More than a third of consumers now start searching with AI rather than traditional engines. And customers from AI search channels already convert 4.4x more than organic search visitors, according to a Semrush study. Plus, only 15.2% of the 1,094 categories the company analyzed had a clear owner. That means that 85% topics are still up for grabs for brands.
Yet for many CMOs, building consistent visibility across LLMs such as ChatGPT, Claude, and Perplexity is still an emerging discipline – one that can be difficult to operationalize at scale. “For most businesses there are just a handful of things that, done consistently week after week, pay dividends over time,” says Leigh McKenzie, Director of Online Visibility at Semrush. “Invest in your brand, make sure your owned digital properties are technically sound and the content aligns with your brand message, and work to match your brand promise with your customer experience,” he adds.
To help marketing leaders learn how to grow and improve their AI visibility, Semrush is hosting Spotlight, a first-of-its-kind marketing conference in London on October 13. Spotlight will bring together AI marketing leaders from top brands such as OpenAI, LinkedIn, Wix, WPP, and Adobe to share their experience on building AI visibility. Together, senior marketers will share what they’ve tried, what they’ve learned, and what isn’t working so well.
“After the initial uncertainty when AI search first arrived, we’re now at a point where there are practical things you can do to build your AI visibility, and attending Spotlight will help teach you how,” Leigh said.
Step into the AI spotlight
Spotlight will take place in London, at Old Billingsgate, a Victorian landmark on the River Thames. The conference will welcome more than 1,000 CMOs, marketing directors, and senior brand leaders who are navigating how AI is changing the way people find and evaluate brands.
With media partners including The Drum and Fortune, and Adobe as the visionary sponsor, the event programme includes two keynote stages, workshops, small-group mastermind sessions, networking, an expo, and interactive experiences. The conference will tackle questions such as:
- How can you help AI platforms cite your website and turn that exposure into a pipeline?
- Where should brands draw the human line, and what should AI never write?
- How can you create content that earns trust in an AI-saturated feed?
- How should you measure ROI and decide what to keep, what to cut, and where to double down?
- What happens when AI fails in the real world, and how can teams build fallbacks that work?
Attendees can shape their schedules around the challenges that matter most to their businesses instead of spending the day listening to broad predictions.
The speaker line-up features more than 80 experts across industries. They include Leila Woodington, Head of B2B Marketing for EMEA at OpenAI; Paula Ximena Mejia, VP of Marketing at Wix; and Daniel Hulme, Chief AI Officer at WPP. Speakers from McKinsey, ElevenLabs, Wise, Spotify, Johnson & Johnson, Uber Eats, Getty Images, G2, and other leading companies will also take the stage.
But the most useful insight may not come from the stage at all. It might emerge during a coffee-bar conversation that starts with: “We tried that, and you won’t believe what happened next.”
A two-day AI search sprint
Semrush powers Spotlight with its proprietary search data, helping speakers and attendees ground conversations about brand performance in evidence rather than guesswork. Marketers who want more hands-on training can also attend the Semrush AI Search Bootcamp on October 12, the day before the main conference.
Find the right pass
Conference passes start at £249 and include access to the Main Stage, expo, and post-event cocktails. The £529 All Access Pass adds the Enterprise Stage, workshops, and mastermind sessions. The £749 VIP Pass guarantees access to three masterminds and includes priority seating, two workshops, the exclusive VIP and speakers reception, and more.
As discovery spreads across Google, social platforms, and AI assistants, marketers need a clearer view of where their brands appear and what they should do next. Spotlight aims to give them both: practical ideas they can put to work and a plan to help ensure that when AI responds, their brand forms part of the answer.
Opinions expressed in this article are those of the sponsor. Search Engine Land neither confirms nor disputes any of the conclusions presented above.
