Semrush Unveils Brand Visibility Framework at Adobe Summit

Key Terms

ai search technical

AI search is a search system that uses machine learning to understand queries and surface answers or documents more like a knowledgeable assistant than a keyword-matcher; think of it as a smart librarian who reads and summarizes many pages to give the most useful results. For investors, it matters because it can improve user engagement, cut support and research costs, create new products or revenue streams, and shift competitive advantage or regulatory risk for companies that build or adopt it.

autonomous ai agents technical

Autonomous AI agents are software programs powered by artificial intelligence that can carry out tasks, make decisions, and learn from results with little or no human supervision—think of them as a robotic employee or a self-driving car for digital work. They matter to investors because they can lower operating costs, speed up decision-making, and create new revenue opportunities, while also introducing risks around errors, oversight, and regulation that can affect a company’s performance and valuation.

share of voice technical

Share of voice measures how much attention a company gets in media, social platforms, advertising or analyst coverage compared with its competitors, expressed as a portion of the total conversation. For investors it signals visibility and momentum—like a slice of the public’s attention pie—helping indicate whether a business is winning mindshare, fueling sales or facing reputational gaps that could affect future earnings and stock performance.

New research report series provides CMOs with a strategic framework and practical tools to orchestrate brand visibility across search and AI environments

BOSTON--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- Semrush (NYSE: SEMR), the leading brand visibility platform, today unveiled a new strategic operating model for "Brand Visibility" during the Adobe Summit. The launch includes a two-part research report series: Brand Visibility Orchestration: How to execute on the Brand Visibility Operating model and Brand Visibility in the AI search era: A strategic framework for CMOs, designed to help marketing leaders transition from fragmented channel execution to a coordinated system of brand discovery.

This framework establishes Brand Visibility as the degree to which a brand is discoverable, authoritatively represented, and commercially actionable across both human- and machine-mediated discovery surfaces. A core component of the model is Agentic Search Optimization (ASO)—a new operational layer required to ensure a brand is selected, interpreted, and surfaced by autonomous AI agents as they increasingly evaluate brand relevance and authority.

The move to a formal operating model is a direct response to a fundamental shift in search behavior. With Gartner predicting a 25% drop in traditional search volume by 2026, brands are no longer discovered solely through users typing keywords in search bars, but through a complex ecosystem of AI-generated answers, chatbots, and agents.

"Most marketing organizations don’t struggle with defining strategy; they struggle with making it work in a world where discovery is now shaped by interconnected AI systems," said Andrew Warden, Chief Marketing Officer at Semrush. "Visibility is no longer something you achieve through isolated tactics—it must be engineered through a repeatable operating model. This research provides the playbook for moving from managing channels to orchestrating outcomes."

The Shift to Brand Orchestration

The model responds to this tectonic shift in discovery by identifying a critical "Alignment Gap" in current marketing execution. Semrush research identified:

• The Measurability Gap: 55.5% of teams fully aligned on search and AI optimization find their performance measurable and actionable, compared to only 15.5% of "somewhat aligned" teams and a further 18% who are siloed and disconnected.
• The Process Gap: Only 22.6% of organizations have a truly unified process for topics, briefs, and goals across traditional search and AI-generated answers.
• The Ownership Gap: A majority of enterprise teams (57.3%) describe themselves as either "somewhat aligned", "siloed" or "completely disconnected" on brand visibility, meaning ownership is often unclear, and coordination depends on individuals rather than structure.

A Strategic Framework for the AI Era

The new research introduces the People and Process Maturity Matrix, a practical tool for CMOs to assess organizational readiness for AI-driven discovery. The matrix identifies four stages of maturity, helping leaders move from "Fragmented Operators" to "Brand Visibility Orchestrators".

Key components of the Brand Visibility Operating Model include:

• The Brand Orchestration Lifecycle: A repeatable four-stage system consisting of Foundation (narrative definition), Content (multi-format assets), Distribution (cross-surface activation), and Feedback (visibility signals).
• The Brand Visibility Orchestrator: A newly defined organizational role focused on acting as the connective layer between strategy and execution, ensuring narratives remain consistent across all surfaces.
• Unified Content Supply Chain: A process where topics and briefs are defined once and carried across search and AI environments to reinforce brand authority.

Proven Impact of Orchestration

Data from the reports highlight the performance gap between siloed and orchestrated teams. More than 55% of teams fully aligned on search and AI optimization say brand visibility is clearly measurable and actionable, compared to just 15.5% of partially aligned teams, while siloed and disconnected teams reported AI visibility very difficult to measure (23%) and not at all measurable (24.6%). In a recent internal application of these principles, Semrush nearly tripled its own AI share of voice from 13% to 32% within a single month.

Availability

The research series is being presented this week at the Adobe Summit in Las Vegas. Marketing leaders can access the full reports at https://ai-visibility-index.semrush.com/downloads.

About Semrush:

Semrush (NYSE: SEMR) is the leading brand visibility platform, empowering marketers to command their online presence and create measurable impact. Built on the industry’s most expansive proprietary dataset, Semrush delivers AI-driven insights across SEO, Agentic Search Optimization, content marketing, paid media, and social strategy. Used by over 28 million users globally – from scaling startups to the Fortune 500 – Semrush provides the competitive intelligence needed to win visibility in an evolving digital landscape. The company is headquartered in Boston, MA with a global presence across North America, Europe and Asia.

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Source: Semrush Holdings, Inc.