My clients started asking about AI visibility before they saw any traffic drop.
No crisis moment. No sudden panic. Just a growing awareness that prospects were asking ChatGPT and Perplexity for answers instead of typing into Google.
They wanted to know: how do we show up there?
At GK3 Capital, we create a lot of blog content for financial services firms. So building an AEO formatter tool felt like a natural next step. But I had to learn something fundamental first.
AI doesn’t read content the way humans do.
When AI scans a blog post, it doesn’t read linearly from top to bottom.
It maps the structure first — H1, H2, H3, paragraph blocks. It’s building a hierarchy of importance before it even processes the words.
The H1 signals: this is the main topic. Each H2 marks a major concept or question. H3s show supporting details and breakdowns.
Think of it as a roadmap for meaning.
Traditional SEO taught us to optimize for keywords and backlinks. But AI needs something different. It needs architecture.
Because AI provides short, precise answers to specific questions, you need to structure your content so those answers are easy to extract.
Here’s the problem: most financial services content wasn’t built for extraction.
Key Point: AI reads structure before words. Clear hierarchies improve visibility in answer engines.
When someone asks ChatGPT, “What are good alternatives to bonds right now?” the second version gets surfaced. The first one doesn’t.
Too much jargon makes it harder for AI to connect the specific question to your direct answer.
Key Point: Simpler, conversational phrasing improves AI discoverability and direct-answer matching.
When I started building the formatter, I made everything about AI optimization.
The tool converted entire articles into bullet points. Every section became a numbered list. It was perfectly structured for AI extraction — and completely strange for humans to read.
I had to find the middle ground: content that’s easy for AI to parse but still reads like a natural article for people.
The breakthrough came from adding Key Point sections.
At the end of each major section, one summary line. Example:
Key Point: Private funds can enhance yield while maintaining diversification.
This works for both audiences. Humans get a clear takeaway. AI gets an explicit semantic cue that says: this is the distilled meaning of what you just read.
Instead of AI guessing which sentence matters most, you tell it directly.
Key Point: Every section needs a clear summary statement to guide both AI and readers.
If your content isn’t optimized for AI extraction, you’re invisible to the majority of searchers.
Financial firms aren’t writing for two audiences anymore. They’re writing for three:
And AEO is already more important than SEO. It’s the majority of how users get answers to their questions — and that 60% number is continuing to grow.
ChatGPT dominates with 77.97% of all AI search traffic, representing over 5 billion visits. If you’re not showing up there, you’re missing the biggest discovery opportunity in a decade.
Early adopters are already seeing results. Firms that implemented AEO strategies in early 2024 report capturing 3.4x more answer-engine traffic than competitors who waited.
The competitive advantage window is open — but it won’t stay open.
Key Point: AEO is no longer optional. It’s how visibility happens in a zero-click world.
The AEO formatter I built is simple to use.
You input your blog. You review the output. That’s it.
What comes out follows a specific structure:
The tool keeps your voice and ideas. It just restructures them so AI can actually find and extract them.
Key Point: AEO formatting enhances structure without sacrificing voice or expertise.
Your prospects are asking AI assistants for investment advice, retirement planning guidance, and fund recommendations.
If your content isn’t structured for AI extraction, those prospects never see your firm.
This isn’t a future problem — it’s happening now. The firms that recognize this and adapt today will be the ones that prospects discover tomorrow.
At GK3 Capital, we help financial services firms transition from outdated marketing tactics to strategies that work in the digital world we actually live in.
We speak two languages: digital marketing and financial services. That’s why we can build tools like the AEO formatter — we understand both the technical requirements of AI optimization and the compliance needs of financial content.
If you’re interested in going deeper with AEO, download our eBook "Content Marketing in an AI World" to discover how AEO goes beyond content formatting— and how it can be applied across your business to help your firm stand out where prospects are searching most: AI platforms.
Key Point: The firms adapting to AEO today are the ones being discovered tomorrow.