Assemble has launched a new peer network for enterprise marketers facing the messy shift to AI-driven discovery. The Digital Marketing & Communications Council brings together the group’s new AEO Board with its SocialMedia.org and SocialMedia.org Health boards under one umbrella.
The combined community is substantial: 394 member companies and 1,750 individual members, covering more than half of the Fortune 500. The point is to help leaders compare decisions while the rules of digital visibility are still being written.
“No company has the full playbook for this yet,” said Aaron Kissel, CEO of Assemble. “The organizations that get ahead won’t be the ones with the most resources. They’ll be the ones learning fastest from each other.”
Why the moment matters
AI-powered search and large language models are changing how customers discover brands, build trust and make purchasing decisions. Inside Assemble’s own membership, the early pressure is clear: DMCC Membership Director Will White says members are reporting 40% to 60% traffic declines, and nearly two-thirds call operationalizing AEO—the practice of showing up credibly in AI-generated answers—a top near-term challenge.
The questions now run beyond traffic. Leaders are asking what these shifts mean for funnel conversion and revenue, whether their brands show up correctly in AI results, how to organize teams and set goals, and how media spend should change as discovery changes.
What marketing leaders should do
This launch is a useful signal for any team still treating AI search as an experiment. The early movers are not waiting for a finished playbook. They are testing how their brands appear in AI answers, benchmarking early traffic and conversion signals, and redesigning roles around answer visibility.
- Start with a simple AI-visibility audit for your top product and brand queries.
- Benchmark traffic and conversion shifts before rewriting budgets or team structures.
- Join a peer or industry group where you can compare early results without waiting for public case studies.
Use a three-step frame: see, structure, share
If you are not part of a council, run the same logic internally.
- See: audit where your brand appears in AI-generated answers for key money pages.
- Structure: assign ownership for AEO across SEO, content, PR and product teams.
- Share: create a simple weekly dashboard of AI mentions, clicks and assisted conversions.
AEO is a leadership problem, not a data problem
When visibility moves into AI-generated answers, the old SEO playbook breaks across several functions at once. The team that owns search may not own PR, product content or brand measurement. That is exactly why Assemble’s council spans digital marketing, communications, social and brand leaders—and why the initial agenda includes org design, roles and media spend, not just rankings.
The launch moment
Assemble plans to spotlight the new council at the North American Marketing Leadership Summit from September 28–30, 2026. The event will bring together leaders across digital marketing, AEO, social media, brand, communications, customer experience, growth and digital strategy, with Kissel announcing the launch during his mainstage address.
For growth teams, the takeaway is straightforward: AI search is already showing up in the numbers, and the fastest copy of the playbook will come from peer learning, not isolated guesswork.
Source: Yahoo! Finance
