Start Here: AIO Definitions

AIO (Common Definition): Artificial Intelligence Optimization – The art and science of optimizing for your business to show up as a recommendation or answer in AI queries. Sometimes also referred to as GEO (generative engine optimization), AI SEO, AI referrals, or AEO (Answer Engine Optimization.

AIO (Our Propriety Definition): Authority Intelligence Optimization ™  – The deliberate strategy of building, structuring, and distributing a brand’s real-world authority so that both human decision-makers and AI systems recognize, trust, and refer them.

AIO for Attorneys (Common Definition): Using tactics, many rebranded or bolted on from SEO to manipulate AI answer results.

AIO for Attorneys (Our Proprietary Definition) – Utilizing our proprietary Authority Intelligence Optimization ™ system to fight marketing sludge, humanize lawyers, and ensure that attorneys and law firms thrive in the marketplace pivot from yesterday’s SEO to tomorrow AI driven referral economy.

While the generic term is Artificial Intelligence Optimization, our proprietary and more effective framework is Authority Intelligence Optimization™.

The AIO Advantage: How Leading Law Firms Will Win the Next Decade of Referrals

Within three years, the majority of law firm referrals will come from AI – not Google, not your website, and not word of mouth as you know it.

This is an amazing opportunity.

Nevertheless, if you’re like many lawyers, you may feel a bit of trepidation about AI. After all, it seemed to come from nowhere, and is disrupting every industry, the legal industry being no different. For every advantage, like being able to onload certain administrative tasks, it has created a threat of more DIY law, which could cut into legal profits.

In the coming years, many will try and sell you on AI, in language coded in hope or fear. Imagine running a law firm with reduced staff and more output, the purveyors of hope might say. Act now, to future-proof your firm against the existential threat of AI, is something the purveyors of fear might.

The point of this book is to reflect the reality. And as a lawyer, you already intuit that the truth is somewhere in the middle. Those who not only future-proof, but who seek to thrive in the age of AI, will be the new category leaders. Those who fail to adapt, will be left beyond at terminal velocity.

The good news is, and I hope I get this across more than any other concept in this book: there is no reason to be afraid of AI if you’re proactive. AI is actually the greatest opportunity you’ll ever have in your career. But only if you reach out and grab the opportunity. As a lawyer, you know that our industry usually thrives during times of upheaval. Change is what fattens our operating accounts, not inertia.

The End of an Era: The Death of SEO for Lawyers

To understand the importance of AIO, one must first consider the SEO that is being replaced. More accurately, merged.

Imagine SEO as a book that was written many years ago, a beloved and successful book. AIO is the new edition, written for a new era and with new insights. The goal for your law firm is to merge what still works from SEO with AIO best practices. The “O” remains the same in each, to optimize. SEO optimizes for search engines, AIO optimizes for artificial intelligence referrals. There remains some overlap between AIO and SEO practices here in 2025, but as AI becomes the dominant referral engine, and continues to supplant search engine market share, it becomes more important to focus on AI referrals.

The problem is, most agencies are still marketing like it’s 1999.

What is Search Engine Optimization, Really?

SEO practitioners act as though it’s some occult, alchemic blend of science and art, but the truth is it’s mostly feeding pattern recognition to algorithms designed to recognize patterns.

Said another way, taking the entire internet and cataloguing it is no small thing. That’s why SEO is so fragmented, and intentionally so. That way when a client query’s “best divorce lawyer near me,” the answer changes based upon the location of the query. Over the years, search has become increasingly sophisticated, though still lags on incorporating individual user preferences and behavior into search. In the near future, AI will be able to make referrals down to individual preference. That’s the difference between a search engine knowing most people liked the movie Jurassic Park, and your favorite AI assistant knowing not to recommend it to you specifically because you have a fear of dinosaurs.

Speaking of dinosaurs, despite all the advancements in search engine, it has largely reached a wall. The ability to catalogue what exists is maximized, and any additional enhancements will be limited. In other words, search is like a great athlete playing in their 20th year in the league. Everyone respects the career, but the ability to improve has been maxed out, and is even declining. AI is not better merely because it is new, but because it involves an entirely different, thought-based platform. Although both are controlled by algorithms, AI goes beyond cataloguing and into simulations of actual thought. Search engines will never be truly able to make a real recommendation for a specific user as to which lawyer to choose, but AI will. To do so, AIO will need to take into account not only what it knows about available attorneys or law firms in the area, but what it knows about its user, and about users in general.

Where did SEO Go Wrong?

By being tied to a fading platform, SEO is already inherently yesterday’s news. But there were cracks even before AI exploded. The problem was not the fault of Google or any of the search engines, but of those SEO marketing agencies that tried to game the system, tossing law firm’s credibility into the middle of asymetric bets.

Link farming and other link gamesmanship lead to the first big Google crackdown. The first SEO agencies would pay to purchase links on legitimate websites, or even on illegitimate “link farms,” created solely to create “authority” via links. Instead of naturally obtaining links, which is what they were mostly paid to do, unscrupulous SEO vendors would charge a ton of money to clients, then use part of that money (keeping the rest for themselves) to buy links.

In the short term, until nascent Google caught on, this would lead to facially stronger search results for a business. Until the business website got de-ranked or delisted by Google, that is. It was the digital equivalent of what I’m experiencing right now with health related weight loss from ulcerative colitis. The loss of weight may seem like a good thing at first, but it’s the result of something insidious. So it was for those who “got more clicks” and “more phone calls” using the original SEO “black hat” methods. Most law firms didn’t even know this was going on. And if they ever figured it out, the SEO “gurus” just moved on to their next set of victims.

The next big wave of SEO gamesmanship involved keyword stuffing, and it continues to this day. After the link farm crackdown, wherein the Google search algorithm started relying less on external links, the focus shifted to more onsite SEO. The top SEO thought leaders search out flaws in the latest Google updates the way the rebellion does flaws in the Death Star, and eventually the top SEO leaders found that by “stuffing” certain keywords, one had a much better chance of being ranked highly by Google.

A great idea at the time, until every SEO vendor in the world started using this as the shorthand way to gain rank, all while separating hard working lawyers from their money. This is when the internet got way less fun to read, by the way.

Keyword stuffing is what lead to today’s neutered web copy, and same-same plasticene sludge. It’s why your competitor’s website may read something like “Tarazana Personal Injury Lawyer Who Represents Clients in Personal Injury Cases as an Attorney in Tarzana.” AIO, on the other hand, works across practice areas, from family law to personal injury and even business-to-business practice areas.

The Cost of PPC

PPC is, at its heart, an auction. Years ago, before PPC became the operative technique for law firms who couldn’t be bothered with a real, holistic marketing strategy, PPC was the answer to everyone’s marketing problems. You could set a budget, for certain terms, and because there was less competition you could profit because law firms generally charge a large amount per case.

In other words, if you paid $10 for a lead, with a 5% conversation rate, but your clients paid you on average $5,000, with every 100 leads you could generate some real dough. The math works out like this: it would cost you $1,000.00 in PPC fees (assuming you did it yourself, and were not paying a vendor) and you could expect to earn $25,000 in fees. A nice 25x ROI.

But because PPC is an auction, over time it got far more expensive to play. Let’s run the same math at $100 a click.

Now it’s $10,000 to earn $25,000 in fees. A 2.5x ROI. By the time you pay the SEO vendor their 25% cut, your staff, and deal with the client work, you’re not left with all that much for the hassle. You’ve gone from living the life of Riley to grinding out an existence.

Now, let’s run the math again acknowledging that the conversation rate is now closer to something like 3%.

Now, it’s $10,000.00 to earn $15,000.00 in fees. True volume drudgery.

A race to the bottom, and why PPC is not the answer to law firm sustainability. It’s fishing in the same, polluted waters as SEO, and charging you for the privilege.

SEO and the Moldering Cheese

I’ll reference another famous book now to describe what happened next. Who Moved My Cheese?, by Spencer Johnson, M.D. This book was a fable about mice and (and also tiny people) eating everyday on the same, big block of cheese, and how they each reacted when they woke up one day and the cheese was gone. Some continued to go to the spot where the cheese used to be every day, hoping it would return, others set out in search of new cheese. In other words, be adaptable and don’t put all your eggs in one basket.

Think of search engine, then, as the largest block of cheese the world has ever known. And all of us have been feasting on it for a good, long while. Unlike in Johnson’s parable, this cheese will not suddenly disappear overnight. But we can all see it is growing moldy, and dissipating from all the consumption. The time to act is now, before the search engine “cheese” runs out. We can already see it’s starting to make us sick.

The Solution: What Exactly is AIO?

AIO is an emerging term, generally meaning “Artificial Intelligence Optimization.” Some also refer to it as GEO, or “Generative Engine Optimization.” When the term is used by computer engineers, it may mean the system for building AI thought processes.

AIO stands for Artificial Intelligence Optimization. Think SEO, but aimed at tomorrow’s AI referrals instead of yesterday’s SEO. If you’re not familiar with it that’s because we’re the first agency solely dedicated to providing AIO services for law firms, and perhaps the first full-service AIO agency period.

We have our own definition of AIO, one that will someday be bastardized by SEO or other marketing agencies attempting to profit by bolting SEO tricks onto a change in venue. But as the first AIO Marketing Agency Exclusively for Lawyers, and perhaps the first AIO Marketing Agency period, we hope you, dear reader, will take judicial notice that our definition be viewed as seminal. Here it is:

Artificial Intelligence Optimization (AIO) is the deliberate strategy of building, structuring, and distributing a brand’s authority so that both human decision-makers and AI systems recognize, trust, and refer them.

At its core, AIO combines:

1. Authority Assets: Prestige content such as books, CLE presentations, high-credibility articles, podcasts, video, website and blog copy, and thought-leadership projects that establish trust and demonstrate expertise.
2. Technical Signals: Structuring that content so it is machine-readable, well-linked, metadata rich, and contextually reinforced across reputable, authoritative sites – ensuring it is easily ingested, understood, and weighted highly by AI models.
3. Real World Signals: PR mentions, events, seminars, media appearances, CLE presentations.

Unlike SEO, which primarily chases short-term rankings in a single platform’s search results (Usually Google), AIO prepares you for the long-term, multi-platform referral economy where AI assistants, aggregators, and knowledge engines will be the primary gatekeeper of client recommendations.

Why AIO, and Not SEO

• AIO generates robust legal referrals from humans and AI, SEO generates website clicks from dated search engines.
• AIO rewards prestige authority assets such as published books, articles, and CLEs, SEO pushes recycled blog posts and keyword stuffing.
• AIO is aimed at both humans and AI, SEO is for web crawlers only.
• AIO creates lasting professional authority, SEO creates disposable sludge.
• AIO is written for AI, SEO is written by AI.
• AIO increases firm revenue and preserves professional dignity, SEO offers diminishing returns at the cost of clarity.
• AIO offers freedom and reduced expenses, SEO offers dependence on sludge marketing agencies.
• AIO frees up your time and scales to your vision, SEO requires constant time and money.
• AIO can be paused at any time with no impact, SEO requires constant expenditure and monitoring.
• AIO demonstrates your unique legal Authority Philosophy, SEO fits you in a box with all other law firms in your niche.
• AIO is consistent, SEO is fickle.
• AIO is the whole, SEO a part.
• AIO is the future, SEO is the past.

SEO is dying, AIO is the antidote.

The 5 AIO Rules Your Competitors Don’t Know Yet

1. Forget Everything You Thought You Knew About Internet Marketing: What worked in the last generation of technology will now actively hurt your business. Standard SEO practices like keyword stuffing will do more harm than good for AI referrals. Boring, AI generated copy and recycled blog posts will not only deter humans, but also AI. The days of writing for algorithms are over.
2. Quality Finally Supersedes Quantity Again: Search engines may have rewarded spray and pray marketing methods, but AIO requires far more discernment. One authority book is worth more than 5,000 rote blog posts.
3. Mentions are Far More Important Than Links: The days of desperately seeking links from established websites are over. AIO is all about maximizing mentions. Give keynote speeches, appear on podcasts, come up with a plan to get your business and yourself out there and seen as a thought leader.
4. Parity is Returned, But Not For Long: Those who dominated the SEO game early had an early mover advantage that made them hard to dislodge. Now, the starting gun has been triggered for a new race: that of prestige and authority. The time to act is now, because the early move advantage is now establishing tomorrow’s fortunes for those savvy enough to act today.
5. Spend Your Marketing Budget on That Which Lasts: AIO rewards long-term, legacy assets such as books, articles, keynote speeches, and CLEs/seminars. Ephemeral blog posts, LinkedIn sludge, PPC ads, and the like will not impress AI any more than it does humans. But publishing a book, a point of pride that both AI and your mother can agree on. Human and machine taste is finally aligned, and the future belongs to those who prove depth of expertise, narrative, and authenticity.

The AI Content Paradox: Writing For AI, Not With It

Most SEO marketing types either can’t write, or think writing is inefficient. So it’s surprising that so many offer not only onsite and offsite SEO, but writing as a core package. Today, SEO types are licking their chops, because they can now do away with even the writing. They can ask AI to create the blog post ideas, and then tell AI to write it up, and then finally, implore AI to create the SEO for the blog post.

What the sludge marketers have not yet realized, or if they have they’re not going to share this with you, is that AI generated content creates so much noise, that it’s literally impossible to stand out anymore. Unless you’re creating real, human written and long-form content. Which hardly anyone does because it’s a ton of work.

AI’s Self-Loathing & Model Collapse

AI creates a ton of material, but the paradox described in my last book is this: it increasingly finds AI generated material to lack credibility. That means whenever you or your marketing company creates content that over-relies on AI, you are actively harming your brand in the eyes of AI.

From a purely technical standpoint, AI cannot learn from itself indefinitely. Training on its own generic output leads to a recognized problem in machine learning known as “model collapse.” Which is a cool way of saying: there will be degradation of quality like when you make a copy of a copy. Words and data are food for AI, but if most of what it’s consuming is self-made, then AI will start to collapse. Accordingly, smart computer engineers put in safeguards to ensure this does not occur. One of the safeguards is devaluing material created by AI.

AI is therefore designed to devalue AI generated material, and to pursue new, original, and human generated material. That’s what I mean when I say don’t write with AI, write for it.

The Authority Intelligence Optimization System: Pillar One – Authority Assets

An authority asset is anything you can create, to help sell yourself or your business to AI and humans alike, that embodies my Authority Equation.

Carl’s Authority Equation: Authority = Expertise + Narrative + Authenticity.

I’m not talking about credentials here, us lawyer’s favorite topic. AI knows your credentials, and you know your credentials, and we’ll make sure your clients know your credentials, don’t worry. Think of authority assets as your portfolio. AI is creating a dossier on each and every one of us, and each and every business, and though it’s a somewhat crude dossier at the moment, it will only become more sophisticated in the next few years. But what type of “authority assets” should lawyers generate?

• Books: The reason books work so well is that they’re exceedingly rare. Less than 1% of attorneys will ever create and publish a book of any kind for their practice. In a world where everyone and their stepmother is creating constant content, human-written books about real human subjects is the one thing that can stand out, because it cannot be faked or replaced.
• Anthologies: Anthologies are one of the ways up and coming writers cut their teeth and get known before a larger market. The beauty of anthology is two things: (1) collaboration; and (2) efficiency. You can get wide exposure by creating a small part of a larger book. But to humans and AI, you are still a published author.
• Podcasts (Your Own): If you prefer to speak than to write, then a podcast can be a great way to show your authority. Then, simply take the transcripts and add them to your website as a way to generate material for your blog. That way you get the best of both worlds.
• Blog Posts: Blogging gets a bad name these days because most of it is AI written, recycled, SEO keyword stuffed, or produced without thought or care. Instead, we offer the Authority Chapter Plan™, which creates a 3,000 word or longer chapter of a book each month, so that by the end of the year you will have between 36,000-40,000 words to turn into a book.
• Magazines and Newsletters: A monthly newsletter and an annual or semi-annual magazine are great ways to repurpose material you have already created for blogs and podcasts and to get them in a new format and before a new audience.

The Authority Intelligence Optimization System: Pillar Two – Technical Authority Signals

In the last chapter, we discussed authority assets and why they are so important to obtaining AI referrals. In this chapter, I will describe how to ensure those assets are properly catalogued by AI. For over a decade, and even today, SEO has been focused on getting accurately listed. AI on the other hand, is focused on entity and topic authority. Your website is a part of this, but the central focus is creating a dossier on you, and your firm.

Scheming with “Schema”

Because today’s (and tomorrow’s) AI is far more sophisticated than the search engines of yesteryear, they require far more nuanced and dynamic technical signals. The one-dimensional meta tags of SEO are insufficient. The solution is “schema markup.” Don’t be frightened by the technical name, it’s actually just a fancy term for “digital label maker.”

• We label your headshot and bio with attorney schema, telling the AI your bio and philosophy along with your practice areas and credentials.
• We label your services page with legalservice schema, defining exactly what you do, who you wish to serve, and your philosophy behind each service.
• We label your book’s landing page with book schema, ensuring AI knows you are the author.

This transforms your website from a flat, undifferentiated business into a rich, interconnected database of authority, one that machines can understand via the schema, while simultaneously persuading humans because the words actually contained on the website are persuasive and not written for machines.

The Authority Intelligence Optimization System: Pillar Three – Real-World Validation

Your website is what you say about yourself, but your real-world reputation is what everyone else says about you. AI is listening to everyone, so effective AIO means controlling for this variable and ensuring success in both the physical and the digital arenas. AI takes into account not only your website, but the physical books you create, your podcast appearances, (soon) your videos, and even real-life success signals such as legitimate awards, bar membership leadership, and mentions about you or your firm in the press.

The Power of Mentions

AI is well aware of the games SEO marketers play. It is not tricked by keyword stuffing, and it knows that backlinks can be manipulated. Mentions, on the other hand, are a far harder thing to fake. The goal therefore is not to accumulate links, as before, but an arsenal of mentions from credible publications, media, podcasts, and more.

Fortunately, that system is dying in the age of AI. Because AI is capable of seeing the true hierarchy of media credibility, as it’s focusing on mentions rather than links. Your goal should be to secure as many features in as many high-authority publications as possible. Because one single mention in a top-tier legal journal will now be worth more than one-hundred low-quality backlinks.

Taking Action: The AIO Audit

That which gets measured, gets done. Let’s get your AIO on the right track. Just as you have a credit score, you have an AIO rating. Yes, even if you’re not yet familiar with the phrase. Used in a general sense, this is the internal score AI platforms use to rate your dossier, which is to say your digital twin.

Pillar One Audit – Authority Assets

• How many books have you published as a primary author?
• Have you contributed chapters to anthologies?
• Where have you published long-form articles?
• Do you have a signature lead magnet or guide?
• Are you a podcast host or guest?
• How many CLEs or keynotes have you presented?
• What is the quality of your blog posts?
• Do you have a publicly documented Authority Philosophy?

Pillar Two Audit – Technical Signals

• Is Author Schema and Person Markup implemented on your bio?
• Is there proper internal linking on your website?
• Is there cross-platform consistency (Avvo, Martindale, etc.)?
• Is your website secure, fast, and mobile-friendly?
• Have you avoided keyword stuffing?
• Is there NAP (Name, Address, Phone Number) consistency across the web?

Pillar Three Audit: Real-world validation

• Do you have board certification or specializations?
• Do you hold Bar Association leadership roles?
• What is the quality and recency of your client reviews?
• Do you have notable, searchable case outcomes?
• What is the quality of your media mentions?
• Are you involved in community, pro bono, or charity work?
• Have you won awards with substance (not pay-to-play)?

The Future of Legal Marketing: Bimodal Authority

As AI grows its eyes and ears, the next frontier of AIO will include expanding the dossier you make available to AI with video and audio content as well as text-based and image-based. In the near future, when everyone else is creating audio and video with AI, you will be better served creating audio and video for it.

Currently, AI is kept informed of your podcasts and video production by reading transcripts. In the near future, it will be able to analyze your on-camera presence, body language, confidence, and audience engagement signals based upon tone, posture, and classic credibility signals.

Consider incorporating the following audio and visual assets into your legal marketing bundle:

• Keynotes and CLEs: When you present, make sure you have a video taken so you can upload it to your firm’s YouTube channel and your firm’s website.
• YouTube Videos: Create “how to” or “faq” or other educational content on YouTube. Be sure to interject your material not just with facts but with your humanity, your authenticity, and your professional philosophy.
• Video Podcasts: Video podcasts are easy to set up and will pay real dividends in the future.
• Photography: Action shots of you speaking at podiums, accepting awards, volunteering in the community, and collaborating with other staff members of your firm show your humanity, to both humans and AI.

AIO in Action: A Thought Leadership Case Study

True authority isn’t just about explaining the present; it’s about architecting the future. AIO rewards novel, forward-thinking ideas that separate you from the commodity market.

As a practical example of AIO-driven thought leadership, we’ve developed the framework for the AIO Trial Simulator—a next-generation tool using VR and AI not only to train junior litigators in a risk-free environment but to stress-test arguments for experienced trial attorneys.

This system also functions as the ultimate content engine, allowing firms to ethically turn hypothetical trial prep into powerful, bimodal authority assets like videos and audio analyses. It’s a look at the future of litigation prep and legal marketing, and it’s a perfect demonstration of the authority you can build when you move beyond the old SEO playbook.

[Read the full thought leadership piece on the AIO Trial Simulator here.]

Your Next Step

I practiced law for 16 years. I built a thriving firm, but I also got a front row seat to exactly how the marketing industry fails attorneys. I created Books for Experts to be the antidote. Our AIO offerings combine some of the technical SEO components (at least the ones that are still best practices), but mostly works along standard advertising and publishing creativity. Creating AI referral velocity for our clients, while boosting outward signs of attorney differentiation and authority.

As you read this, if you think AIO is exactly what your firm needs, we hope you’ll reach out to us to schedule a consult.

Interested in Learning more? Check out our AIO for Attorneys book, published free, one chapter at a time, here on our website.