Semrush Turns Employees into ‘Brand Visibility Experts’
The April Fools’ Day activation reflects a broader shift: brand visibility is everyone’s job
April 2, 2026
New research report series provides CMOs with a strategic framework and practical tools to orchestrate brand visibility across search and AI environments
Semrush, the leading brand visibility platform, today unveiled a new strategic operating model for "Brand Visibility" during the Adobe Summit. The launch includes a two-part research report series: Brand Visibility Orchestration: How to execute on the Brand Visibility Operating model and Brand Visibility in the AI search era: A strategic framework for CMOs, designed to help marketing leaders transition from fragmented channel execution to a coordinated system of brand discovery.
This framework establishes Brand Visibility as the degree to which a brand is discoverable, authoritatively represented, and commercially actionable across both human- and machine-mediated discovery surfaces. A core component of the model is Agentic Search Optimization (ASO)—a new operational layer required to ensure a brand is selected, interpreted, and surfaced by autonomous AI agents as they increasingly evaluate brand relevance and authority.
The move to a formal operating model is a direct response to a fundamental shift in search behavior. With Gartner predicting a 25% drop in traditional search volume by 2026, brands are no longer discovered solely through users typing keywords in search bars, but through a complex ecosystem of AI-generated answers, chatbots, and agents.
Most marketing organizations don’t struggle with defining strategy; they struggle with making it work in a world where discovery is now shaped by interconnected AI systems. Visibility is no longer something you achieve through isolated tactics—it must be engineered through a repeatable operating model. This research provides the playbook for moving from managing channels to orchestrating outcomes.
Andrew Warden, Chief Marketing Officer at Semrush
The Shift to Brand Orchestration
The model responds to this tectonic shift in discovery by identifying a critical "Alignment Gap" in current marketing execution. Semrush research identified:
- The Measurability Gap: 55.5% of teams fully aligned on search and AI optimization find their performance measurable and actionable, compared to only 15.5% of "somewhat aligned" teams and a further 18% who are siloed and disconnected.
- The Process Gap: Only 22.6% of organizations have a truly unified process for topics, briefs, and goals across traditional search and AI-generated answers.
- The Ownership Gap: A majority of enterprise teams (57.3%) describe themselves as either "somewhat aligned", "siloed" or "completely disconnected" on brand visibility, meaning ownership is often unclear, and coordination depends on individuals rather than structure.
A Strategic Framework for the AI Era
The new research introduces the People and Process Maturity Matrix, a practical tool for CMOs to assess organizational readiness for AI-driven discovery. The matrix identifies four stages of maturity, helping leaders move from "Fragmented Operators" to "Brand Visibility Orchestrators".
Key components of the Brand Visibility Operating Model include:
- The Brand Orchestration Lifecycle: A repeatable four-stage system consisting of Foundation (narrative definition), Content (multi-format assets), Distribution (cross-surface activation), and Feedback (visibility signals).
- The Brand Visibility Orchestrator: A newly defined organizational role focused on acting as the connective layer between strategy and execution, ensuring narratives remain consistent across all surfaces.
- Unified Content Supply Chain: A process where topics and briefs are defined once and carried across search and AI environments to reinforce brand authority.
Proven Impact of Orchestration
Data from the reports highlight the performance gap between siloed and orchestrated teams. More than 55% of teams fully aligned on search and AI optimization say brand visibility is clearly measurable and actionable, compared to just 15.5% of partially aligned teams, while siloed and disconnected teams reported AI visibility very difficult to measure (23%) and not at all measurable (24.6%). In a recent internal application of these principles, Semrush nearly tripled its own AI share of voice from 13% to 32% within a single month.
Availability
The research series is being presented this week at the Adobe Summit in Las Vegas. Marketing leaders can access the full reports at https://ai-visibility-index.semrush.com/downloads.
