best selling
Author of 
Explainable.

Search engines no longer point people to answers, they decide what the answer is.

I wrote the book on what to do about it.

Explainable AI book sitting on office desk

Explainable

Why AI Recommends Some Brands & Ignores Others

Search engines used to behave like librarians. You asked a question, they handed you a list of books. Today, they behave more like advisors. They don’t point people to answers. They decide what the answer is.

If your brand isn’t part of that answer, you’re invisible, no matter how good your SEO is.

Explainable is a practical guide to two emerging disciplines that every marketer needs to understand: Answer Engine Optimization (AEO) and Generative Engine Optimization (GEO). It covers how they work, how they fit alongside SEO, and what you can do about it starting this week.

  • #1 New Release in Online & Internet Searching on Amazon

  • #1 New Release in Search Engine Optimization on Amazon

  • #1 New Release in Web Marketing on Amazon

  • #1 New Release in E-Commerce on Amazon

  • Top 10 Best Seller in SEO on Amazon

  • Top 10 Best Seller in Online Internet Searching on Amazon

  • Why search shifted from navigation to judgment, and what that means for your content

  • How AI systems decide which brands to recommend and which to ignore

  • Why SEO, AEO, and GEO aren’t competing. They’re sequential.

  • A new content playbook built for how search works now

  • How to build the kind of authority and trust that AI systems recognize

  • A measurement framework for when rankings and clicks stop telling the full story

  • Real-world case studies across B2B, DTC, enterprise, and local businesses

  • The most common mistakes organizations make, and how to avoid them

What you’ll learn:

This book was written for everyday marketers who want clarity, confidence, and a practical path forward. You don’t need to be an AI engineer. You don’t need to abandon SEO. You just need to understand the next layer of the stack.

ABOUT

I’ve spent nearly 20 years in marketing, and for most of that time, the rules made sense. You built good content, you optimized for search, you watched the rankings climb. The system rewarded discipline, and the cause and effect was clear.

Then AI changed the game.

Over the past couple of years, I started noticing something that didn’t sit right. Brands I worked with were doing everything the playbook said, and AI assistants were still recommending their competitors instead. Not because those competitors were better. Because they were easier for the machines to understand.

That realization became the basis of my book, Explainable: Why AI Recommends Some Brands & Ignores Others. It’s a practical guide for marketers, business owners, and content teams who want to understand how AI-driven search actually works, and what to do about it.

Jarred Smith - Author of Explainable: Why AI Recommends Some Brands and Ignores Others

WORK WITH ME

The ideas in Explainable didn’t come from theory, they came from doing the work, running audits, rewriting content, sitting in rooms where five people couldn’t agree on one sentence about what their company actually does, and then fixing it.

If you’re navigating this shift and want hands-on help, I’m available for consulting, speaking, and workshops.

Consulting

I work directly with marketing teams and leadership to diagnose where their brand stands in AI-driven search and build a practical plan to fix it. This typically starts with the same audits outlined in the book: a GEO visibility check, a coherence audit across your channels, and a content assessment. From there, we build a 90-day plan tailored to your team, your category, and your resources. This isn’t about buying tools or chasing trends. It’s about getting clear on who you are and making sure the machines know it too.

Speaking

I speak at conferences, corporate events, and industry gatherings on the topics covered in Explainable: how AI is reshaping brand discovery, why most organizations are approaching it wrong, and what the practical path forward looks like. My talks are built for marketers, not engineers. I use real examples, honest assessments, and zero jargon. Audiences leave with something they can act on Monday morning, not just something to think about.

Topics I speak on:

  • Why AI Recommends Some Brands and Ignores Others

  • The Death of "10 Blue Links" and What Replaces Them

  • SEO, AEO, and GEO: Why They’re Sequential, Not Competing

  • Measurement Without Rankings: How to Prove Marketing Works When Clicks Disappear

  • The Content Reckoning: Why Publishing More Is Making You Less Visible

Workshops & Seminars

For teams that want to go deeper, I run half-day and full-day workshops that walk your marketing, content, and leadership teams through the frameworks in Explainable, applied directly to your brand. We’ll run the audits together, identify the gaps, and build your action plan in the room. These sessions are especially valuable for organizations going through transitions, whether that’s post-acquisition integration, a rebrand, or a strategic pivot, where getting internal alignment is the hardest and most important part.