the traffic gets smaller, but its quality goes up considerably.

How do you get started with AI visibility?

Measure first, then act: where does your brand show up in AI answers today, for which questions, and next to which competitors? Then produce substance instead of churning out AI content, make product facts machine-readable, grab quick wins like Wikipedia and white papers, and set new, qualitative KPIs. And a learning loop ties it all together: measure, close the gaps, measure again.