In March 2025, Search Engine Journal published my article on the role of E-E-A-T in shaping how AI models evaluate and amplify content. It’s a topic I care deeply about — especially as brand authority becomes just as important in AI-driven search as it is in traditional search engines.
As with all of my externally published work, I’m sharing the full, unedited version here on my site. What you’ll find below is exactly what I submitted — before any editorial trimming, tone adjustments, or formatting tweaks. (And yes, the batting average metaphor survived, which I’ll count as a win.)
If you prefer the edited version as it appeared on SEJ, you can find it here.
For over a decade, EAT (Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness) has played a role in search rankings, first introduced in Google’s Search Quality Rater Guidelines in 2014. But with the rise of AI-generated content and AI-synthesized answers, EEAT (now including Experience) is no longer just a recommendation — it has become the defining factor in determining which sources AI-driven search results consider authoritative enough to cite and include in their synthesized narratives and responses.
AI Overviews and other AI-generated search features don’t just favor sites that “align with EEAT principles” — they favor recognized experts. To be cited in AI-driven answers, a brand needs to demonstrate undeniable expertise and establish itself as the authority in its field. This means consistently producing original research, providing real-world insights, and gaining industry-wide (or broader) recognition.
In this article, we will explore how EEAT determines visibility in AI-driven search and AI-generated answers, the challenges brands face in maintaining credibility, and strategies for ensuring that AI models and search engines rely on your content as a trusted source.
The Intersection of EEAT and AI-Generated Answers
The rise of AI-generated search results presents both opportunities and challenges for brands. AI-powered features like Google’s AI Overviews, ChatGPT search integrations, and Perplexity AI are synthesizing answers instead of just returning traditional blue links. This means that appearing in AI-driven answers requires more than just good SEO — it requires EEAT-backed authority.
Key considerations for ensuring visibility in AI search features:
- Experience: AI models favor content backed by first-hand knowledge. Brands that demonstrate real-world expertise through case studies, original research, and hands-on experience have a greater chance of being cited.
- Expertise: AI-generated answers prefer sources with clear subject matter expertise. Author bylines, credentials, and expert contributions all signal trustworthiness to AI-driven search.
- Authoritativeness: AI Overviews and LLM-generated answers prioritize brands that own their knowledge graph, are widely referenced, and are recognized leaders in their industry.
- Trustworthiness: AI-generated content is acceptable to use (in that it is not inherently “bad” or penalized) but must be factually accurate and verifiable. Content backed by reliable sources, citations, and transparent authorship is more likely to be surfaced in AI-generated search features.
AI Overviews and EEAT: What Google’s Latest Research Reveals
Google’s recent post on AI Overviews and AI Mode highlights how AI-generated search experiences are evolving and underscores the importance of EEAT in shaping AI-driven responses. Here are key takeaways that reinforce the role of EEAT:
Google Integrates EEAT into AI Overviews
- AI Overviews leverage Google’s ranking systems and Knowledge Graph to determine which sources are most authoritative. (Hint: Ensure your Knowledge Graph exists and is accurate!)
- EEAT signals directly influence which websites AI Overviews pull from, reinforcing the need for brands to establish themselves as leading authorities.
High-Quality Sources Are a Requirement
- AI Overviews corroborate AI-generated summaries with top-ranked content, ensuring the information is reliable.
- For Your Money or Your Life (YMYL) queries, the bar for trustworthiness is even higher, which emphasizes the importance of expert-driven content. (This is why author biographies with CVs, other credentials, and proof of expertise are necessary.)
AI Overviews Increase Engagement with High-Quality Content
- Google reports that users who interact with AI Overviews visit a greater diversity of websites and that click-throughs from AI Overviews are higher quality.
- This presents an opportunity for brands with strong EEAT signals to attract engaged visitors who trust the AI-curated results (but click through to verify).
Manual and Algorithmic Safety Checks Reinforce EEAT’s Importance
- Google’s Search quality raters, adversarial testing, and fact-checking systems ensure AI Overviews prioritize reliable information.
- Brands that lack EEAT credentials (specifically Knowledge Graphs and other key indicators that your brand is considered authoritative) may struggle to appear in AI-generated search experiences.
Future AI Search Innovations Will Reward EEAT Signals
- Google’s experimental AI Mode in Search expands AI-generated responses using multimodal data and real-time corroboration with authoritative sources.
- Brands with verified expertise, structured citations, and widespread recognition will have an advantage in AI-driven search.
This reinforces the need for brands to proactively establish EEAT authority to maintain visibility in AI-driven search features.
Challenges in Applying EEAT to AI-Generated Search
Despite its benefits, AI-driven search presents several challenges for brands trying to maintain visibility:
- AI Prioritizes Recognized Authorities: Simply optimizing for EEAT is not enough — brands must become the trusted source that AI search engines consistently reference. It’s easy to optimize for or align with EEAT in principle, but much more difficult to achieve in reality because some of the requirements simply aren’t within your control.
- Potential for Misinformation: AI-generated search results can fabricate statistics, misquote sources, or create misleading narratives. Brands must actively monitor AI-generated mentions for accuracy.
- Duplicate and Unoriginal Content: AI often pulls from widely cited knowledge bases, meaning brands that don’t produce original insights and research risk being ignored.
- Algorithmic Bias and Filtering: AI search models prioritize widely referenced sources, which can disadvantage emerging brands. Overcoming this requires strategic partnerships, citations, and broad industry engagement.
AI’s Tendency to Be “Confidently Wrong”
A March 2025 study by the Columbia Journalism Review found that AI-powered search tools frequently provide incorrect answers with “alarming confidence”. The study tested eight major AI search engines and found that chatbots collectively provided inaccurate answers more than 60% of the time, nearly always without acknowledging uncertainty.
ChatGPT, in particular, only indicated uncertainty in its wrong answers 7.5% of the time. Which means that 92.5% of the times it was wrong, it was confident it was correct. If ChatGPT’s success rate at indicating uncertainty were a batting average, it would be .075. Here’s a fun fact: John Vukovich, known for recording the lowest ever MLB batting average for non-pitchers with more than 500 at bats, had a career BA of .161 – which is still 100% better than ChatGPT’s ability to acknowledge it might not be right.
Most interesting finding: Premium AI models were even more prone to confidently incorrect responses than their free counterparts, contradicting the assumption that paid AI services are more reliable.
This only underscores the need for careful human oversight when producing content and active reputation management to ensure accuracy in AI-generated search environments.
Strategies for Strengthening EEAT in AI-Driven Search
To ensure visibility in AI-generated search results, brands should prioritize establishing true authority, not just optimizing content.
- Own and Optimize Your Knowledge Graph
- Ensure Google’s Knowledge Graph accurately represents your brand.
- Claim your entity in Google Search and establish schema markup for credibility.
- Demonstrate Real-World Expertise
- Publish original research, case studies, and expert insights.
- Engage in media interviews, guest contributions, and speaking engagements.
- Become the Primary Source of Industry Insights
- Create data-backed reports, surveys, and authoritative content that others cite.
- Cultivate backlinks from reputable sources to strengthen authority.
- Monitor and Influence AI Search Results
- Actively track how AI-generated answers represent your brand.
- Engage with AI search models via feedback loops and corrections.
- Leverage Thought Leadership Beyond Your Website
- Be featured on authoritative platforms, podcasts, and news outlets.
- Participate in peer-reviewed research and industry collaborations.
Becoming the Source AI Can’t Ignore
EEAT is the key to visibility in AI-driven search — but it’s not just about optimization. Brands must become the expert sources that AI models trust, reference, and cite. Those who invest in credibility, expertise, and real-world authority will survive in AI-powered search landscapes, and those who don’t will fade into irrelevance.
