The Long Game Kitchen Side: AI Search Tactics, Telemetry and Team Structure
In this Kitchen Side episode of The Long Game Podcast, Alex and David are joined by Nick Lafferty from Profound to unpack how teams are navigating AI search visibility amid shifting metrics, attribution challenges, and unclear best practices.
They discuss how companies choose which prompts to track, why case studies in AI search are hard to define and share, where brand and citations fit into AI-generated answers, and what organizational bottlenecks are preventing teams from acting on AI search insights.
Key Takeaways
- Prompt selection matters, but most teams underestimate how much customer language and internal feedback should shape what they track in AI search.
- AI search case studies are difficult to standardize because visibility depends heavily on prompt framing, attribution models, and competitive sensitivity.
- Revenue and self-reported attribution remain the most reliable signals as clicks, impressions, and rankings become less dependable.
- Problem-based prompts frequently surface brand recommendations, even when users don’t explicitly ask for tools or products.
- Citation share acts as an influence layer, shaping future AI responses even when a brand isn’t directly recommended in the output.
- Brand-building activities upstream of content can meaningfully impact AI visibility by associating a company with specific problem spaces.
- AI search ownership is increasingly cross-functional, spanning growth, SEO, PR, comms, and product marketing rather than a single team.
- Internal resourcing and approval processes are major bottlenecks, especially for off-site efforts like Reddit and YouTube.
Show Links
- Visit Profound on LinkedIn
- Connect with Nick Lafferty on LinkedIn
- Connect with David Khim on LinkedIn and Twitter
- Connect with Alex Birkett on LinkedIn and Twitter
- Connect with Omniscient Digital on LinkedIn or Twitter
What is Kitchen Side?
One big benefit of running an agency or working at one is you get to see the “kitchen side” of many different businesses; their revenue, their operations, their automations, and their culture.
You understand how things look from the inside and how that differs from the outside.
You understand how the sausage is made.
As an agency ourselves, we’re working both on growing our clients’ businesses as well as our own. This podcast is one project, but we also blog, make videos, do sales, and have quite a robust portfolio of automations and hacks to run our business.
We want to take you behind the curtain, to the kitchen side of our business, to witness our brainstorms, discussions, and internal dialogues behind the public works that we ship.
Past guests on The Long Game podcast include: Morgan Brown (Shopify), Ryan Law (Animalz), Dan Shure (Evolving SEO), Kaleigh Moore (freelancer), Eric Siu (Clickflow), Peep Laja (CXL), Chelsea Castle (Chili Piper), Tracey Wallace (Klaviyo), Tim Soulo (Ahrefs), Ryan McReady (Reforge), and many more.
Some interviews you might enjoy and learn from:
Actionable Tips and Secrets to SEO Strategy with Dan Shure (Evolving SEO)
Building Competitive Marketing Content with Sam Chapman (Aprimo)
How to Build the Right Data Workflow with Blake Burch (Shipyard)
Data-Driven Thought Leadership with Alicia Johnston (Sprout Social)
Purpose-Driven Leadership & Building a Content Team with Ty Magnin (UiPath)
Also, check out our Kitchen Side series where we take you behind the scenes to see how the sausage is made at our agency:
Should You Hire Writers or Subject Matter Experts?
How Do Growth and Content Overlap?
Connect with Omniscient Digital on social:
Twitter: @beomniscient
Linkedin: Be Omniscient
Listen to more episodes of The Long Game podcast here: https://beomniscient.com/podcast/