WEBINAR

What Every Customer Marketer Needs to Know About AEO (Even If You're Not Owning It)

Christy Roach

CMO | AirOps

For most customer marketers, AEO still sounds like someone else’s problem. AirOps’ research says otherwise. As CMO at AirOps, Christy Roach and her team studied how customer proof influences how AI systems actually decide what to cite and recommend. The stuff customer marketers make every day, for reasons that have nothing to do with search, is already shaping how AI tools describe and recommend brands. Here are some of their findings:

85%

of brand recommendations in AI search come from mentions elsewhere — not from a company's own website

3.5X

more likely that customer proof influences decision-stage AI answers, versus early research-stage ones

1,735

cited customer-evidence pages analyzed to see what actually gets picked up by AI search

In this webinar:

Christy shares what her research uncovered about the role customer proof plays in AI search, and makes the case for why customer marketers are best positioned to own it, whether or not it’s officially on their roadmap.

You’ll walk away knowing how to:

Harness the leverage that customer marketing already has over AI search. The evidence CMA produces for enablement, renewals, and case studies is disproportionately what AI systems pull from.

Get credit for driving growth (even if you’re not “owning” any AEO initiatives). Christy makes the case for why the teams who start treating customer proof as AI infrastructure now before it’s formally assigned to anyone are the ones who’ll get the credit for driving growth and building the right marketing programs to match the changing buyer journey.

Harness what AI systems are actually rewarding. The instinct is to chase more content or more SEO tactics. Christy’s data points somewhere else entirely, and it’s something CMA teams are uniquely suited to deliver.

Reframe your existing work as strategic, not just supportive. Customer proof has always been treated as a supporting asset for someone else’s campaign. Christy’s research gives CMA a case for why that framing undersells what the work is actually doing.

Related resources

CMA Role Support, Customer Marketing, Product Marketing

AEO Isn’t Someone Else’s Job

Marketing Leadership, Product Marketing

Vibe Code Check: 300+ Marketing Leaders on How AI Code Generation Is Empowering Their Teams

CMA Role Support, Marketing Leadership

Vibe Code Check: 300+ Marketing Leaders on How AI Code Generation Is Empowering Their Teams

CMA Role Support, Customer Marketing

Customer Marketers: Here’s What Your Sales Team Wishes They Could Tell You

CMA Role Support, Customer Marketing

Mending The Advancement Gap

Customer Marketing

The Customer Marketing and Advocacy Salary & Career Benchmark Report

CMA Role Support, Customer Marketing

My Manager Told Me to Be More Cross-Functional. I Didn’t Stop Until I’d Built the Whole Playbook.

Customer Evidence Library, Customer Marketing, Marketing Leadership, Product Marketing

We A/B Tested to Find the Social Proof That Actually Drives Conversion

Advocacy, Customer Marketing

I Built A Customer Awards Program That Gave Me Access To Our Most Elusive Customers

Marketing Leadership

We’re In The Age Of Trust. Here’s How Marketers Should Respond In 2026.

CMA Role Support, Customer Marketing, Marketing Leadership, Product Marketing

How 4 B2B Marketing Teams Are Using AI to Scale Customer Proof

CMA Role Support, Customer Evidence Library, Customer Marketing

How to Prove Your Customer Evidence Program Is Actually Working

Customer Marketing

What’s The Hidden Cost of Managing Customer Advocates In Spreadsheets?

CMA Role Support, Customer Evidence Library, Customer Marketing

I Cracked The Code On Measuring The Revenue Impact of Customer Evidence

Advocacy, Customer Marketing

I Built A Reference Program That Negated The Need For References

Customer Advisory Boards, Customer Marketing

I Found The Perfect Way To Run A Virtual CAB

Marketing Leadership, Product Marketing

The End of the Case Study Era: Why GTM Teams Need Always-On Advocacy

Customer Advisory Boards, Customer Marketing, Product Marketing

How to Build a Customer Advisory Board That Drives Retention, Expansion & Advocacy

Advocacy, Customer Marketing, Marketing Leadership, Product Marketing

How to Evaluate Customer Advocacy Platforms

Customer Marketing, Customer Surveying, Product Marketing

6 Reasons Your Customer Surveys Aren’t Getting You The Evidence You Need

Case Studies and Customer Stories, Customer Marketing

How To Build a Winning Case Study That Converts Prospects Into Buyers

CMA Role Support, Customer Marketing, Marketing Leadership

What 2025 Will Bring for The Customer Marketing Tech Landscape

Customer Evidence Library, Customer Marketing, Product Marketing

Stop Scrambling. Start Scaling: How To Build An Impactful Customer Evidence Program in 90 Days

Advocacy, CMA Role Support, Product Marketing

New Guide & RFP Template: Why Advocacy Platforms Collapse After the Demo (And How to Evaluate Them Without Getting Burned)

Customer Marketing

Where To Start With UserEvidence

Customer Advisory Boards, Customer Marketing, Marketing Leadership

What Most Teams Get Wrong About Customer Advisory Boards

Blind-But-Verified Proof, Customer Marketing, Marketing Leadership, Product Marketing

Blind-But-Verified: The Customer Evidence Your 2026 Strategy Needs

Customer Evidence Library, Customer Marketing, Marketing Leadership, Product Marketing

Case Studies Had Their Run. In 2026? It’s Going To Be All About Customer Evidence.

CMA Role Support, Product Marketing

How to Inject Customer Proof Into Your Messaging and Positioning (and Then Get Your Sales Team to Actually Use It)

Marketing Leadership

The Future of GTM Depends on Customer Proof: UserEvidence Acquires Zealot and Raises Additional $7 Million

Marketing Leadership

What Breaks Without Customer Proof?

Marketing Leadership

How Recorded Future Used Long-Form Research Content to Close Deals

CMA Role Support, Marketing Leadership

We Analyzed Over 100 Customer Marketing And Advocacy Job Postings. Here Are The Expectations (And Realities) Of The Roles.

Customer Marketing, Marketing Leadership, Product Marketing

The Evidence Gap 2025

Case Studies and Customer Stories, Customer Marketing, Product Marketing

The 2-part Formula That Most Marketers Miss

Case Studies and Customer Stories, Customer Marketing, Product Marketing

The Key To Getting The Best Customer Stories

Marketing Leadership

Marketing When the Stakes Are Life and Death

Marketing Leadership, Product Marketing

How Julien Sauvage Builds Positioning That Actually Works

Customer Evidence Library, Customer Marketing, Marketing Leadership, Product Marketing

How Superhuman Scaled Their Customer Storytelling Engine (While Keeping The Team Lean)

Case Studies and Customer Stories, Customer Marketing, Marketing Leadership, Product Marketing

How Grammarly Rewrote Their Customer Story Playbook

Marketing Leadership

What My CEO Really Thinks About Marketing

Marketing Leadership

What I Learned From 3 Original Research Projects That Actually Worked

Marketing Leadership

The Real Story Behind Evan Huck’s Career

Marketing Leadership

Episode 2 of The Long Game with Evan Huck

CMA Role Support, Customer Marketing, Marketing Leadership

Insights From 200+ Customer Marketers On How The Role Is Changing

Marketing Leadership

Episode 1 of The Long Game with Evan Huck

Marketing Leadership

The 3 Ways Your Marketing Team Needs To Be Using AI

CMA Role Support, Marketing Leadership

The Customer Marketing Landscape Is Blowing Up—Here’s Why That’s a Good Thing

Customer Evidence Library, Customer Marketing, Product Marketing

Building a Customer Evidence Program: How To Build Your Customer Evidence Library

Marketing Leadership

Is AI a Trust-Killer or Trust-Accelerator?

Marketing Leadership

How To Build Signal-based Marketing Plays

Case Studies and Customer Stories, Customer Marketing, Marketing Leadership, Product Marketing

5 Brands Thinking Differently About Case Studies and Nailing It

Marketing Leadership, Product Marketing

This Is How You Differentiate in a Saturated Market With Peter Mahoney @ GoTo

Marketing Leadership

Is Gating Your Content Hurting Buyer Trust?

Marketing Leadership, Product Marketing

How To Get C-Suite Buy-In for Non-Measurable Marketing With Mac Reddin @ Commsor

Marketing Leadership

Which Channels Should I Prioritize This Year?

Customer Marketing, Marketing Leadership, Product Marketing

Who the Heck Owns Customer Evidence? (If You Can’t Answer This In Your Org…Give This A Read)

Marketing Leadership, Product Marketing

How Do You Measure the Success of Marketing Experiments? With Pranav Piyush @ Paramark

Blind-But-Verified Proof, Customer Marketing, Product Marketing

What To Do When Your Customers Won’t Go On The Record

Marketing Leadership

We’re Forgetting This Crucial Piece of Building Buyer Trust

Marketing Leadership, Product Marketing

Say “NO” to Your CEO (Without Getting Fired) With Natalie Marcotullio @ Navattic

Customer Marketing, Marketing Leadership, Product Marketing

How to Build Trust With the Most Skeptical B2B Buyers

Marketing Leadership

The Best Way To Beat Out Buyer Skepticism

CMA Role Support, Customer Marketing, Marketing Leadership

Bitly’s Formula for Measuring The Impact of Customer Marketing

Marketing Leadership, Product Marketing

Market the Problem, Not the Solution With Brendan Hufford @ Growth Sprints

Marketing Leadership

How We Created Our Original Research Report (That Got 700 Downloads in 30 Days)

Marketing Leadership

Episode Three of The Long Game with Dave Gerhardt

Marketing Leadership

What’s the Real Impact of Original Research?

Case Studies and Customer Stories, Customer Marketing

4 Impactful Things You Can Do While That Case Study Is Stalled

Marketing Leadership

How To Create Impact While Inheriting A Marketing Program with Chelsea Castle @ Close

Marketing Leadership

Episode Two of The Long Game with Dave Gerhardt

Marketing Leadership

What Effective Content Distribution Actually Looks Like with Ross Simmonds @ Foundation

Marketing Leadership

Episode One of The Long Game with Dave Gerhardt

CMA Role Support, Customer Evidence Library, Product Marketing

How to Make Sure Your Hard-Won Customer Evidence Gets Used

Advocacy, Customer Marketing, Marketing Leadership

How To Build an Advocacy Program That Actually Accelerates Deals

Marketing Leadership

Our Downloads Plateaued…What’s Next?

Customer Marketing, Marketing Leadership, Product Marketing

Finding Customer Evidence In Unexpected Places with Kaylee Edmondson, Founder @ DemandLoops

Marketing Leadership

When Does AI Hurt Your SDRs?

CMA Role Support, Customer Marketing, Marketing Leadership, Product Marketing

5 Tips from Customer Marketing Leaders at Gong, Tipalti, and Trellix on Creating Major Impact

Marketing Leadership

What NOT to do as a CMO with Amrita Mathur, VP of Marketing @ Zapier

Marketing Leadership, Product Marketing

Steal Our Playbook: How Our Sales Team Uses UserEvidence To Boost Win Rates

Customer Marketing, Customer Surveying, Product Marketing

How Many Of These Common Survey Mistakes Are You Making?

Marketing Leadership, Product Marketing

Is a Major Product Pivot Death for a Brand?

Marketing Leadership

Breaking Down the SDR Problem With Kyle Coleman, CMO @ Copy.ai

Blind-But-Verified Proof, Marketing Leadership, Product Marketing

Your ROI Isn’t Effective Anymore (Here’s What You Can Do About It)

Marketing Leadership

The Brand Crisis That’s Lengthening Your Sales Cycle

Marketing Leadership

The Consumer Trust Problem Is So Bad That The Government Is Getting Involved

Marketing Leadership, Product Marketing

The Marketing Playbook for Category Creation With Jess Cook, Head of Content @ Island

Blind-But-Verified Proof, Customer Marketing, Marketing Leadership, Product Marketing

The #1 Reason B2B Deals Are Stalling

Marketing Leadership

What Customer Obsession Is (And What It Isn’t) with Jill Rowley

CMA Role Support, Customer Marketing, Marketing Leadership, Product Marketing

How Tara Robertson, CMO @ Bitly, Scales Customer Marketing for Maximum Impact

Marketing Leadership

Don’t Play It Safe With Your Content POV

Marketing Leadership

Proving Marketing’s Impact Is More Than Justifying Spend

Customer Marketing, Customer Surveying, Product Marketing

How to Launch Customer Surveys That Actually Get Responses

Marketing Leadership

Adam McQueen: Senior Manager, Content & Community @ Klue

Customer Evidence Library, Marketing Leadership, Product Marketing

Building and Scaling Customer Evidence Programs

Marketing Leadership

Don’t Confuse Demand Creation With Brand Awareness

Customer Marketing, Customer Surveying, Product Marketing

Your Survey Isn’t Getting Responses? Here’s What to Do

Marketing Leadership

Sidney Waterfall: SVP, GTM Strategy @ Passetto