37% of searches now start with AI. Here's how event marketers can optimize for answer engines—and stay visible where it counts.
TL;DR: AI tools now influence how attendees discover and evaluate events. Around 37% of people start searches with AI, and 35% use it at the product-discovery stage. That means your event site and marketing strategy need to be optimized not just for Google, but for large language models (LLMs) too. This post breaks down exactly how to do it, without starting from scratch. We also cover how 85% of brand mentions in AI-generated results come from third-party sources, and how to strategize for that too.
With the rise of the planet of the LLMs, event attendees are now getting their information through entirely new channels.
Tools like Claude, ChatGPT, and Gemini are completely changing the landscape. Marketers now need to understand that attendees are searching for information in places that they didn't even know existed a year or two ago. And those new places can’t be boosted by advertisements in the same way as traditional SEO.
The new name of the game is technical foundation and credibility.
The scale of the shift is striking: 37% of US adults now begin their searches with an AI tool rather than a traditional search engine. But perhaps most shocking for event marketers? 35% of consumers now use AI at the product-discovery stage, versus just 13.6% who use traditional search.
Yet only 20% of brands have started implementing AEO (AI Engine Optimization). The gap between where your audience is looking and where most events show up is wide open.
So we’re here to break down the things you need to know to make your marketing—from your event site to PR and promo strategy—relevant for AEO.
The good news is it’s not a completely brave new world. In fact, one of the cornerstones of AEO fundamentals is good SEO setup.
Make sure to:
Page speed is still a ranking signal, and it's also a trust signal for AI crawlers. Compress your images, minimize render-blocking scripts, and audit your Core Web Vitals regularly. A sluggish site tells both Google and AI systems that your content isn't maintained.
Lazy-load below-the-fold content, and aim for Core Web Vitals in the “good” range.
Most people who discover your event on their phone want to register on their phone. If your registration flow breaks on mobile, you're losing people at the exact moment they're most ready to commit. Test every step on multiple devices and screen sizes.
Need help making sure your digital brand experience is consistent? BW Events can help to make sure your registration flows are dynamic, optimized and on brand.
A URL like /events/2025/healthcare-innovation-summit tells search engines and AI tools exactly what they're looking at. A URL like /event?id=4827 tells them nothing. Clean, descriptive URLs are a small thing that compounds over time.
Think about how your ideal attendee would actually search. They're probably not typing “annual summit.” They're typing “best AI conference for product managers 2025” or “healthcare networking event Chicago.” Target the intent behind the search, not just the broad keyword.
Include target phrases like “[event type] in [city] [year]” and “[event name] tickets.”
This one is critical. According to recent data, 83% of AI citations come from pages updated within the last 12 months. Over 60% come from pages refreshed within 6 months. Stale event pages essentially become invisible to AI systems. If your “last updated” timestamp is from 18 months ago, you've already been deprioritized.
Update your event pages regularly with new speakers, agenda details, and FAQs rather than publishing once and walking away.
Going beyond the guidance of SEO, there are low-effort levers marketers can pull to ensure that their event sites are readable by AI engines.
AI tools love FAQ content (and you can mark these up with FAQPage schema). They're built to answer questions, so they naturally gravitate toward content that's already formatted as questions and answers.
Add an FAQ section to your event page. Cover the questions attendees actually ask: What's the agenda? Who's speaking? Where's it held? What's included in the ticket price?
AI engines scan for the most direct, extractable answer to a query. Open every content section with a 40–60 word summary that states the key fact up front.
Dates, location, format, all before any supporting detail. Think of it as writing for the skim, then the deep-read.
Ambiguity is the enemy of AI extractability. Write in clear, direct sentences where the subject and action are obvious.
Instead of “It takes place at the downtown venue,” write “The 2027 Healthcare Innovation Summit takes place at the Chicago Marriott Downtown.”
This is the difference between text an LLM can confidently extract vs. text it has to interpret.
If your event is called the “Global SaaS Summit” on your website but “SaaS Global Summit 2027” on your registration page and “GSS” everywhere else, AI systems struggle to build a coherent picture of what your event is.
Pick a name, then use it consistently. Everywhere!
This goes for your event’s date, location and price too.
Don’t delete pages after an event ends. Repurpose them with recaps, photos, and links to the next occurrence. This keeps the URL’s SEO equity alive and captures people searching post-event.
Every event deserves its own URL and page. Even if it's an annual recurring event, each year's edition should have its own dedicated page with fresh content. This gives AI systems something new to index and cite year over year.
At the same time, maintain an evergreen “hub” page for your recurring event—something like /events/global-saas-summit—that links to each year's edition and summarizes the event's history and purpose. This becomes a long-term authority signal.
Content and pages with visible, named authors and their credentials are 41% more likely to be cited by AI engines. Add author bios to your blog posts, recap articles, and speaker content pages. Include credentials, titles, and links to professional profiles. AI systems are increasingly using authorship as a proxy for trustworthiness.
Unfortunately not all of AEO is in your control, but it is for sure in your influence. In addition to looking at the credibility of your event site, AEO looks at what other people are saying about your legitimacy. Things like social media posts, partner content, awards and press releases are strong external sources of credibility that will help improve the legitimacy of your event.
The data backs this up: 85% of brand mentions in AI-generated results for high-intent queries come from third-party sources. That means the single most powerful thing you can do for your AEO isn’t on your own site—it’s earning mentions on social channels, press coverage, industry directories and partner blogs.
This is also why the emerging practice of GEO (Generative Engine Optimization)—optimising specifically for how AI generates blended, synthesised responses—puts earned media at the very centre of any visibility strategy.
Make sure to:
Social signals matter, and one of the fastest ways to amplify your event's presence across social platforms is to activate your VIPs. When speakers, sponsors, and exhibitors share personalized posts about your event, they generate authentic third-party content at scale.
InGo makes this effortless: personalized sharing experiences, one-click posting, and timely prompts that get your VIPs talking across LinkedIn, Instagram, and beyond, without your team having to chase anyone down. The result is a social footprint that AI systems notice.
When sponsors and partners link to your event from their own websites and social profiles, those backlinks carry significant weight, both for traditional SEO and for AI credibility signals. Make it easy for them to do this. Provide them with event badges, link assets, and pre-written copy they can use without any effort.
Pages with complete schema implementation (Event, FAQ Page, Person, Organization) see a 27% lift in AI extractability. Schema is like the Rosetta Stone that helps AI understand your content rather than simply reading it. A small dev task with a measurable return!
Get your event featured in industry publications, round-up lists, and media coverage. Reach out to journalists and bloggers who cover your sector. Submit your event to relevant directories and aggregator sites. Every external mention is a vote of confidence that AI systems pick up on.
Schema markup is structured data that tells search engines and AI systems exactly what type of content they're looking at. For events, this means implementing Event schema that specifies your event name, date, location, ticket price, organizer, and more. According to available data, full schema implementation produces a 27% lift in AI extractability. Only 20% of brands have done this. That gap is your competitive advantage.
The way people discover events is changing faster than many event marketing teams can keep up with. AI tools are now a primary discovery layer, the starting point for a growing share of your potential attendees.
The good news is most of your competitors haven't adapted yet. Only 20% of brands have implemented AEO. That means the window to get ahead is still open, but it won't stay open for long.
Get your technical foundation right, earn credible mentions across the web, and write content that AI can confidently extract, and you won’t need to pay to be found.
Want to see what InGo can do for your next event? Book a demo today and find out how to turn your VIPs into your most powerful AI visibility and growth engine.
Need help with your event tech? The professionals at BW Events help take the stress out of building quality event sites—no matter what platform you’re using. Let’s chat!
Connect with the co-authors Victoria and Stephanie on LinkedIn.
AEO (Answer Engine Optimization) is the practice of structuring digital content so that AI tools—like ChatGPT, Google's AI Overviews, and Perplexity—can extract and cite it in conversational search results. Traditional SEO focuses on ranking in search engine results pages. AEO focuses on being the source that AI systems surface when users ask questions directly.
Around 35% of people now use AI tools at the product-discovery stage, compared to 13.6% who use traditional search. For events, this means potential attendees may be asking AI tools which conferences, summits, or expos are worth attending—before they ever visit a search results page. If your event site isn't structured for AI extractability, it simply won't appear in those answers.
According to current data, 83% of AI citations come from pages updated within the last 12 months, and over 60% come from pages refreshed within 6 months. Update your event pages regularly—add speaker announcements, agenda updates, and post-event recaps to keep content fresh and indexable.
Schema markup is structured data that you add to your website's code to help search engines and AI systems understand your content. For events, Event schema specifies your event name, date, location, organizer, and ticket information. Full schema implementation produces a 27% lift in AI extractability—making it one of the highest-impact, lowest-effort changes you can make.
InGo helps event marketers activate speakers, sponsors, and exhibitors to share personalized content across their social networks. This generates authentic third-party mentions and backlinks—which account for 85% of brand mentions in AI results. More third-party content means more credibility signals, which means better AI visibility for your event.
Whether you're planning your first virtual event or managing a global event series, we're here to help.
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