SEO isn’t what it used to be: Why portcos must rethink their strategy for an AI-first world

AI is doing more than changing how buyers search. It’s redefining which vendors they trust. If your portfolio’s brand signals aren’t visible in AI interfaces, buyers won’t find you and your pipeline loses deals without ever knowing.

Classic SEO and search strategies can’t fix an AI citation gap

SEO still plays a role, but the signals that shape visibility have changed.  

Nearly 90% of B2B buyers now use generative AI tools during research, and 84% buy from the first vendor they contact. Meanwhile, traffic from AI “answer engines” is growing 165x faster than traditional organic search. 

Google rankings favor backlinks and keywords. Large language models like ChatGPT, Gemini, and Claude reward clarity, trust, and citation presence while:

• Keyword rank tracking misses the point when buyers get direct answers, not search result pages 
• Backlink volume alone can’t sway large language models that weigh Reddit, Wikipedia, and domain authority as proof sources 
• Technical tweaks such as robots.txt and sitemaps help, yet AI crawlers now look for llms.txt, structured Q&A, and schema geared toward answer extraction 
• Gated whitepapers frustrate both models and buyers because AI cannot parse or cite them easily 

Bottom line: Traditional SEO audits miss the signals that drive modern visibility. That’s where deals disappear.

A purpose-built scoring model for modern discovery

To quantify the risk, 2X created GravityScan™, a 200-point AI Visibility Audit. Instead of standard (or “well-known”) SEO factors, the audit categorizes 200 data points into six practical lenses that map to how large language models decide which brands to cite:

This framework is based on platform-specific ranking factors, early uplift patterns, and multi-model testing across real-world B2B use cases. Most companies start with an overall score of 40–80; early movers that cross 160+ begin to dominate AI-generated answers, creating a moat of visibility that’s hard for slower competitors to overcome. 

First moves that show results in a single quarter

Operating partners don’t need another long-tail content project. You need to show fast progress without adding overhead. That’s why our top audit recommendations focus on speed-to-impact. Here are a few examples from our clients’ results so far:

These recommendations mirror the Immediate Actions our audit flags as “high impact, low effort,” ensuring your portfolio companies see momentum without expensive resource increases.

Measure before you optimize: GravityScan™

Most SEO audits look at 50–100 outdated metrics. GravityScan™ reviews all 200 signals that govern AI visibility, then delivers:

• A board-ready scorecard benchmarking performance across peer sets 
• A narrative report that explains root causes and quantifies upside 
• A technical toolkit with editable llms.txt and schema templates 

This combination lets operating partners move from holistic insight to implementation without waiting for a siloed roadmap. Because search is being rewritten in real time, knowing (and closing) AI visibility gaps now determines who shows up when buyers ask their next question aloud. 

See what AI engines see before your competitors do

Reserve a GravityScan™  and gain the clarity to accelerate value creation.