In a nutshell:
For several months now, we've been getting the same signal from our customers, with good leads saying they found them via ChatGPT or Gemini. The AI traffic source is starting to have its own dedicated line in our customers' reporting, and to generate qualified pipeline.
According to data presented by HubSpot at the HubSpot Summit in Boston in June 2026, AI session volume already represents 56% of traditional search volume worldwide (source: Graphite.io).
Answer Engine Optimization is the practice of improving the frequency and quality with which your brand appears in responses generated by AIs such as ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini or Perplexity.
Unlike SEO, which aims to position a link in a list of results, AEO aims to become the brand that the AI quotes, recommends and positively describes when your target asks a question.
AEO doesn't replace SEO, but complements it in a field that SEO can't cover: the conversations that take place directly inside AI interfaces.
Yes! In an analysis of 14 million citations in AI Mode and AI Overviews, 62.1% of the pages cited by AIs are blog posts and listicles (short text written in list form with enough content to be published as an article), compared with 16% for product pages and just 3.5% for user reviews (source: HubSpot, "Reimagining Marketing: The AEO Playbook", June 2026).
In other words: your blog is the foundation of your AI visibility, provided you don't approach it as you did in 2023.
Based on an analysis of around 10,000 URLs across 10 companies and 8 AI engines, HubSpot identified the factors that correlate most strongly with citations:
Remember: AIs prefer structured, information-dense content. No long narrative introductions. One question, one direct answer, some numbers.
Because search engines look for consensus. A brand mentioned only on its own site doesn't have the same credibility in the eyes of AIs as a brand mentioned consistently and positively on several external sources.
HubSpot has observed that LinkedIn, Reddit and YouTube dominate citations for questions with high purchase intent (source: HubSpot, AEO Playbook 2026). If your competitors are appearing in these ecosystems and you're not, you're quietly losing ground, month after month.
Three actions to prioritize in the next 30 days:
This is exactly the approach we've documented in The Complete Guide to Answer Engine Optimization (AEO): a 13-page strategic guide that details the 5 pillars of an AEO strategy, the success indicators to follow, and a concrete roadmap for the Quebec and Canadian B2B market.
Your competitors may already be cited by AIs, and the question is no longer whether your customers will use the answer engines, but rather whether they'll find you there!
Here are five metrics to integrate into your marketing dashboard. HubSpot's AEO tool lets you track these metrics.
HubSpot's AEO tool is available as part of the Marketing Pro and Enterprise packages, or as a stand-alone version for around USD 50 per month.
For reference: the HubSpot marketing team deployed its own AEO strategy and observed a 1,850% increase in qualified leads from AI-driven discovery, with a conversion rate 3× higher than for organic traffic.
AEO is a strategy that requires expertise in visibility monitoring, content strategy, channel optimization and continuous iteration, as well as the tools to tie it all together in a coherent workflow.
AEO is now naturally at the heart of the way we help our customers capture attention.
Parkour3 is the largest HubSpot partner in Quebec and one of the only HubSpot Elite partners in Canada. We specialize in helping manufacturers and businesses build and execute AEO strategies using HubSpot's AEO tools (in French and English), with a deep understanding of the regional B2B market.
If you'd like to take advantage of a free AEO visibility assessment to find out where your company stands in IA responses, what you need to put in place to become the benchmark, and measure your AEO success, book your assessment here.