Skip to main content
Conductor customers: Review this lesson in our Community
Your audience hasn’t changed, but where they look for answers has. The same people who search on Google now also ask AI answer engines. If you’ve wondered whether that means writing one page for search and another for AI, here’s the good news: it doesn’t. Writing Assistant now builds every brief from both traditional search data and live AI answers, so one piece of content meets your audience wherever they search. image 🗺️ In this guide:
  • What’s New: AI Answers Now Shape Your Brief
  • How to Create a Brief with AEO Signals
  • A Note on Your Content Score
  • Best Practices for Getting the Most from AEO Signals
image A strong brief starts from what’s already working. Until now, that meant studying the pages that rank on Google. But AI engines approach a topic in their own way: they interpret the question, run their own follow-up searches, and pull from sources they trust to build an answer. If your brief only reflects Google, you’re missing half the picture. Writing Assistant still runs the same SEO research it always has. Now, it also queries the AI engines you select, in real time, and brings three new signals into your brief:
  • The AI response: the full answer each engine gives, so you can see how it frames the topic
  • The searches the AI ran: the follow-up queries (often called fan-out queries) that reveal the angles an engine considers relevant
  • The sources it cited: the pages AI engines trust enough to reference
These signals shape your brief’s Questions to Answer, Subtopics, and Body Copy Suggestions. You’ll also see where your brand stands today: whether it’s mentioned (named in the AI response) and cited (used as a source). image The takeaway? AEO (Answer Engine Optimization) is an evolution of SEO, not a separate discipline. You don’t need separate content for search and AI, just one brief that draws on both. For your team, that means one content workflow instead of two. image 💡Prefer to start from a prompt? If you already track prompts in AI Search Performance, open the ··· menu on any prompt to start a brief for it in Writing Assistant. It’s a fast way to act on prompts where your brand isn’t showing up yet.

​
Step 1: Choose Your AI Engines

  1. Go to Content > Writing Assistant.
  2. Click Start a New Draft.
  3. Under Search Engines, select the AI engines you want Writing Assistant to research.
  4. Google is always included for traditional search research. Select at least one AI engine. If you deselect them all, Writing Assistant keeps the last one selected for you.
  5. Enter up to five keywords or topics for your content. Optionally, enter the URL of a page you’re optimizing.
  6. Click Start Analysis.
image 💡Pro Tip: Writing Assistant queries every engine you select, so each one you add gives you a broader view of how AI approaches your topic.

​
Step 2: Review Your Opportunity in Search and AI

Review opportunity now works like on-demand topic research, showing how you perform for each topic in both channels.
  1. Open a topic to see its insights.
  2. In the Google insights, check whether your brand appears in the top 15 results and see which sites rank highest.
  3. In the AI answer insights, check whether your brand is mentioned or cited by each engine you selected.
  4. Expand any engine’s response to read the full answer, including which brands it names and which sources it cites.
  5. Click Continue.
image

​
Step 3: Finish Your Brief and Draft

The rest of the workflow works the way you know it, with a brief that’s now informed by AI research.
  1. In Review comparison pages, hide any page you don’t want used as an input, then click Continue.
  2. In Refine brief, review the recommendations and edit anything that doesn’t fit your goals. Pay close attention to Questions to Answer and Subtopics, where AI signals have the most influence. Click Continue.
  3. In Customize style, add Knowledge Sources and select a Content Profile, then click Continue.
  4. Click Write with AI and select Generate Draft, or start writing your own.
💡Pro Tip: If the brief draws on AI answers, what makes your content different? Your expertise. Add Knowledge Sources like original research, product detail, or customer insights so your draft says something AI answers don’t already say. For a full walkthrough of every Writing Assistant feature, see the Writing Assistant Knowledge Base article.

​
A Note on Your Content Score

Important: The Content Score works exactly as before. It measures how closely your content matches your brief (Topical Coverage and Intent Alignment). Because the brief now reflects both search and AI research, a high score means your content delivers on a strategy built for both channels. It isn’t a guarantee of rankings, mentions, or citations. image ✅ Start with your gaps. Prioritize topics where you’re not mentioned or cited, whether you spot them in AI Search Performance or Recommendations. Those are your clearest openings. ✅ Read the full AI responses. Mentioned and cited tell you where you stand. The full answers show which competitors AI engines trust and how they frame the topic, which can sharpen your angle. ✅ Select multiple engines when you can. Unless your audience leans heavily on one engine, more engines give you a brief that reflects how AI approaches your topic overall. ✅ Edit the brief with intention. The brief is a recommendation, and your strategy should lead. Remove questions or subtopics that don’t serve your audience. ✅ Close the loop after you publish. Track the topic in AI Search Performance to see whether your brand starts earning mentions and citations over time.