The plumbing varies by product. Google AI Overviews sit directly on top of Google search. Copilot and several smaller tools lean on Bing. ChatGPT and Perplexity run their own search layers and crawlers with mixed sourcing. What they all share is a retrieval step that behaves a lot like search. Pages that rank on page one for the query behind the question are far more likely to end up in the small set the model actually reads.
Ranking is necessary but not sufficient. Plenty of top ranking pages get skipped because they bury the answer, or because a directory page summarizes the same information more cleanly. The model picks whatever is easiest to turn into two sentences it can stand behind. That is why a modest site with sharp, factual service pages sometimes gets cited over a bigger competitor whose pages are all brand copy and hero images.
So the honest answer for an owner is that you do not need a separate AI strategy bolted onto a neglected SEO program. You need the SEO fundamentals working, plus pages written so a machine can quote them without guessing. If someone tells you rankings no longer matter in the AI era, they are overselling. If they tell you nothing has changed at all, they are underselling. Both versions cost you.
Send the site over. We will tell you what is broken, what you could rank for, and whether AI search knows you exist. No charge and no pitch deck.
