What does brand mean when agents, not people, are the ones delivering it to buyers? Jess Rosenberg — head of brand and creative at AirOps, previously Twitter, Cloudflare, Webflow, and Jasper — makes the case that taste has always mattered, but AI has made it the moat. We get into her "brand engineer" framing (offload the consistent, repeatable work to AI; save human brains for the surprising stuff), why brand is a whole-company job and not just the creative team's, what "frontier knowledge" means for AI search, her takeaways from Cannes and the creator economy on fire, and why niche is the shortest path to fandom. Plus: cheese, lawn care, and Swedish robot mowers.

AI search engines don't trust your blog — they trust your fans. In this episode, Krista and Kaleigh dig into "brandom" (fandom meets brand) and why third-party voices on Reddit, YouTube, and LinkedIn are now table stakes for showing up in AI search.

They cover:
Why Krista launched Fanout, an agency focused on offsite AEO
Why Reddit is to offsite what your blog is to onsite — and how to do it without the spammy tactics
Kaleigh's "Source Signal Stack": why LLMs trust voices furthest from brand control
Creator vs. advocate vs. influencer — why the language is breaking and what to call this work
Turning employees and customers into your most powerful advocates
Whose job is this? The new T-shaped marketer (and why the CMO role is changing)
Measuring AEO: citation rate, share of voice, "how did you hear about us" forms, and why conversion rates from AI search are surprisingly high
What we're fangirling over right now (agentic AI tools, non-alc beer, and deli container drinks)

If you work in SEO, content, community, or creator marketing, this one cuts through the noise on where AI search is actually headed.

In Episode 3 of Fan Out, Krista Doyle takes the lead and breaks down the reputation layer of AI search — her term for everything happening off-page that shapes how LLMs talk about your brand.

Krista calls it "the group chat" — AI is asking the internet what they’ve heard about you, and those conversations are happening whether you’re participating or not.

She and Kaleigh dig into how to actually get started, why AEO is a team sport, how to cross-collaborate with social, community, and PR, and Krista’s own proof-of-concept — she has no website, but ChatGPT nailed her expertise from LinkedIn posts and blog mentions alone.

Key takeaways:
• 85% of AI search citations come from third-party sources, not your own site
• Your reputation layer is being built with or without you — participate or get left behind
• Start with one platform that’s showing up for your target queries. Go hard there.
• Employee advocacy over astroturfing. Mobilize your team as real subject matter experts.
• Reddit is cracking down on gray-hat tactics — anonymous accounts and AI bots get exposed fast
• LinkedIn citations in AI search are rising, especially for B2B
• The AEO person is the coach, not the player — collaborate cross-functionally with social, community, and PR
• Consistency on one platform beats spreading thin across five

Mentioned in this episode:
‪@semrush‬ ‪@TryProfound‬ ‪@superpath‬ ‪@reddit‬ ‪@LinkedIn‬ ‪@quora‬ ‪@OpenAI‬ ‪@claude‬

Hosts: Krista Doyle & Kaleigh Moore