Iliya Valchanov

CEO @ Team-GPT | 1,300,000+ AI students on Udemy

Putting AI agents inside marketing agencies.

3x founder, 1.5M AI students on Udemy, ex-math competitor, finance graduate, 3x $0-$1M, boostrapped to $30M revenue.

Creator of content, software, and agents.

Co-founder & CEO

Learn, collaborate, and master ChatGPT in one shared workspace.

We are planning our biggest launch ever.

I'm in full founder mode, currently running 3 agents at a time (2 coding, 1 GTM), not counting the background ones. 

I don't have cognitive space for more even if I wanted to.

I feel like 10x-ing myself (again?). How many times can this happen within 1 year?

Will keep you posted.

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Personal website

Juma is a team-first AI workspace for marketing teams. 

We help teams and agencies co-create with AI, stay aligned on every project, and deliver better results together. Because the best ideas don't come from AI alone. They come from teams working together.

Juma is trusted by teams at Costa Coffee, Procore, Maersk, and Salesforce. Backed by True Ventures and Pact.


75K+ users, $1M+ ARR, AI for marketing teams

Co-Founder & CEO

1.5M+ students in the field of statistics, data science, machine learning, and deep learning.

AI Course Creator

3veta is an appointment scheduling platform with 10K+ active users.

Co-Founder

Co-founded and led 365 Data Science to 4M students and $1M ARR.

CEO @ Juma | 1,500,000+ AI students on Udemy

CEO @ Juma → AI that runs your marketing | 1.5M+ AI students in a past life

Juma was boostrapping and profitable.

But our competition wasn't. 
They had raised $3-5-10M+ and were growing by burning tons of capital.

The only way for us to exist today was to become venture-backed. 

Your market and competition are often the main drivers of VC-backed vs bootstrapped.

Trump banned Anthropic's Claude from working with US government.

It's because CEO of Anthropic refused these 2 use cases:
- Mass surveillance of US citizens
- Fully autonomous weapons

Mass surveillance of US citizens is clearly bad.

But here's why autonomous weapons are so terrifying:

Imagine 10 million drones controlled by a single person, with no chain of command and no accountability - just an algorithm deciding who dies.

That's not defense but the most powerful offense.
It's a dangerous concentration of power.


Trump called Dario selfish and arrogant. 
But Dario Amodei is the only major AI CEO publicly saying this out loud. I've read his 15,000-word essay 'The Adolescence of Technology'. Twice and highly recommend it.

Actually, Dario's company (Anthropic) has the most powerful technology in history of humanity. But he wants it to be used for good. 


The whole problem and rhetoric about this is about who actually gets to decide.

Who should decide how AI gets used in war?

AI, the Pentagon or the CEO of a tech company?

We're in the middle of a pricing overhaul at Juma and wanted to share what we're thinking. 

The problem:
We sell an AI agent for marketing tasks. Until now we've been seat-based ($25-40/seat/month). But as the agent gets more capable, the business model breaks in two ways:

1. Our costs are usage-based, our revenue isn't. 
Some customers pay $40/month and burn $800 in compute. Others pay $250/month and barely use it. The misalignment is getting worse as agents do more. We are not aligned with power users but with sleepers, which is ridiculous as a concept.

2. Seats shrink, not grow. 
One person with a good agent does what 3-4 people did before. Our customers are literally reducing seats because fewer people need to touch the work. We're selling units of something that's deflating (seats).

What we are thinking:
Low workspace fee + unlimited users + credits. 

Heavily inspired by Lovable's model (they hit $200M ARR in 13 months after removing per-seat pricing). 

The idea:
- Free tier with enough credits to complete a few full agent runs (the 'aha' moment)
- One paid plan - flat workspace fee, unlimited seats, credits included, top-ups when you need more
- Enterprise for SSO/compliance/volume

Image shows what we are thinking (far from final).

We are showing what credits can do, because it is the main objections right now. 

We are excited about virality of this because if adding a teammate costs $0, every person invited is a potential power user who drives credit consumption.

What we're still debating:
1. Base price. $29? $49? $99? 
Lower = more viral, higher = better signal + filters out tire-kickers. We don't have a sales team so PLG has to do the work.

2. Credit anxiety..
Everyone on the team has experienced it — you're mid-workflow and suddenly worried about burning credits. UX has to solve this (never break a run mid-execution, show cost before action, auto-recharge).

3. Migration
What do we do with existing clients?

Curious about any thoughts you have whatsoever. 
We need to decide ASAP and get it live by 23 March.

Yavor Belakov was about to give an awesome lecture on agents but something came up. Whoever is coming will get the 2nd best option- me.

If you enjoy my lecture on agents, I'll stop accepting the fundraising talk invitations and will pivot to deep tech lectures.

17 March during AI in Practice Masterclass by Kapital.

↗️ 𝗬𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝗻𝗲𝘅𝘁 𝗔𝗜 𝗶𝗻𝘃𝗲𝘀𝘁𝗺𝗲𝗻𝘁 𝗰𝗼𝘂𝗹𝗱 𝗯𝗲 𝗮 𝗴𝗲𝗻𝘂𝗶𝗻𝗲 𝗰𝗼𝗺𝗽𝗲𝘁𝗶𝘁𝗶𝘃𝗲 𝗮𝗱𝘃𝗮𝗻𝘁𝗮𝗴𝗲 𝗼𝗿 𝗮𝗻 𝗲𝘅𝗽𝗲𝗻𝘀𝗶𝘃𝗲 𝗰𝗵𝗮𝘁𝗯𝗼𝘁 𝘄𝗶𝘁𝗵 𝗮 𝗯𝗲𝘁𝘁𝗲𝗿 𝗹𝗮𝗯𝗲𝗹.

Everyone calls their product an "AI agent" now - from simple automation tools to systems that can actually think, plan, and deliver results on their own. When everything sounds the same, how do you tell what's real from what's just marketing?

Iliya Valchanov teaches 1.5M+ students on the topics of AI, data science, and machine learning. He is co-founder and CEO of  Juma (ex Team-GPT), a marketing superagent that executes complete workflows autonomously - analyzing data, generating content, and delivering ready-to-use assets.

At 𝗔𝗜 𝗶𝗻 𝗣𝗿𝗮𝗰𝘁𝗶𝗰𝗲 𝗠𝗮𝘀𝘁𝗲𝗿𝗰𝗹𝗮𝘀𝘀 on March 17, Iliya will explain:
➤ How the most capable AI agents actually work
➤ What makes an AI agent "real" today and how to spot the difference between a genuine agent and dressed-up automation
➤ How the best agents plan, do the work, and check their own results 

A 𝗰𝗹𝗲𝗮𝗿 𝗳𝗿𝗮𝗺𝗲𝘄𝗼𝗿𝗸 for understanding what's under the hood  so you can make confident decisions whether you're building or buying.

Iliya’s keynote is for leaders who want to invest wisely in AI agents without getting lost in the hype.

📅 March 17 | Grand Hotel Millennium Sofia
🎫 Secure your seat → capital.bg/en/event/336


#AIinPracticeMasterclass #AIinPractice #AIAgents #MarketingAI #AgenticAI

Next week Juma will have a low-key launch of something we've worked on for the past 3 months. 

You'll hear a lot more about it soon but this will be special because it's an AI Engineer Foundation meeting in our offices!

I love that this coincides with a long-time member giving an exciting lecture.

Georgi Alexandrov built an autonomous agent that monitors his home server - crash detection, log analysis, auto-recovery. He'll walk through how agentic frameworks work: the tool loop, system prompts, lifecycle hooks, and safety gates. Built with Pi-mono (the engine behind OpenClaw) and a self-hosted 35B model from his wardrobe.

Come and let's talk about agents: 
https://lnkd.in/eV3dtixX

Tech Lead at Sourcelab

What makes a great marketer? Think: Steve Jobs, Elon Musk, Kim Kardashian, most recently even Timothee Chalamet..

I think it's: 
- strategic thinking
- 6th sense for what works
- curiosity and willingness to experiment
- understanding of marketing mix and multi-touch interactions (even on a subconcious level is enough)
- taste!!!

What most great marketers can't do:
- Run ads
- Edit videos
- Set-up Google Analytics
- Write SEO-optimized articles
- Know where to find stuff in HubSpot lol


Keep in mind:
-> The first list will remain human
-> The second list is being automated as we speak

Juma is a superagent that can do any marketing task.

We have rolled out the full capabilities to only 5 workspaces (~100 people). 

If you want early access to try it out, send me a DM.

Or comment 'superagent' below.

Our product can do the same as Lovable, Manus, etc... just 6 months later.

The best companies are best at... speed. 

Speed is the only thing that matters in AI right now.

Memory for agents!

Round led by an OpenAI co-founder, amazing Vasilije Markovic!!!

Founder @ Cognee inc | Semantic memory for AI apps and Agents

We raised $7.5M to scale our knowledge engine that gives AI systems memory.

LLMs are powerful, but they’re stateless — once a session ends, context is gone. Companies have their own context, rules and practices. There are no solutions out there that can bring this knowledge reliably to the LLMs.

At cognee, we’re building a knowledge engine that allows AI systems to retain context, understand relationships, and dynamically update the knowledge over time. 

We raised $7.5M in seed funding led by pebblebed — founded by Pamela Vagata (ex-founding engineer, OpenAI) and Keith Adams (founder, Facebook AI Research Lab) and the amazing Tammie Siew — with participation from 42CAP and Vermilion Cliffs Ventures and angels like Jan Oberhauser from n8n, Charles Dolan, Alexander Dean, Matthaus Krzykowski and Combination VC, and Roman Stanek, Jan Ebbinghaus, Tony S. Kim, Mehdi Ghissassi, Steffen Kirchhoff, Daniel Kirch, Ilya Kozlov, Bojana Miloradovic Parman, Dr. Pascal Wichmann, Jens Lapinski, Bob van Luijt to scale up engineering, accelerate research, and increase number of cognee deployments to clients like Bayer from 70+ to 700+.

I want to thank the team, the open source community, and to our investors for the trust.

If you are struggling with memory, our devs can get cognee running with your data in 7 days. Don’t hesitate to reach out to us.

5 years ago we dropped this ad.

It didn't convert well.

But boy did we enjoy making it!

Може би в топ 3 на клиентите, които са помагали за развитието на Juma → Simeon Penev и VertoDigital

Лекцията ще си струва!

n8n Ambassador | Data & Analytics Consultant at VertoDigital

🤖 AI инструментите вече не са "nice to have".

Миналата година VertoDigital мина от разпръснато ChatGPT използване до 90%+ AI adoption в екипа. Ключов елемент? Juma (ex Team-GPT)

На 26 март от 19:00 ще покажа на живо как използвам juma.ai в ежедневната си работа. Без теория - само практика.

За всеки пример ще видите "преди и сега":
➡️ Колко време отнемаше?
➡️ Какво се промени с AI?
➡️ Какъв е реалният резултат?

Семинарът е безплатен и подходящ за всеки в дигиталния маркетинг.

👇 Линк към семинара в първия коментар

'Am I in the market for better janitorial services?'

I'm still trying to figure out if they want to mop my floors or prep us for an IPO through a leveraged buyout.

GTM for Early Stage SaaS | Co-founder @ Datapad | SaaS Growth Advisor | Reforge | 1x Exit |

I’m a marketer, 2x entrepreneur with 1x exit, and helped companies to go from 0 to 8 figures.

My achievements:

- Built 2 VC backed startups with one exit

- Built a 7 figure productized marketing agency

- Became a mentor in top accelerators such as: 500, Plug and Play, Techstars

- Got to work with the portfolio companies of amazing investors such as A16z, Craft Ventures, YC

- Built a podcast with 20k downloads in a year-figure

- Transformed my body more times than Christian Bale ☺️

John Ozuysal

SEO and AEO agencies are dead

I replaced my $15k/mo agency with Claude Code.

Here is what my agent does:

- Creates content strategy around topics such as "ultimate guide to xyz" or "what is xyz" - zero defendability for AI search 

- Optimizes each post with [some made-up name] framework

- Found my ICP in 5 seconds, even though I couldn't figure it out for a year 

[screenshot of the flow] - I have no idea what any of this does. Neither does the person who built it.

We used this agent for 6 months, and below are the results from the AI search

[screenshot of Google Search Console]

And yes, we are tracking AI search from GSC, so all the AEO tools are unnecessary

I spoke with a CMO of Series B B2B SaaS last week about their AEO

He was furious.

"ChatGPT is telling people we're too expensive for small teams." - not correct at all

We pulled up the sources AI was citing.

Competitor blog posts. Reddit threads from 2021. A review site that hadn't been updated in 18 months.

His first instinct?

"We need more PR. More brand mentions. More visibility."

No. You don't.

That's not your problem.

Your problem is you never created content that answers the questions buyers are actually asking.

Best tools in your category. Alternatives. Comparisons. Use cases by company size.

You left that to competitors and review sites.

So now they're the source. Not you.

You're not invisible. You just handed the microphone to everyone else.

Early-stage companies have the opposite problem.

AI genuinely doesn't know they exist yet.

PR and brand mentions actually matter there.

But for you?

Create the content that answers buyer questions.

Become the source AI cites.

Stop letting competitors control your narrative.

TLDR: Assess your current situation before you invest in any AEO-related activity

---

If you want us to build a free AEO roadmap for you, apply from the link on my profile

"Recently raised Series A" is not a buying signal. It's a crowded inbox.

The intent data told us they raised a Series A.

What it didn't tell us: where they're actually bleeding cash.

"Recently raised Series A" - yeah, so did 47 other vendors in their inbox.

"Just hired a CMO" - congratulations, you and every other growth agency just sent the same pitch.

We were competing on speed, not relevance.

So we built something different.

Our internal tool doesn't just pull signals. It stacks them.

Series A in last 6 months? Cool. Everyone knows that.

But Series A + running Google Ads + zero organic traffic for their keywords + no competitor comparison pages?

Now we're talking.

That's a company burning cash on paid because their content strategy doesn't exist. That's someone who needs what we actually do.

The tool creates an AI agent that hunts for these signal combinations. The ones we define. The ones that actually matter to our specific service.

Our list went from 2,000 "warm leads" to 47 companies.

But those 47 companies? They actually respond.

Because when you reach out, you're not pitching.

You're diagnosing a problem they didn't realize they had.

We've tried everything. Content. Cold email. Mass outreach. Paid ads.

This signal-based ABM is crushing all of it on ROI. (No random ABM)

Not because the list is bigger.

Because the list is real.

I think AI search visibility trackers are useless 

Why? 

Because I keep seeing AEO case studies with screenshots of the search console

I guess we are all missing something because my GSC is not giving me AI search visibility data 🤣 

Sad thing is, some of these posts are getting 500 comments

HIRING a Short-Form Content Creator — and this one's worth stopping your scroll for.

You'd be joining one of the most exciting companies in AI right now. Fast-growing, cutting-edge, and building technology that's genuinely changing how people create.

The role: make the internet understand (and love) AI image and video models.

Talking-head videos. Live demos. Model launches. Tutorials that make complex tech feel obvious. If you can turn a product update into a piece of content people actually want to watch — this is your seat.

What you'll be working on:
→ Launching new AI models on TikTok, YouTube Shorts & Instagram
→ Model comparisons and use-case showcases
→ AI workflow videos and trend content
→ Collaborating directly with product and engineering to get the story first

This is not a content farm job. You'd have real access, real creative input, and a product that makes for genuinely compelling content.

Remote-friendly. US or European time zones preferred.

If you're strong on camera, fast with an edit, and can make technical topics land — DM me or drop a link to your work in the comments.

Know someone perfect for this? Tag them 👇

We are running an AI search sprint free for 3 SaaS companies

👇

We're opening up 3 free pilot slots to show you exactly where you stand on AI search and what to do about it.

Here's what you'll get:

- A full AI search audit of your brand vs your top competitors

- Your 30-day AI search content strategy + the brand mentions you need to build

- Your first revenue-focused content — written and ready to publish

We hand-pick the companies. We're not looking for volume. We're looking for fit.

That means Series A B2B SaaS. $1M+ ARR. A category worth owning. And a team that will actually execute on what we hand them — because we're not interested in doing great work that sits in a Google Doc.

Q2 2026 cohort has 3 spots.

If you think you're the right fit, apply from here: https://tally.so/r/442j4A

Haven't invested in AEO yet? 

Don't start with content 👇

Start with a diagnosis.

Before creating any content, figure out whether the issue is visibility, representation (citation control), or both.

Later-stage companies usually already have visibility. The risk is how they’re being represented.

 AI search often pulls from competitor blogs, old Reddit threads, reviews, and third-party posts that don’t reflect the company’s current narrative.

The first step is to identify the URLs influencing AI answers and audit them for accuracy.

In parallel, build earned content quickly so AI systems learn from the company’s own materials, not someone else’s.

Earlier-stage companies typically have a visibility problem and a representation problem.

Start by mapping the prompts you want to win, then identify which URLs currently influence those prompts (often listicles and Reddit threads).

From there, focus on earned visibility by participating in those conversations and getting included where influence already exists.

Once there’s more budget, expand into creating content designed to compete for broader, category-level prompts.

We recently ran an AEO audit for a later-stage SaaS company.

They had 85% visibility across 100 high-intent AI prompts we were tracking for them.

Sounds great, right?

It wasn't.

They're an industry leader. Big brand. Strong PR. Their TAM knows them well. So visibility wasn't the problem.

The problem was what AI was saying about them.

A competitor's blog post from two years ago claimed our client didn't have a specific enterprise security certification. That blog was never updated. But ChatGPT was citing it.

So when enterprise buyers asked AI about this CRM, the answer included: "doesn't have [security certification]."

In reality, they absolutely have it. They serve enterprise clients. It's a requirement.

But they never created their own content around their competitive landscape. They never monitored what competitors and Reddit threads were saying about them. And they had nobody responding to community discussions where people were spreading incorrect information about their product.

Here's our game plan to fix this:

First, we're building their owned content inventory. Blog posts targeting every high-intent prompt so that AI pulls from our client's own words, not from a competitor's outdated blog.

Second, we're mapping every third-party source AI is citing for their target prompts. We're breaking them into UGC (Reddit) and publisher blogs (competitor and industry blogs). From there, we're running outreach campaigns to get the outdated and incorrect information corrected at the source.

Third, we identified YouTube videos influencing AI answers where our client isn't getting mentioned at all. The plan is to partner with micro-influencers and create "best CRM" style comparison videos. The goal is to secure both visibility and citations on the prompts where we currently have gaps.

The takeaway? Visibility without narrative control is dangerous. If AI knows you but is saying the wrong things, that's worse than being invisible.
When was the last time you checked what AI is actually saying about your product?

👉 If you want us to run a free AEO roadmap for your company, apply from the on my profile

We just increased AI search visibility for a B2B SaaS client by 100% in 30 days.

Want to see how we did it?

You can't. The case study doesn't exist. I made it up.

But you'd have believed it, right? Because you've seen 15 posts this month saying almost exactly that.

Here's the problem: a lot of people claiming to grow AI search visibility are backing it up with Google Search Console screenshots.

It does not tell you how often your brand appears in AI-generated responses. 

It does not tell you what AI systems say about you. It does not measure anything that would reasonably be called "AI search visibility."

Posting a GSC screenshot as proof of AEO results is either a misunderstanding of how this works or a deliberate misdirection aimed at people who don't know the difference.

If someone is showing you clean dashboards and confident attribution, ask them which tool produced it and how it works.

If the answer is a Google Search Console screenshot, walk away.

Most B2B SaaS companies I talk to make the same AEO mistake.

They skip the diagnosis.

They hear "AI search is important," they read a couple of posts, and they jump straight into tactics. Get us mentioned on Reddit. Build some landing pages. Maybe hire an AEO consultant.

But they never asked the basic question first: what is our actual problem?
Because in AEO, there are two very different problems. And the strategy for each is completely different.

🔴Problem 1: Visibility. AI doesn't know you exist. You don't show up for any of the prompts your buyers are typing in. This is common for earlier-stage companies.

🔴Problem 2: Narrative. AI knows you, but it's saying the wrong things. Competitors and outdated sources are controlling what AI tells your buyers about you. This is common for later-stage companies with brand presence but no owned content strategy.

Most companies don't know which problem they have because they never checked.

Here's how we figure it out in the first week of working with a client:

Step 1️⃣ : We identify the buyer intent prompts that actually matter. Not every AI search prompt is winnable. We focus only on the high-intent ones, either related to competitors or directly related to the client's software category.

Step 2️⃣ : We check if the client has content that answers those prompts. If they don't, they have a narrative problem. Even if they're getting visibility, AI is pulling the narrative from someone else's content.

Step 3️⃣ : We look at the off-site sources AI is citing for those prompts. Reddit threads, competitor blogs, YouTube videos. That tells us where the influence is coming from and where we need to show up.

Skipping the diagnosis is how companies waste 6 months and a lot of budget on tactics that don't match their actual problem.

👉If you want us to run a free AEO roadmap for you, check the link on my bio

The first sales conversation your buyer has is with ChatGPT. Your team is the second call, if you're lucky enough to get one.

Your buyers trust ChatGPT more than your sales team.

That's not an insult. That's just how people make decisions now.

They ask AI for recommendations. They get a shortlist. They do follow-up questions. By the time they land on your site, they've already decided whether you're a contender.

But here's the problem:

Most B2B SaaS companies have zero control over what AI says about them.
AI is citing outdated competitor blog posts. Old Reddit threads. Review sites that haven't been updated in over a year. And it's confidently presenting that information as if it's current.

I've seen AI tell buyers a product is "too expensive for small teams" based entirely on a competitor's comparison post from 2022. Completely inaccurate. But that's what the buyer heard.

So how do you take back control?

You become the source.

Step 1: Identify the 20-30 buying questions your ICP is asking AI right now. Turn your paid search keywords into questions.

Step 2: Ask those questions yourself. Look at what AI cites. What source types? Who gets mentioned?

Step 3: Fill the gaps. If AI cites a listicle, get on that listicle or create a competing one. If it cites a forum thread, go give a real, transparent answer. If it cites a video, make one.

Step 4: Optimize your help center so it answers every specific feature, integration, and use case question a buyer could ask in a follow-up.

Do this consistently for 6 weeks, and you'll see the shift.

The brands that control their AI narrative now will own their category later.

4 types of competitor-focused content I use to generate pipeline for SaaS

👇

1. Competitor vs You

You must own this story. If a prospect types “[competitor] alternative” into Google and only sees their page, you already lose. Create clean “You vs Competitor” pages that talk in revenue, churn, onboarding time, not vague feature lists. Show how you reduce risk, cut time-to-value, or lift expansion revenue.

2. Competitor alternatives

These people are in market now. They already pay for a tool. They just hate something about it. Create list posts like “7 alternatives to [competitor] for remote CS teams” and rank for those terms. Include your product in the list, show screenshots, add simple pricing context, and link to a focused trial or demo page. This brings high-intent trials fast.

3. Competitor comparisons

Big brands fund your pipeline. Use their demand. People search “[competitor A] vs [competitor B]” every day. Write posts and pages like “[A] vs [B] vs [You]” and speak to a specific ICP: “best for product-led teams”, “best for agencies”, “best for low-ACV SaaS”. You ride their brand search while positioning your product as the right fit for a clear segment.

4. Competitor use case content

Show how to do a key job in competitor tools, then show the simpler version in your product. “How to build a QBR dashboard in [competitor]” → then you show it takes 9 steps there and 3 in your app. If a competitor cannot support that use case, say it clearly and own the gap. This is where many of your best switch deals come from.

----

If you want us to generate a free AEO report, check the link on my bio !

Why you don’t show up in AI search?

Here’s the simplest answer:

You have no content.

And nobody knows, mentions, or talks about your brand.

That’s it.

AI systems don’t “discover” brands magically.

They reflect what already exists on the internet.

Once you accept this, everything else makes sense.

Only then do details start to matter:

Entity optimization
Query fan-outs
Topical authority etc..

The traditional approach to winning in search was built around one goal:

Get your URL to rank #1 on Google.

But that playbook doesn't work exactly the same in the age of AI search.

You need to go from optimizing a single page to showing up across multiple sources.

In Google, if your blue link shows up first, you win. Done.

In an LLM, your URL can be the #1 citation, and you still lose the answer because you won't get recommended! You need to be the source, and other people should be mentioning you as well.

AI doesn't just read one page; it summarizes many sources. The brand that gets mentioned the most across those sources wins the recommendation.

This way, you're not just competing for a ranking. You're competing for the narrative.

That means your website alone is not enough. You need presence across the types of sources AI actually cites: your own pages, YouTube videos, Reddit threads, affiliate review sites etc.

If you optimize for just one of those, it's not enough.

The B2B SaaS companies I work with that are winning in AI search aren't doing one thing really well. They have good content + they are trying to get visibility in every place AI cites from

AI is selling your competitor using your outdated content.

You’re funding their pipeline for free.

Your buyers trust ChatGPT more than your sales team.
Not because sales is bad.
Because this is how people make decisions now.

They ask AI for:
- Shortlists
- Comparisons
- Pricing context
- “Is this tool right for a company like mine?”

By the time they land on your site, they already “know” you.
Or they think they do.

Here is the problem I see with B2B SaaS teams I work with:

AI is pulling from:
- Old competitor blog posts
- Stale Reddit threads
- Year old review pages

I saw AI call a product “too expensive for small teams”
based only on a competitor comparison from 2022.
Totally wrong.
Still, that is what the buyer heard.

You need to take back control.
You become the source.

Here is the play I use with clients:

1/ Map the real buying questions
Turn your main paid search keywords into questions.
You want 20–30 questions your ICP would ask AI today.

2/ Audit what AI says
Ask those questions in ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity.
Note:
- Who gets mentioned
- What sources get cited
- What formats show up

3/ Fill every gap
If AI cites a listicle, get on that list or build your own.
If it cites a forum thread, go answer with a clear, honest take.
If it cites a video, create a stronger, updated one.
If a competitor listicle is sharing outdated info about you - ask them to fix it

4/ Fix your help center
Make sure it answers:
- Features
- Integrations
- Use cases
In the same language buyers use in follow up questions.

Do this for 8 weeks with focus, and you start to see the shift.

"You don't need to create content anymore. Just get mentioned in a few places and AI will recommend you."

I keep hearing this from B2B SaaS founders.

And it's the fastest way to lose control of your brand in AI search.

Don't get me wrong, I work in AEO every single day. Off-site mentions matter. A lot.

But there is a dark side to the "just get mentioned" advice.
For example, sometimes I see:

Companies chasing short-term mentions without building any owned content. 

They get a Reddit comment here, a blog mention there. Maybe they show up in AI answers for a month. But they have no content on their own site that AI can pull from. So the narrative is controlled by whoever wrote about them, not by them.

Founders being told they'll be "on top of AI search in 30 days." These are all short-term plays. One, you don't know if those mentions will stick. 

Two, you don't know if the information in those mentions is even accurate. Three, without your own content foundation, you have zero long-term defensibility.

People treating AEO and SEO as completely separate and choosing one over the other. Google still holds the lion's share of search. I see a big percentage of sign-ups and revenue from traditional Google with my own portfolio of clients. And here's the thing: AI pulls its information from what's already written on the web. So having a solid SEO foundation directly feeds your 

AEO performance.

So if you're investing in AEO and you don't have your own content answering the buyer questions that matter most...

Remember, you're not building visibility. You're renting it. And someone else is writing the script.

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taplio

The Battle

Iliya Valchanov

John Ozuysal

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Performance Score.css-goub6s{font-size:var(--chakra-fontSizes-md);font-weight:500;color:var(--chakra-colors-gray-600);display:block;margin-top:var(--chakra-space-1);}Iliya Valchanov's LinkedIn Performance

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