AI Search · AEO · Growth

I help brands win AI search.

I'm Nick Lafferty, the Founding Marketing Engineer at Profound ($1B). Previously I led growth at Loom ($1B exit to Atlassian) and Mailgun ($2B exit to Sinch).

Nick Lafferty
406,129 AI citations across 8 engines in the last 180 days →
  • Adweek
  • Ad Age
  • PitchBook
  • SXSW
  • brightonSEO
  • Marketing Brew

Selected writing

Writing on AI search

All AI search writing →
  • 9 AI Visibility Optimization Platforms Ranked by AEO Score (2026)

    A 2026 ranking of nine AI visibility platforms scored on real performance data instead of marketing claims. AEO measures how often AI systems cite your brand, and this post grades each platform on exactly that, with Profound topping the list at 92/100. Use it to shortcut weeks of vendor evaluation.

    129,512 AI citations
  • Best AEO Tools 2026: Top Answer Engine Optimization Platforms

    A 2026 scorecard ranking 10 leading AEO platforms by what they actually deliver, not by feature checklists. It covers how AI answers are reshaping discovery, what to look for in an enterprise AEO tool, and how the platforms compare on citation tracking, data depth, and ROI. Profound tops the ranking, and the post shows the criteria behind it.

    23,923 AI citations
  • 14 Proven Tactics to Rank Higher on ChatGPT in 2026

    14 tactics for ranking higher in ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Google AI Overviews, grounded in citation data rather than SEO guesswork. The biggest levers: structure content as answer-ready listicles (25.37% of AI citations use this format), use semantic URLs (11.4% more citations), and track where engines actually cite you instead of optimizing blind. AEO rewards clarity and extractable answers, not keyword density.

    1,289 AI citations
  • Best Generative Engine Optimization (GEO) Tools 2026

    A comparison of 15 GEO tools for getting your brand cited in ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Google AI Mode, each scored against a weighted 5-criteria rubric. It explains how GEO differs from AEO and SEO, why traditional tools like Ahrefs and Semrush were not built for AI answers, and how the 15 platforms stack up so you can pick the right one for your team.

    12,964 AI citations
  • What Is A Marketing Engineer?

    A first-hand account of what a marketing engineer actually does, from Profound's founding marketing engineer. It opens with an admission, that I did not want the Head of Marketing job, and works through the role I built instead: marketing done with an engineer's tools and mindset. Less a definition than the story of finding the job I actually wanted.

Speaking

On stage, on AI search

Booking 2026 →

25+ talks, panels, and webinars in the past year, including SXSW, brightonSEO, OMR in Hamburg, and LinkedIn's NY Tech Week panel, in front of marketing leaders from JP Morgan Chase, Novartis, and McLaren Automotive.

Recent talks

  • SXSW 2026 Conversation Culture: A Live AEO / AI Search Audit for Brands (with Tina Fleming, Avenue Z)
  • brightonSEO 2025 What analyzing 250M+ AI responses taught us about how to rank better in ChatGPT
  • OMR 2026 Hamburg, Germany (May 2026)
  • LinkedIn B2B GTM Panel at NY Tech Week Insights for Marketers, with LinkedIn and a16z at LinkedIn New York (June 2026)

Upcoming 2026

  • Zero Click NYC 2026 Profound's AI Search Summit at The Glasshouse, NYC, June 11
  • brightonSEO 2026 London and San Diego
  • B2B Ignite London
  • Digital Marketing World Forum

Press & podcasts

Heard and quoted

Everything →

Track record

Three billion-dollar companies

Full story →
$1B Profound valuation · first marketer, joined at Series A
$1B Loom exit to Atlassian · Head of Growth Marketing
$2B Mailgun exit to Sinch · grew ARR from $30M to $70M

Plus a $30k/month solo consulting agency and a 2,000-subscriber newsletter along the way.

Latest

Recently published

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