Ben Jeffries, CEO of the agency Influencer, wrote in August 2026 that creators have a new audience. That audience is AI.
On 26 August 2026 his company announced a partnership with Profound and the launch of Creator-First AEO, a tool that carries the logic of search engine optimisation over into the world of AI answers.
Why creator content works as AI training material
When a user asks ChatGPT or Gemini which product to buy, the answer is assembled from what the model has read on the internet. Reviews. Comparisons. Guides. Recommendations. Real experiences.
This is exactly the kind of content creators have been producing for years. Jeffries put it this way: “It's creating genuinely useful human content that machines happen to learn from too.”
Answer Engine Optimisation (AEO) is a practice that exists alongside SEO. Instead of optimising for search engine results, it optimises for what AI systems mention in answers to purchase-intent queries. Since July 2026, Profound has been building a network of agency partners to access this market.
What Creator-First AEO does in practice
The product combines Influencer's creator network with Profound's analytics layer. The result is an audit of what AI currently thinks about a given brand, where competitors lead, and what questions customers actually ask AI.
Based on the audit, Influencer proposes a creator strategy that deliberately produces content (reviews, comparisons, tutorials) for topics where the brand has a gap in AI discovery.
“Understand what AI is saying about your brand. Then create the evidence that helps shape what it says next,” summed up Jeffries.
Jim Louderback, editor-in-chief of Inside the Creator Economy, wrote in a comment: “This is super interesting and smart too. Will be interesting to see how you adopt for different platforms. I add an AEO/GEO block to each of my newsletters, which has worked from time to time.”
Creator content as a third output for brands
Creator content has so far been optimised for two outputs: organic reach on the platform and conversion for the advertiser. Creator-First AEO adds a third output, AI discovery. Brands are beginning to pay for content that is optimised not only for direct reach but for what ChatGPT says about them next month.
For the European market, Creator-First AEO arrives at a moment when the EU AI Act has required labelling of AI-generated content since 2 August 2026. Authentic creator content with clear attribution to its author and a verifiable source takes on a different value in this regulatory context than anonymous AI output.
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