Ranking well in traditional search and being trusted by an LLM are turning out to be two different challenges. A survey of 1000 marketers rated how important various signals are to building brand authority in AI systems, and the results reshuffle the old hierarchy. Customer reviews and content creation top the list as critical, while backlinks, long the backbone of SEO authority, land near the bottom. That reordering has real implications for where marketing teams should be spending their time.

Essential Statistics

• 94% of marketers rate customer reviews as very important or critical to brand authority for LLMs, with 82% calling them critical.
• 93% rate content creation as very important or critical, with 64% calling it critical.
• 80% rate AI citations and mentions as very important or critical.
• Only 20% rate backlinks as very important or critical, with 27% calling them not important at all.
• Industry recognition and awards rate the lowest overall, with 45% of marketers calling them not important.

Key Takeaways

• Customer reviews ranking as the top signal suggests real-world trust indicators now matter more to AI systems than traditional authority markers.
• Content creation scoring nearly as high as reviews suggests consistent publishing still matters, but likely in service of establishing expertise rather than just volume.
• Backlinks ranking near the bottom is a significant shift from traditional SEO priorities and suggests link-building strategies built for classic search may need to be reconsidered for AI visibility.
• AI citations and mentions scoring highly points toward earning references within AI-generated answers becoming its own measurable goal, separate from backlink acquisition.
• Industry awards and executive thought leadership scoring lowest suggests prestige-based signals carry less weight with AI systems than customer-facing proof points.

Actionable Insights

• Prioritize actively generating and showcasing customer reviews across your website, third-party platforms, and structured data. This is the highest-rated signal here, and it’s worth treating as a core priority rather than a passive byproduct of good service.
• Reallocate part of your link-building budget toward original content creation instead. The data suggests content itself is weighted far more heavily than backlink volume for AI authority.
• Track where and how often your brand gets cited or mentioned within AI-generated answers, not just where it ranks in search results. This is a newer metric worth building into your reporting.
• Don’t abandon backlinks entirely, but stop treating them as your primary authority lever. This data suggests they’ve become a secondary signal rather than a foundational one for AI visibility.
• Reconsider investment in awards submissions and executive thought leadership campaigns if AI visibility is a stated goal. These consistently rank as the lowest-weighted signals in this data.

Backlinks used to be the whole game. Now customer reviews and content are doing more work for AI trust than a link profile ever will. – Neil Patel