Hello Lunch Break. Lentils in front of me, water on the side, and I'm asking what in life is actually a surprise anymore. A friend just gave birth. Not long ago that was one of life's great reveals. Now we know in month four. The "Summer I Turned Pretty" director had to publicly ask fans not to disrupt the shoot in Wilmington last week, because every fan already knew where, when, and which actors would be there.

We've trained ourselves to expect the answer before the moment. People tell you what they want for Christmas. People tell their phones what to do before they put on shoes. Same thing is happening in your customers' search bar.

Alright. Clock's ticking. Back to work.

THE GAME CHANGED

Search Engine Journal published a piece this morning borrowing publisher Bill Ziff's old line: "People pay too much attention to events and not enough to trends."

The events are keynotes and model releases. The trend is the behavior shift. A whole generation conditioning themselves to ask AI conversational questions and expect answers back.

"AI is making basic informational content commoditized. What it cannot replicate is perspective earned through actual experience."

The plumber who has been under a thousand sinks. AI cannot fake that. It can only quote the people who have it.

And the clock is short. New Profound data dropped this morning (h/t Josh Blyskal): median time from publish to citation in ChatGPT or Claude is 6.81 days. 90% of cited pages cross the line by 37 days. If you're publishing real expertise and not getting cited inside that window, the problem isn't AI. It's something on your end.

THE WINDOW IS NOW

OpenAI just opened ChatGPT Ads Manager to US advertisers.

If Google Ads or Meta Ads have burned you, this is a fresh shot at putting your business in front of people while they're actively asking AI for a recommendation in your category. The application is short. The turnaround is fast (mine was a single day). Apply this week. Even if you don't run anything for thirty days, get access now.

YOUR COMPETITORS ARE ASLEEP

Your competition is not, in fact, sleeping on AI. They just aren't announcing it on LinkedIn.

While you're the only person who knows how half your business actually runs, someone two miles away is documenting their processes and handing them to a new hire, their AI agent. An agent that runs the same playbook every time, never forgets a step, and works on a Sunday. 

Here is where you start this week. Under thirty minutes:

Open Claude. Pick the most common service or operation you handle, the one only you really know how to do start to finish. Walk Claude through it step by step, like you're training someone over coffee. Then ask:

"Turn that into a one-page SOP with checkpoints, common mistakes to avoid, and exact wording to use with the customer at each stage. Format it so an AI agent could pick it up and run the process on day one."

Knowledge in your head is a tax. Knowledge on paper is leverage. Knowledge an agent can execute is a multiplier.

Reply and tell me which process you picked.

WHAT’S THE PROMPT

The AEO starter prompt. Fill in your business name and the problem you solve, then run it.

Click here to run it in ChatGPT →

You'll have a real 30 day plan back in ninety seconds. Save the output. Come back to it monthly.

CITED

Type "best business in Wilmington for handyman services" into Google, Gemini, Perplexity, or ChatGPT and you'll find the same name in every answer: WOOF Handyman

That is the AEO grand slam. Cited across all four major answer surfaces from a single query. WOOF has done the work that makes AI engines confident enough to recommend them. 

If your category has a "best in [your town] for ___" query, your job this month is to be the answer the machine feels safe giving. 

Need help, reach out!

- Anna

THE POLL