AI visibility is not SEO 2.0 | Imri Marcus

Brandlight is building an AI visibility platform that helps enterprise brands, most of them Fortune 500 companies, monitor and influence how they show up in AI engines across AI search, AI ads, and agentic commerce.In a recent episode of BUILDERS, we sat down with Imri Marcus, CEO & Co-Founder of Brandlight, to learn how the company won Fortune 500 customers from day zero and turned AI visibility into a CMO priority instead of an SEO project.Topics Discussed:Why calling AI visibility "SEO 2.0" is the industry's most prevalent misconceptionWho owns AI visibility inside enterprise marketing departments, and why Brandlight always starts from the CMOHow Brandlight answers skeptics who claim AI engine results cannot be influencedThe advisory board of Fortune 50 CMOs and agency CEOs that opened enterprise doors from day zeroWhy enterprise AI visibility programs require orchestrating close to a hundred stakeholdersHow the education burden in first CMO conversations disappeared between late 2024 and todayWhat happens to SEO, brand, legacy search, and Google as search shifts into AI enginesReddit's real role in an AI visibility strategyGTM & Technology Adoption Lessons:Refuse the frame that shrinks your category: Imri said the most prevalent misconception is that AI visibility is SEO 2.0. Brandlight positioned it as a completely new marketing channel where traffic just happened to be the first KPI that got hit. The framing decides who owns the problem and how big the budget conversation can be.Start the sale where the orchestration lives: The SEO team is involved in every account Brandlight works with, but Imri called a single-department home the wrong place for a big enterprise. Brandlight always tried to start from the CMO and preach a holistic orchestrated approach, because PR, content, partnerships, and even legal teams need to get involved.Build the door-opening system before the market exists: Brandlight went after the Fortune 500 from day zero and built an advisory board of over a dozen advisors, people who are or were Fortune 50 CMOs and CEOs of some of the biggest agencies. The advisors made the initial connections, and the first iterations of the platform were seen by Fortune 50 CMOs.Treat early education as pipeline, not lost deals: At the end of 2024, the first 15 minutes of every CMO conversation was education. Not all of those CMOs purchased in 2024 or 2025, but it made sense to all of them, and Imri said the vast majority became customers later on.Answer skepticism with proof at the largest possible scale: Against the claim that AI answers cannot be influenced, Brandlight presented on the ANA's big stage with its customer Kimberly-Clark: over 12 months, the program took 12 out of 12 brands to lead their categories.Anchor urgency in behavior data, not predictions: Imri said that when Brandlight started, less than 1% of search happened in AI engines, and now it is over 50%. Brandlight analyzes billions of data points daily and can show traditionally successful marketing organizations losing share of voice while smaller companies overtake them.Position the new channel as additive, not substitutive: Imri argued SEO foundations still matter and brand still matters. AI visibility is an addition, not a substitution, which lowers the perceived risk of adopting it.// Sponsors: Front Lines -- Silicon Valley's leading Podcast Production Studio.We help B2B tech companies launch, manage, and grow podcasts that drive demand, awareness, and thought leadership. Mention you are a listener and get a 10% discount. www.FrontLines.io/Podcast-as-a-Service