Influencer Launches Creator-First AEO, a New Category for Earning Brand Authority in the AI Discovery Era

New operating model unites Profound’s AEO intelligence with Influencer’s global creator capabilities to help brands develop the conversations, content and signals that drive AI recommendations

Influencer, the world’s largest independent creator marketing agency, today announced a breakthrough partnership with Profound, the marketing platform for the AI era, to launch and lead Creator-First AEO. As answer engines increasingly decide which brands are visible in the conversation, make the shortlist, and earn the recommendation, Creator-First AEO puts creators at the center of how brands win in AI search, turning trusted creator experiences, recommendations, and content into signals that strengthen how brands are understood and recommended by AI.

Influencer defines Creator-First AEO as the discipline of shaping the signals, conversations and content AI systems rely on to understand and recommend brands. By linking creator influence to measurable AI visibility, Creator-First AEO helps turn cultural relevance into brand authority.

Profound and Influencer bring this discipline to life by combining their capabilities and establishing creator content as the new source of brand authority. Profound provides the intelligence, revealing how AI understands a brand, where competitors hold an advantage, which prompts shape consideration and what evidence drives recommendations. Influencer turns those insights into action through creator-led programs, building the content and signals AI systems are more likely to surface, trust and recommend.

Marketing Technology News: MarTech Interview with Mark Listes, CEO @ Pendulum Intelligence

This model fundamentally expands creator marketing’s influence, reaching consumers and the AI systems helping with their decisions. It moves brands from content production to evidence production, using creator reviews, comparisons, demonstrations and real-world experiences to establish how products perform, who they serve and why they deserve to be recommended. Profound measures how that evidence changes brand visibility and representation, creating a continuous cycle of intelligence, creator activation and optimization.

“Creator marketing has entered a new era. It now shapes what people think, trust and buy, as well as what AI understands and recommends,” said Ben Jeffries, co-founder and CEO of Influencer. “By uniting Profound’s intelligence with Influencer’s global creator capabilities, we are creating an entirely new model for how brands compete in AI-led discovery. Creator-First AEO gives brands the power to understand the answer, strengthen the evidence behind it and influence what gets recommended next.”

Marketing Technology News: How MarTech Is Enabling Autonomous Brand Engagement Across Channels?

Profound identifies where a brand is missing or misrepresented in AI-generated answers and reveals the evidence shaping those results. Influencer uses those insights to develop creator-led programs featuring the voices, experiences and cultural context most likely to strengthen the brand’s position. Profound measures how the programs affect AI answers, citations and brand representation, enabling both companies to refine and optimize the next phase.

“AI is becoming a major gateway to brand discovery, which means marketers have to think about the information shaping AI recommendations,” said James Cadwallader, co-founder and CEO of Profound. “Creators have an important role to play because they produce the real-world experiences, comparisons and perspectives that help AI understand brands and products. By bringing Profound and Influencer together, marketers can connect that creator activity directly to how their brands appear and perform in AI answers.”

Creator-First AEO also extends creator investment from distribution to discoverability. Distribution determines who sees content today. Discoverability determines whether that content continues helping consumers and AI systems understand, compare and recommend a product long after a campaign ends. This gives each creator program a lasting role in brand discovery.

Influencer is placing Creator-First AEO at the center of its global growth strategy, with a clear ambition to define and lead the category,” added Jeffries. “As AI-generated answers become a primary gateway to discovery, consideration and purchase, creators will shape which brands earn authority, enter the conversation and win the recommendation. The brands building credible, culturally relevant evidence today will define the next era of discovery.”