Before you read any further, try something. Open ChatGPT, type the question your best customer would ask before they shortlist anyone, run it two or three times because the answers move between sessions, and see whose names keep coming back. Marketing directors doing that exercise for the first time usually go quiet for a second.
Competitors get named, and you don't. Sometimes it's a company a third your size.
Your SEO agency has no answer. Ask them how a model chooses which sources to quote. They'll get vague, because nobody on the team has actually checked.
Nobody is measuring it. Your monthly report covers rankings, sessions, and conversions. Scroll to the end, and there's still nothing telling you whether an assistant mentioned you.
Your Google rankings aren't carrying over. You hold page one for your core terms, and it makes no difference to what Gemini says about your category, because the two systems weigh a page against different criteria.
The first-mover window is closing on you. Brands that started this work in the last year already have citations in place, and every new one they earn makes the next one cheaper.
You can't build the business case. Without a way to tie AI mentions to the pipeline, the budget request reads as an experiment, and experiments lose to paid search every quarter.