iQuanti and Profound Join Forces to Help Brands Win in the AI Search Era

iQuanti, a data-driven digital marketing and analytics firm, has announced a new strategic collaboration with Profound to deliver a comprehensive solution for the emerging era of AI search. The partnership brings together iQuanti’s marketing performance and analytics expertise with Profound’s AI visibility intelligence – enabling brands to optimize their presence across AI-powered “answer engines” through what is being called Answer Engine Optimization (AEO), also referred to as Generative Engine Optimization (GEO).

As buyers increasingly turn to AI tools – such as chatbots and generative search platforms – for product research and discovery, this collaboration aims to help brands treat AI-powered discovery as a measurable, optimizable marketing channel, akin to organic search or paid media.

Under the partnership, Profound’s real-time AI visibility data will be integrated into iQuanti’s AI Search offering. This gives iQuanti’s clients visibility into how they appear in AI search outputs — which brands are cited, how frequently, in what context – helping marketers move from insight to action in optimizing content, visibility, and brand presence across large-language model (LLM)-based search tools.

The significance of the partnership is heightened by iQuanti’s own recent proprietary research into GEO, which analyzed over 8 million data points to identify factors driving brand visibility in AI-generated responses. Their findings suggest that besides traditional SEO fundamentals, previously overlooked non-SEO factors significantly influence brand citation in AI search results.

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With this alliance, brands now gain a unified platform that blends data-driven performance marketing with AI visibility intelligence — enabling continuous optimization, real-time visibility tracking, and strategic response to the evolving AI search landscape.

What This Means for B2B Marketing & Advertising

The iQuanti–Profound partnership is more than a tactical update – it signals a fundamental shift in how marketers must think about search, visibility, and brand discovery in a world increasingly dominated by AI. Here are few of the biggest implications for B2B firms and marketing agencies:

AI Search as a First-Class Channel

B2B buyers often rely on in-depth research, peer reviews, thought-leadership content, and trust signals — all traditionally accessed via search and content marketing. As more of them shift to AI-powered search tools at the start of their journey, “search” now includes AI-driven answer engines.

The partnership helps brands treat AI search as a first-class channel – optimizing for AI citations, visibility, and answer-engine presence – rather than simply replicating traditional SEO tactics. This reframes SEO/organic search strategy for the AI era.

Measurable & Optimizable AI Visibility

One of the key challenges with AI-powered search has been its black-box nature: brands could not reliably know if or how they appeared in AI-generated answers. With Profound’s AI visibility data embedded within iQuanti’s platform, marketers gain:

• Real-time visibility into how often their brand is cited by AI engines
• Analytics to track share-of-voice, citation frequency, visibility scoring
• Ability to correlate AI visibility with business outcomes (traffic, leads, conversions)

This turns AI search from a speculative “hope it shows up” channel into a measurable, optimizable part of the marketing stack — enabling more data-driven decisions and budget allocation.

Content Strategy and SEO Need Fundamental Re-thinking

Based on iQuanti’s GEO research, traditional SEO factors alone — while important — may not be sufficient to win in AI search. Non-SEO factors also influence citation visibility.

For B2B marketers, this means content strategy must evolve: it no longer suffices to just optimize for keywords and backlinks. Brands will need to craft content that is AI-friendly: structured, authoritative, semantically rich, and aligned with how AI “reads” and summarizes information.

Marketing teams may need new skill sets or processes to build AI-optimized content, manage citations, and monitor visibility across multiple AI platforms – creating demand for specialized expertise and possibly new vendor or agency services.

Competitive Advantage for Early Adopters

In sectors like enterprise software, SaaS, tech, finance, and other B2B verticals where buyers often begin with research, being present and visible in AI-powered search could become a key differentiator.

Brands that optimize early – using tools provided by iQuanti and Profound — may capture “first-mover advantage,” getting cited by AI engines when an entire buyer cohort shifts to AI-first discovery. Over time, this visibility may translate into brand authority, inbound leads, and conversion advantages.

New Services & Roles for Agencies and Martech Providers

With AI visibility becoming central, marketing agencies and martech vendors must evolve. Services around GEO audits, AI-visibility monitoring, AI-optimized content creation, prompt-level optimization, and AI-search performance analytics will likely be in demand.

Agencies that adapt quickly may offer differentiated value – helping clients navigate the emerging “AI search marketing” discipline and embedding it into wider demand-generation and brand-building strategies.

Challenges & Strategic Considerations

Despite the promise, there are challenges marketers and businesses should be aware of:

• Rapid Change & Uncertainty: AI search engines and LLMs are evolving rapidly. Visibility signals, ranking logic, and scraping/citation patterns may change frequently, requiring constant monitoring and adaptation.
• Data Quality & Attribution Complexity: While visibility data can tell you how often you’re cited, connecting that to actual business outcomes — leads, conversions, revenue – will require robust tracking and attribution frameworks.
• Content & Resources Requirements: Producing AI-optimal content – structured, authoritative, updated, comprehensive — demands resources, editorial discipline, and possibly new workflows. For smaller teams, this may pose a challenge.
• Risk of Over-Optimization: Just as over-optimized SEO once led to thin content and spammy practices, over-focus on AI-citation metrics could encourage superficial optimization or “gaming” of AI – which may undermine content quality or user trust.

Broader Impacts on the Business & Marketing Landscape

• Evolution from SEO to GEO/AEO: This partnership underscores the shift — search marketing is no longer just SEO for web pages; it’s about visibility across AI systems. The traditional SEO industry must evolve or risk obsolescence.
• AI Visibility as a Core KPI: Brands may start tracking AI visibility — share-of-voice, citations, AI referral traffic — alongside traditional KPIs like organic traffic or paid performance. This will redefine how marketing success is measured.
• Demand Surge for New Tools & Expertise: As more companies attempt to optimize for AI search, demand will grow for tools that can track AI visibility, content optimization platforms tuned for LLM discovery, and agencies with AI-search fluency.
• Content Strategy Reinvention: Content marketing will shift from chasing keywords to building authority, trust, structured content, and context-rich resources – designed for both humans and AI agents.

Conclusion

The partnership between iQuanti and Profound is key for brands in AI search. By merging data-driven marketing with AI visibility, they give marketers a unique edge. Now, they can view AI-powered search as a measurable channel, not a risky venture.

For B2B marketers, agencies, and businesses, this means new opportunities. They can take an early lead in AI discovery. They can also develop smarter content strategies and measure performance. This sets the stage for lasting visibility in the AI era. As AI search expands, companies that adapt fast will likely gain more voice, leads, and growth. They can achieve this by using GEO/AEO, investing in AI-driven content, and building visibility frameworks.