You let competitors become the default AI answer in your category while you sit out. Citations compound over time, so the brands building presence now develop an advantage that gets harder to displace later. Waiting does not keep you even; it puts you further behind.
Citations build on themselves
AEO is not a switch you flip once. Genuine presence compounds: each credible mention adds to a base, and a strong placement keeps earning citations for months as AI engines re-crawl it. The brand that started six months ago has a foundation you would still be building.
So the work has a head start advantage. Starting later means starting from behind, against competitors who have already built the credibility the AI now trusts.
The AI is forming its view now
Every day, AI tools are answering buying questions in your category and naming the brands they trust. If that is not you, the AI is learning to recommend someone else as the default.
The longer that goes on, the more entrenched it becomes. Becoming the answer is harder once the AI already has a confident answer that is not you.
The shift is already underway
This is not a far-off concern. Search behavior is moving toward AI now. G2's March 2026 survey of 1,076 B2B software buyers found 71% rely on AI chatbots for software research, up from roughly 60% just seven months earlier, and 51% now start their research with an AI chatbot more often than Google.
Gartner saw this coming. Its February 2024 forecast said traditional search engine volume would drop 25% by 2026 as people shift to AI chatbots and virtual agents (Gartner prediction, covered by Search Engine Land). That was a forecast, not a measurement, but the buyers asking AI today are real.
The honest counterpoint
Waiting is not always wrong. If almost no one in your category asks AI yet, the urgency is lower, and you can check that with a quick baseline. But if buyers are already asking, every month of doing nothing is a month a competitor spends becoming the answer.
Where to go next
To check whether your buyers are asking AI, read how to check if AI mentions your brand. For the options, see Cited vs the alternatives.
