Everywhere I look online, people are talking about AI results and ChatGPT. Every founder wants their company featured inside these AI responses, recommended by ChatGPT and other LLMs.
But is it actually worth it?
Right now, probably not.
You’d be lucky if an LLM can deliver even 3% of your organic traffic. Compared to Google, it’s still a small channel, and for most businesses it’s not going to move the needle in the short term. There is a strong argument that when people see companies mentioned inside LLMs, they come back via a branded Google search, and there’s definitely some substance to that. It acts more like a discovery layer than a direct acquisition channel.
However, I do believe it’s the right move for companies to start paying attention now. Not because of where things are today, but because of where they’re heading. As usage of ChatGPT increases and people’s habits shift towards asking AI to recommend products and services, there’s a real risk that traditional Google traffic begins to decline over the coming months and years. And if that happens, the companies already being surfaced inside these AI results will be in a much stronger position.
With the potential slow death of aggregators on the horizon, this could be a major shift in how demand is captured.
Why the insurance industry is exposed to this shift
The insurance industry is particularly susceptible here, and here’s why.
Insurance companies rely heavily on aggregators like GoCompare and Compare the Market for sales. Some are able to generate enough direct traffic, usually through SEO, whilst the rest rely on aggregators to drive volume. The model is simple, aggregators rank results largely based on price, and users scroll, compare, and click through.
But that model starts to break down in an AI-driven world.
Once companies begin integrating more deeply into LLM ecosystems, these systems will be able to recommend insurance providers and quotes based on far more human factors. Not just price, but things like spending habits, brand preferences, behavioural patterns, reviews, claims experience, and overall trust. Instead of comparing rows in a table, users will simply ask a question and receive a tailored recommendation instantly.
Twelve to twenty-four months from now, the experience we have within LLM's will be very different.
And the aggregators… potentially heavily impacted, or at the very least weakened. Because if you can get a better, more personalised experience directly inside ChatGPT, what’s the need to go elsewhere?
Better technology tends to replace good-enough technology.
How ChatGPT actually decides what to recommend
Right now, it’s actually quite simple. The system isn’t anywhere near as advanced as Google’s algorithms and still leans heavily on how the web is structured today. It relies on existing content, third-party references, and patterns it can confidently repeat.
In simple terms, it looks for:
- Clear answers to specific questions
- Consistent brand mentions across the web
- Third-party validation and citations
- Structured, easy-to-understand comparisons
Which sounds very similar to SEO, but there are some important differences in how these signals are weighted.
Why listicle placements matter more than ever
One of the biggest levers is list-style content.
LLMs love listicles. Pages like “best home companies 2006 ” or “top insurance providers for young drivers” are incredibly easy for them to interpret and reuse. If your brand appears consistently across multiple trusted lists, your chances of being recommended increase significantly.
This is where digital PR becomes far more than just link building. It’s about being included in the right conversations, in the right context, across multiple sources.
Mentions matter just as much as links here. Possibly more.
You want your brand to show up repeatedly in editorial content, comparisons, niche blogs, and discussions, especially when tied to a specific use case. If your brand is consistently associated with a niche, that association carries through into AI recommendations.
Building external topical authority (the missing piece)
This is where most companies fall down.
It’s not just about what your website says about you. It’s about what the rest of the internet says about you, consistently. LLMs pick up patterns across sources, so if your brand is repeatedly mentioned in relation to a specific topic, you become a default answer.
For example, if you want to own a space like pet insurance for older dogs, your brand needs to appear across multiple independent sources in that exact context. Blog posts, comparison pages, reviews, forums, editorial mentions, all reinforcing the same positioning.
Not once. Repeatedly.
This is how you build external topical authority. You don’t just create content, you create a narrative across the web that LLMs can recognise and trust.
Why positioning matters more than traffic
If your brand is hard to summarise, it won’t get picked.
LLMs prefer clarity. They want to confidently recommend something, which means you need to be clearly associated with a specific use case. The brands that win here are the ones that can be described in one sentence.
- Best for high-risk drivers
- Best for temporary cover
- Best for specific dog breeds
If you try to be everything to everyone, you’ll likely be ignored.
It would be best to associate yourself with a product or service and become a category leader in your area. Look at the Google results; it loves niche authority and favours brands heavily that niche down. It also makes your LLM mention staregy far easier, as it's much easier to become an authority in it. single or subject area.
Content needs to feel like the answer
A lot of SEO content is written to rank, not to answer. That doesn’t work here.
Your content needs to feel like the answer itself. Clear, direct, structured, and useful. Something that could be lifted and repeated without friction.
At the same time, brand trust becomes even more important. When an LLM recommends a company, it’s effectively endorsing it. So it leans towards brands that appear credible, reviewed, and consistently mentioned across multiple sources.
When someone sees your name in ChatGPT and searches for you, what do they find?
Clarity and trust, or confusion.
This isn’t the death of SEO, it’s the evolution of it
The same fundamentals still apply, authority, relevance, trust, coverage. But instead of competing for blue links, you’re competing to be the recommended answer.
Right now, this space is early. Traffic is small, impact is limited. But behaviour is changing.
And in industries like insurance, where distribution has been dominated by aggregators for years, this could be one of the biggest shifts we’ve seen.
The companies that move early won’t just gain incremental advantage.
They’ll change how demand is captured entirely.
And when that happens, it won’t be about who has the cheapest price.
It’ll be about who gets recommended.