In this episode of The Marketing Front Lines, we speak with Ted Skinner, Vice President of Marketing at Fullintel. As AI transforms how buyers research and evaluate solutions, B2B marketers face an urgent imperative: adapt to answer engine optimization or risk invisibility. With 89% of procurement departments now starting their vendor search with AI, and the average search query expanding from 2-3 words to 23 words, the game has fundamentally changed. Skinner shares the tactical framework his team uses to navigate this revolution, explaining how marketers can position their brands to be discovered when AI agents—not humans—are doing the searching.
Topics Discussed:
- The shift from search engine optimization (SEO) to answer engine optimization (AEO)
- Why 60% of Google searches now end without a click
- How procurement departments use AI to begin 89% of vendor searches
- The evolution of search queries from 2-3 words to 23-word conversational questions
- Integrating marketing and PR messaging across all customer touchpoints
- Why first-mover advantage has compressed from years to months
- The difference between AI as a productivity tool versus AI as a strategic threat
- How agentic AI is already making purchases autonomously