Our thinking about HubSpot, AI, & removing silo'ed data

Answer Engine Optimisation (AEO) is the practice of making your website's content discoverable, extractable, and citable by AI systems - including ChatGPT, Perplexity, Claude, Google AI Overviews, and Gemini. Unlike traditional SEO, which optimises for position in a list of search results, AEO optimises for inclusion in the AI's synthesised answer. The distinction matters because AI search is binary: you're either part of the answer or you're invisible. There is no page two. Gartner projected that search engine query volume would drop 25% by 2026 due to AI chatbots. HubSpot's

We recently attended The Open Letter's "Building Global Tech from SA" event in Stellenbosch — a gathering of entrepreneurs, founders, and tech builders exploring how AI is fundamentally reshaping what it means to build software and scale businesses from South Africa. The lineup featured Adii Pienaar, co-founder of WooCommerce, and Renier Kriel, founder of The Open Letter and former developer. The conversation was sharp, practical, and deeply relevant to what we're seeing every day at MO Agency: the cost of building has collapsed, the barrier to entry has evaporated, and

At some point in the last year, SEO quietly split into two conversations. If you are asking the bigger question first, is SEO dead in the age of AI, the short answer is no - but its job has changed. One group is still arguing about rankings, backlinks, and domain authority. The other group is asking a different question entirely: “Why does this article keep getting cited by ChatGPT?” That second question is where things start to get interesting. Because what we’re seeing now isn’t

Once you accept that discovery is happening inside AI tools – AI is changing search from clicks to answers – an uncomfortable question follows pretty quickly: How do you even know if your brand is showing up there? With Google, we had dashboards. Rankings. Impressions. Clicks. Search Console. Ahrefs. SEMrush. With AI? It mostly feels like shouting into a

Every time there’s a big shift in digital marketing, someone declares something “dead”. SEO is dead. Email is dead. Websites are dead. Now apparently, inbound is dead too. It isn’t. But if you’re still thinking about inbound the way we did five or ten years ago, then yes — that version of the funnel is broken. Not subtly. Structurally. Part of what changed is search itself, which is why organic traffic is falling for many sites even when their rankings hold.

The AI train has arrived at the online marketing station, and if you’re not boarding soon, you’re getting left behind. Content managers, creators, and digital marketers have all come to recognise the significant benefits AI offers in streamlining their workflows, improving customer experiences, and boosting revenue. How AI is Changing Marketing AI is already reshaping the marketing landscape in profound ways. From chatbots resolving customer queries in real time to predictive analytics driving smarter and more effective campaigns, the technology is enabling businesses to