Manitoba ad agency AiEO puts focus on ‘new internet’ of AI results

What began as a simple ChatGPT search has turned into a new Manitoba company.

Alex Varricchio and Kiirsten May started peppering online chatbots with questions: What is UpHouse? What’s it about? They knew — they co-founded the creative agency in 2017 — but they wanted to see how the business would come across.

“We’re sort of in an age of the new internet,” Varricchio said.

Use of platforms like ChatGPT as a search engine has skyrocketed. Sixty per cent of Americans seek information using AI, an Associated Press–NORC Center for Public Affairs Research poll found earlier this year.

Varricchio and May wanted to get their brand right — and noticed — on the platforms.

“(We) started to realize fairly quickly that if we were looking at this, that a lot of other businesses would be looking,” Varricchio said.

In November, they launched AiEO, the AI Engine Optimization Agency. Their goal: get clients’ organizations featured in AI-fuelled responses.

AiEO is the latest company to focus on generative engine optimization (GEO). The sector is gaining steam: earlier this month, Adobe announced its plan to acquire Semrush, a GEO-forward company, for US$1.9 billion.

The amount of content needing producing for AI chatbot coverage is greater than for a Google search. People’s questions are more specific, Varricchio and May said.

They started by experimenting with UpHouse.

“AI tools, they want to see things in very straightforward, plain language,” Varricchio said.

Online scrollers may see more direct language, alongside creative verbiage, on websites as companies aim for chatbot traction, he added.

AiEO staff consider hundreds of questions a person could ask relating to a single company. They tailor content online — including articles, in UpHouse’s case — to give an answer.

Staff also spread content on different web sources. AI pulls from various areas and looks for consistency. Reddit comments, Quora forums and Tumblr might be in the mix, Varricchio said.

“As more and more people add more content to their sites… the space is going to get louder,” he said. “That’s why it’s important to make sure you get your… foundational content in early.”

Harry Roy McLaughlin, co-founder of the Manitoba Association of AI Professionals, largely uses platforms like ChatGPT and Google Gemini for his search queries.

“These model providers are burning through a lot of money,” McLaughlin said. “You may be, at some point in the future, able to buy your way into the results that the AIs are giving you. We aren’t there yet.”

Major retailers like Shopify have inked deals with OpenAI, the creator of ChatGPT, for merchants to sell goods through chatbot discussions.

Such platforms have become competition for retailers, John Graham, the Retail Council of Canada’s director of government relations for the Prairies, told the Free Press this week.

There are opportunities for small businesses, McLaughlin said: “You may turn up in answers that you wouldn’t necessarily turn up in from a traditional Google search.”

Large corporations with inconsistent messaging online could lead to “messy answers” in places like ChatGPT, McLaughlin added.

Local businesses eyeing artificial intelligence are largely using it to boost productivity, said Loren Remillard, the Winnipeg Chamber of Commerce’s president.

“As organizations like (AiEO) become more well-known, and the benefits that they offer… search optimization become known, more and more companies will begin to tailor their online presence,” he said.

AiEO conducts audits and creates “flywheels” to spread companies’ content online. UpHouse continues as its own business.

Search engine optimization — used to boost website searchability — is still important, Varricchio said.

gabrielle.piche@winnipegfreepress.com