May 15, 2025

Power Play: How to Profit from AI Search in Trucking and Logistics

The blog explains how logistics and trucking companies can stay competitive by adopting Answer Engine Optimization (AEO) strategies to improve their visibility in AI-powered search tools like ChatGPT and Claude.

Your customers and prospects are moving away from traditional search engines and turning to AI for answers. Will someone else contact them first to offer products and services that meet their needs? They might be if you aren’t included in AI search results.

Many consumers and businesspeople have replaced traditional Google searches with AI-powered tools like ChatGPT, Claude, Grok, and voice assistants. This shift requires suppliers in transportation, logistics, and supply chain industries to change SEO and SEM strategies.

In a LinkedIn Live webinar, Aaron Huff and Jennie Malafarina from Virago Marketing, and Joe Babi from Joseph Paul Digital Agency shared valuable strategies for appearing in AI search results to meet people where they are in the buying process.

The Rise of Answer Engine Optimization (AEO)

According to Jennie, CEO of Virago, approximately 20% of internet users have shifted from traditional search engines to AI tools. This behavioral change is significant because users now ask questions in natural language rather than clicking on websites to do research.

More significantly, she noted that people look at AI results before clicking on paid links based on keywords. AI results appear first and are perceived as neutral. Users trust these tools to provide unbiased information rather than sponsored content.

How AEO Differs from Traditional SEO

Joe highlighted the evolution of SEO strategies. “When I first started doing SEO, it was all about what words were on your website. It was easy to rank. Then, the Panda update punished people for having poor content,” he said.

This led to a race to create detailed, lengthy content. However, with AI search, the best results come from effectively and concisely communicating the answer to a question. “It’s more about understanding the customer,” he emphasized.

The experts noted that industry-specific language that matches the speech of your target audience is crucial. For instance, in the logistics industry, using “TMS” rather than “transportation management software” aligns with how professionals talk and search.

Jennie shared a success story about Virago Marketing’s collaboration with True TMS. Optimized blog content and media coverage helped the company’s solutions appear in AI search results for “best TMS for liquid bulk” across multiple platforms, demonstrating the power of effective AEO.

The presenters explained the advantages gained by those who know how to create winning content and marketing strategies in this new digital frontier:

Increased credibility: AI tools are trusted over traditional search engines
Visibility above paid search results: Optimized content appears before expensive PPC ads
Better understanding of user intent: AI search engines grasp the context of questions
Cost-effective marketing: When an AI overview appears over the search results, click-through rates for paid ads drop from 21% to 10%. Therefore, companies should reconsider their PPC strategy and allocate more resources to organic content optimized for AI search.

Implementing AEO Strategies

The experts emphasized that traditional SEO fundamentals still apply but need adaptation.

“Traditional stuff is still at play,” Jennie noted. “Google didn’t just go away. You don’t want to focus on AI; you want to focus on the experience.”

Joe added that website performance is more critical than ever: “It costs money and resources to crawl your website, so the faster you can load and the quicker you can provide information, the more pages on your website they’re going to crawl.”

Other critical factors include creating well-structured content in a conversational tone that humans and machines can quickly scan and directly answer common market questions.

Tools for AEO Success

To help businesses adapt to this changing landscape, Virago Marketing has developed AEO GPT, a tool that analyzes content and provides optimization recommendations for AI search engines.

“This GPT was created to identify how to optimize your content for AEO,” Jennie explained. “It’s looking at how to shorten content, better use keywords, structure the content, and rephrase headlines to ask questions.”

The tool allows users to upload their content, receive optimization suggestions, and generate an improved version incorporating those changes.

Looking Ahead

Both experts agreed that AI search is still evolving, and strategies must adapt accordingly. “I think this is just the beginning of evolution,” Jennie remarked. “Nothing stays static.”

As AI search continues to gain popularity, businesses that understand and implement AEO strategies will gain a competitive advantage in reaching their target audience at crucial stages of the buying process.

Want to learn more about optimizing your content for AI search engines? Watch the full webinar replay and access the AEO GPT tool and other AI resources here.