Best AI marketing book introduces answer engine optimization, or AEO, as distinct from traditional search optimization: where SEO works to rank a page in a list, AEO works to make a business extractable and quotable by the systems that now answer the question directly. It also introduces “authority radius,” Esau’s term for the reach of a business’s verifiable reputation across the platforms AI systems draw on, which he argues has displaced physical proximity as the dominant factor in local recommendation.
Former Google ads strategist publishes a field manual on answer engine optimization, with a free 90-second test business owners can run today
San Diego, CA, United States, 23rd Oct 2026 — Customers researching local services increasingly ask an AI assistant before they open a search results page, and most local businesses have no idea whether those assistants name them. A new book from San Diego agency founder David Esau argues that this is the largest shift in how businesses get found since Google replaced the Yellow Pages, and that the businesses adapting now will hold those positions for years.
The Future Is AI Search: How to Be the Business AI Recommends (Before Someone Else Takes Your Spot) is available now in ebook, hardcover, and print. Esau wrote it with Chris Lannon, an AI architect with thirty years in software engineering who builds the systems the book describes.
The gap is measurable. Seer Interactive’s February 2025 citation analysis found that more than 87 percent of ChatGPT’s cited sources matched a result in Bing’s top 20, a finding Esau says has gone almost entirely unnoticed by an industry that stopped paying attention to Bing a decade ago.
“Most owners think the risk is ranking lower,” Esau said. “That is not what happens. When an AI answers the question, it names two or three businesses and the rest are not in the conversation at all. There is no missed call to review and no lost lead in the CRM. Just silence, and no way to know it happened.”
David Esau spent four years at Google as an ads strategist, managing over $1 million a month in ad spend across home services, restaurants, immigration law and dental practices. He now runs Click Track Marketing, a San Diego agency serving roughly eighty businesses, and holds HighLevel’s Gold Saaspreneur Award launching over 450+ fully automated CRMs.
The book introduces answer engine optimization, or AEO, as distinct from traditional search optimization: where SEO works to rank a page in a list, AEO works to make a business extractable and quotable by the systems that now answer the question directly. It also introduces “authority radius,” Esau’s term for the reach of a business’s verifiable reputation across the platforms AI systems draw on, which he argues has displaced physical proximity as the dominant factor in local recommendation.
Its most-used feature is free and requires no purchase. The 90-Second Test asks an owner to pose five questions to ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity and Google’s AI Overviews, and record whether their business is named. Most owners who run it find the gap immediately.
“The businesses that get recommended are the ones an AI can read, trust and verify,” Lannon said. “That is a structural problem, not a marketing one, and it is fixable without buying anything.”
The book is written for owners of local service businesses, dental and medical practices, law firms and contractors. Every framework in it works without purchasing software, every chapter ends with an action, and claims are cited with sources and dates.
The Future Is AI Search is available at thefutureisaisearch.com and through major retailers. ISBN 979-8-9871657-4-4 (paperback). The free AI visibility test and reader resources are at https://www.thefutureisaisearch.com/.
About David Esau
David Esau is the founder and CEO of Click Track Marketing, an AI-first digital marketing agency in San Diego serving approximately eighty businesses across home services, legal, medical, restaurant, real estate and ecommerce. A former Google ads strategist and partnerships professional, he is the author of three books on digital marketing and AI search. He is a member of the Forbes Agency Council and a former touring drummer.
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AI Marketing Book States Local Businesses Are Becoming Invisible to the AI Tools Customers Ask First
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