B2B buyers are increasingly using generative AI tools to research software, compare vendors and narrow their choices before visiting a company's website. That shift is creating a new marketing problem: brands must understand not only where they rank in traditional search, but how AI systems describe and recommend them.

Veloz, an AI-native Answer Engine Optimization (AEO) agency, has become a verified partner of Profound, an AI visibility platform. The partnership places Profound at the center of Veloz's AEO services, with the agency using the platform to monitor AI visibility, identify opportunities and connect changes in brand representation to pipeline and conversion outcomes.

Search marketing has historically revolved around a relatively familiar sequence: a buyer enters a query, search engines return results, and businesses compete for visibility on the results page.

Generative AI is disrupting that model.

A buyer researching B2B software can now ask ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini or Perplexity which products are best for a particular use case and receive a synthesized recommendation rather than a conventional list of links.

That changes what it means for a brand to be visible.

A company can have strong organic rankings and still be poorly represented in AI-generated answers. Conversely, a competitor may appear prominently in an AI recommendation despite not occupying the top position for traditional search queries.

Veloz is building its Answer Engine Optimization practice around that emerging gap.

The AI-native AEO agency has become a verified Profound partner, adopting Profound's AI visibility platform as core infrastructure for its client work across the United States and Europe, the Middle East and Africa.

The partnership is aimed primarily at B2B software companies attempting to influence how AI systems understand, evaluate and recommend their products.

At the center of the offering is measurement.

Veloz uses Profound to track how clients appear across AI-generated answers, identify prompts and topics where visibility matters, and monitor changes after content and technical updates. The agency says it also connects those visibility changes to business metrics such as lead generation, demo requests, pipeline and conversions.

That last part is important.

AEO can easily become another reporting category if marketers measure mentions without establishing whether those mentions influence commercial outcomes. Traditional SEO already has a mature set of metrics around rankings, impressions, clicks and organic conversions. AI search introduces less established measures such as citations, recommendation frequency, brand sentiment and share of voice.

Veloz is attempting to connect those signals to revenue-oriented metrics rather than treating AI visibility as an isolated vanity metric.

The partnership also includes Profound FactCheck, which Veloz uses to identify cases where AI engines inaccurately represent a brand. The agency then traces potential sources of those inaccuracies and applies content or technical changes intended to provide AI systems with clearer context.

That addresses one of the more difficult problems in generative search: marketers do not directly control the answer generated by an AI engine.

An AI system may synthesize information from a company's website, third-party publications, reviews, directories and other sources. If those sources contain conflicting or incomplete information, the resulting answer can differ from the company's preferred positioning.

For B2B software companies, the implications can be significant.

A buyer asking an AI assistant to compare several vendors may receive a recommendation based on factors such as product capabilities, pricing, integrations, security, customer sentiment or perceived market leadership. The brand's own marketing website is only one potential input.

That makes AI brand visibility a broader information-management problem rather than simply another form of keyword optimization.

Veloz's approach combines human marketers with technical specialists and AI agents. The agency says its team includes agent engineers, including a former machine learning engineer at Nextdoor and a neuroscience researcher from the University of Cambridge. Founder Brian Colivet previously held go-to-market and AI deployment roles at Meta and Personio.

The company offers the work as a managed service or alongside internal marketing teams.

This hybrid model is becoming increasingly common across enterprise MarTech.

AI can monitor large numbers of prompts and identify patterns faster than a human team, while marketers and technical specialists can determine which changes are appropriate for a company's positioning, content architecture and commercial goals.

The distinction is particularly important in AEO because simply producing more content does not guarantee that an AI system will cite or recommend a brand.

Technical accessibility, entity consistency, authoritative third-party references and the quality of source material can all influence how AI systems construct answers. Marketers therefore need to think beyond conventional on-page optimization.

Veloz's use of Profound also highlights the emerging competition around AI visibility platforms.

The market is attracting SEO companies, enterprise software providers and specialized AI-search platforms attempting to help businesses measure how they appear in ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity and other generative interfaces.

Profound's role in this partnership is primarily measurement and intelligence, while Veloz provides strategy and execution.

That division resembles the broader MarTech ecosystem, where technology platforms provide data and workflow infrastructure while agencies translate those capabilities into business programs.

For B2B companies, the timing is significant.

The research phase of a software purchase can involve dozens of queries, comparisons and follow-up questions. If AI systems increasingly influence that process, a brand's ability to shape its representation before a buyer reaches a vendor website could become a competitive marketing advantage.

The challenge is that AI search remains dynamic.

Models change, retrieval systems evolve and answers can vary according to prompts, context, geography and available sources. A strategy that improves visibility today may not produce identical results as AI search systems change.

That makes continuous monitoring more important than a one-time optimization project.

Veloz's partnership with Profound is built around that ongoing model: monitor AI representation, identify gaps, make improvements, measure outcomes and repeat.

The larger shift is from search engine optimization toward answer engine visibility.

SEO is unlikely to disappear. AI systems still rely heavily on web content, authoritative sources and technical infrastructure. But B2B marketers now have another discovery environment to manage—one in which the search result may be a synthesized answer rather than a ranked page.

For software companies competing in crowded categories, being technically discoverable may no longer be enough.

They also need to be understandable, accurately represented and consistently recommended when buyers ask AI systems which solution to choose.

Market Landscape

The emergence of AI search is creating a new layer in the B2B MarTech stack.

Google remains a dominant source of commercial discovery, while Microsoft, OpenAI and other technology companies are embedding generative AI into search and productivity experiences. Platforms such as ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude and Perplexity can increasingly influence how buyers discover and evaluate software.

This has created demand for Answer Engine Optimization, Generative Engine Optimization and AI visibility platforms.

Traditional SEO tools remain focused primarily on rankings, backlinks, organic traffic and search performance. AI visibility platforms instead attempt to measure how brands appear inside generated answers, including mentions, citations, competitive share of voice and sentiment.

Profound is competing within that emerging category, while Veloz is positioning itself as an execution partner that turns AI visibility data into content, technical and strategic actions.

The competitive question is moving from "Who ranks first?" toward "Which companies does the AI recommend, and why?"

Strategic Outlook

AEO is likely to become increasingly integrated with traditional SEO rather than replacing it.

AI systems still depend on websites, structured information, authoritative sources and third-party content. Strong technical SEO and high-quality content can therefore provide part of the foundation for AI visibility.

The next generation of enterprise search strategies will likely combine organic rankings, AI citations, brand sentiment, entity consistency and commercial outcomes.

For B2B marketers, the most valuable platforms will be those that can connect these new visibility metrics to tangible results such as qualified leads, pipeline and revenue.

Top Insights

• Veloz's Profound partnership targets B2B software brands seeking greater visibility and narrative control across ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude and Perplexity.
• Profound provides AI visibility measurement while Veloz combines strategy, technical expertise and execution to improve how AI systems represent client brands.
• Profound FactCheck helps identify inaccurate AI-generated brand descriptions, allowing marketers to trace information sources and improve contextual signals.
• The partnership measures AEO success through demos, pipeline and conversions, moving AI visibility beyond simple mentions and citation counts.
• The emergence of AI recommendations creates a new MarTech discipline where brands must optimize both traditional search rankings and machine-generated answers.

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