Total Recall beats AEO
First posted on LinkedIn.
Everyone is talking about Answer Engine optimisation to ensure their brands are surfaced in LLMs. I think there is another approach — Total Recall.
After using ChatGPT for a year, I realised I rarely purge or prune its memory of me.
Most AEO strategies still assume:
- The user asks the right question
- The model goes looking for sources
- Brands compete to be referenced
But LLMs reason from prior state before they ever “search”.
The real advantage isn’t being the best answer in a list. It’s being part of the model’s starting point.
The question then is: how does a brand inject itself into a user’s LLM memory and associate itself with the user and key concepts.
AEO is about being retrieved.
Total Recall is about being remembered.