ABOUT THIS EPISODE
Traditional SEO is changing. In the AI-driven search era, users aren't just clicking links anymore—they're asking conversational engines for synthesized answers. If your brand isn’t showing up directly in LLM citations, your business is effectively invisible. Mehmet Alp Aysan has the playbook to reverse-engineer generative engine optimization (GEO) and win the future of digital discovery.
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In this episode, George Vlasyev sits down with Mehmet Alp Aysan, Co-Founder of Cognizo and former Search Reliability Engineer for Microsoft Copilot. Alp breaks down how to track your brand's presence across language models, why the probabilistic nature of LLMs is a massive opportunity for smaller specialists, and how to build a cohesive narrative that AI agents actually trust.
Key Topics Covered:
Inside Microsoft Copilot: What working on tech giant infrastructure teaches you about the hidden, ever-changing business metrics driving AI search algorithms.
The Failure of Programmatic Spam: Why flooding your website with thousands of low-quality AI blogs is unsustainable and will ultimately get your brand penalized.
Demystifying LLM "Temperature": A simple, clear breakdown of the probabilistic math behind why AI models roll the dice to pick different words and links.
Scaling AI Visibility 30x: The step-by-step methodology behind how Opel successfully dominated niche topics day-over-day using highly authoritative, original content.
Marketing to Agents, Not Humans: Preparing for a zero-click world where conversational assistants make the ultimate buying decisions for consumers.
Results as a Service (RaaS): Why the entire digital ecosystem is shifting away from traditional SaaS apps and into automated outcome delivery.
Connect with Mehmet Alp Aysan:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alp-aysan/
Website: https://www.cognizo.ai/
Subscribe to Substack: https://georgevlasyev.substack.com/
The GEO Blueprint Podcast explores how brands can win visibility in the age of generative AI, LLM-powered search, and shifting digital ecosystems.
Timestamps:
00:00 - Intro
01:10 - GEO vs SEO — what's the difference and where do they overlap?
02:51 - 5.5 years building AI search at Microsoft — what that taught him
05:51 - The biggest myths about AI visibility he keeps hearing on LinkedIn
07:03 - What is original content in the age of AI?
10:14 - Opel grew AI visibility 30x — here's exactly what they did
11:54 - How does Cognizo actually track AI visibility?
18:09 - The biggest opportunity in marketing most companies are completely missing
19:54 - Can a small company compete against HubSpot in AI search?
23:04 - How will AI fundamentally change marketing in the next 3 years?
26:53 - SaaS is becoming RaaS — results as a service
31:14 - Brand has zero AI visibility — what's the very first step?
32:49 - 73% of LinkedIn citations come from long-form articles — not posts
34:13 - Why narrative and community are the foundation of AI visibility
35:37 - What actually happens when you type a question into AI search?
37:57 - How do you deal with the probabilistic nature of AI when tracking visibility?
40:18 - AI intimacy and what it means for brand marketing
42:38 - What does AI search look like in 2 years?
43:53 - What does "building a narrative" actually mean in practice?
45:09 - First party vs third party — what's the right ratio?
47:08 - Which AI engine are you betting on in 2026?
48:48 - Will there be one AI winner or will it stay scattered?
54:46 - How do you use AI in your own work?
56:37 - What is the one thing AI cannot do for a marketing team?
58:32 - Is AI making us lazier?
1:00:37 - What is uniquely human that AI will never replicate?
1:01:11 - Outro
#GEO #AISearch #SEO #GenerativeEngineOptimization #Cognizo #AIFirst #LLM #DigitalMarketing #B2BSaaS #ArtificialIntelligence #SearchMarketing #GEOBlueprint #Entrepreneurship
