AI & Business
The Citation Economy
How AI Decides Which Brands Get Found
Your search traffic didn't fall because you did something wrong. The deal changed.
For 20 years, being found meant ranking so people could click through to you. Now they ask an AI, and it answers with a handful of sources it chose to trust. If your brand isn't one of them, you're invisible, with no penalty and no warning. This is the citation economy, and by mid-2025 most adults were already using AI to find what they needed. The shift is here; most companies just can't see it happening to them yet.
Sotiris Spyrou has worked in search since 1998, as Head of SEO inside large companies, as a chief marketing officer, and now as a consultant. This is the calm, clear field guide to the shift: why your traffic is sliding and what replaced the click, SEO, AEO and GEO told apart without the jargon, how AI actually decides which sources to cite, a due-diligence-grade diagnostic you can run on your own business in an afternoon scoring six areas so you know where you're losing, and a 90-day plan you can start on Monday.
Whether you run a small business, lead marketing, or invest in companies that live or die by being found, this hands you the map and the plan. For readers of big-idea business books who need a clear framework, not another hot take.