AW Summit Bucharest wrapped up on September 23 after three days of panels, networking events, dinners, and (per usual) some excellent parties.
I was on the SEO and AI Visibility panel on September 22, and between that session and the conversations around it, this year's edition gave a clear read on where the industry's head is at.
The SEO panel: what actually matters for AI Visibility
The room was packed, and the panel with me alongside Penko from MeUp and Deepak Tailor, moderated by Stephan, covered a lot of ground. A few points worth repeating here:
- Get cited, not just ranked. LLMs are pulling from UGC, FAQs answering real queries, brand-vs-competitor comparisons, and “top providers” listicles, so you should have those. Keep in mind that the comparison and listicle content works best when it lives on third-party sites rather than your own.
- UGC now carries real weight. Reddit and YouTube dominating search results is the visible proof; encouraging clients, affiliates, and partners to generate content on your behalf is no longer optional.
- Reviews are a ranking signal, not just social proof. LLMs now run sentiment analysis on reviews, so responding to both the good and the bad matters more than it used to.
- Original research earns backlinks. My Blogging Collapse study is the clearest proof point I have, as it pulled in more than 20 high-DR backlinks on its own.
- Backlinks from major publications come from pitching content angled at their audience first, your product second, is a tip Penko shared from his own marketplace work.
- Brand strength is becoming the ranking factor, per Deepak. Backlinks, mentions, engagement, and returning visitors all feed into whether a site reads as genuinely trusted, and email subscribers plus returning traffic are worth building toward deliberately.
- Keyword data is still useful, but it shouldn’t drive the whole SEO strategy anymore. Search volumes and keyword rankings are becoming less transparent and less reliable as a complete measure of opportunity. SEO professionals need to use them alongside actual user behavior, engagement, brand demand, and the types of questions people are asking across search and AI, Deepak Tailor also mentioned.
- The scale of change right now is bigger than Panda or Penguin. Google's recent shifts have rewritten the rulebook, and that's an opportunity for anyone paying attention.
The bigger picture from the floor
Beyond the panel, the event surfaced a few broader shifts. Established media buying teams are visibly pivoting into e-commerce, building out serious operations rather than treating it as a side service. This trend change came up repeatedly in conversations with operators working the high-volume end of the space.
Nutra is holding steady with a fresh wave of products; the US remains the anchor market, but Europe, especially Germany and France, is picking up real momentum.
On the ad-tech side, the direction of travel is toward tighter infrastructure: sharper tracking precision, server-to-server attribution, and AI-driven optimization workflows were recurring threads in conversations with the tool-stack crowd.
A few people mentioned the event felt smaller than last year's edition. Smaller wasn't a complaint from where I sat, though, as it made for better conversations and, from what I heard around me, plenty of new deals already in motion for the weeks ahead. I always prefer events where you can have a 15-20 minute open, chill conversation with someone and better understand whether there's a business fit, rather than rushing to meetings that never go further. After this event, I have 3 AI VIsibility deals pending, 1 media partnership, and 1 advertising deal that look promising.
Takeaway
If one thread ties the panel and the hallway conversations together, it's this: visibility, whether in AI search or a crowded affiliate market, increasingly comes down to being genuinely useful and genuinely present in the places your audience already trusts, rather than optimizing in isolation.
That's as true for a site chasing AI citations as it is for a brand trying to stand out at a summit with sharper conversations than the year before.