Hey there,

Welcome back to another Don’t Feed The Algorithm, your weekly dispatch from Averi — where we explore the intersections of marketing, AI and the future of work.

Every layer of the stack is moving at the same time this week. Every single one.

Jensen Huang is on stage right now in San Jose, showing 39,000 people the chips that will power the next generation of AI infrastructure. LinkedIn just rebuilt its entire feed algorithm using LLMs — and two independent studies confirmed it's now the #2 most-cited source in AI search. ChatGPT is running ads from Target, Best Buy, and Ford at $60 CPMs. Google's core update is in its third week of maximum volatility, with webmasters reporting 80%+ traffic drops and zero explanation. Anthropic is suing the Pentagon — hearing set for March 24 — with billions of dollars and the precedent for every AI company on the line. And 37% of consumers now start their searches with AI instead of Google.

That's not a news cycle. That's a regime change.

The chip layer is being rebuilt (GTC).
The algorithm layer is being rebuilt (LinkedIn).
The ad layer is being built from scratch (ChatGPT).
The ranking layer is being reshuffled (Google).
And the legal layer is being written in real time (Anthropic v. Pentagon).

If your content strategy was built for the world that existed in January, it's already out of date.

The good news: when infrastructure moves, the playbook resets for everyone. The startups that figure out how LinkedIn's new algorithm works before their competitors do will own AI citation share for months. The ones that understand how ChatGPT ads work before self-serve opens up will have first-mover data no one else has. The ones publishing consistently while Google's rankings are in flux will pick up positions that shake loose during the update.

This issue is built around that window.

The LinkedIn GEO Sprint gives you a 75-minute playbook for turning your LinkedIn into an AI citation machine. What The Bots Are Reading breaks down exactly why LinkedIn just became the most important third-party source for AI visibility. And we shipped LinkedIn posting directly inside Averi — so every article you create now has a built-in distribution layer to the platform the bots are reading most.

Let's build.

— ZC & The Averi Team

89,000 LinkedIn URLs were cited across ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Google AI Mode.

LinkedIn just rebuilt its algorithm around topical expertise.

The platform literally published a guide on how to get cited by AI chatbots. If you're publishing blog content but not turning it into LinkedIn posts, you're leaving half your AI visibility on the table.

That's why we built the workflow this way.

→ Write once, show up twice. Every article you create in Averi is GEO-optimized from the start — structured for AI extraction with clear answers, specific claims, and schema-friendly formatting. Then hit the LinkedIn button and Averi generates a ready-to-post draft from that same article — with a hook, structured formatting, and engagement patterns built for the platform AI is citing most.

→ Your blog feeds Google. Your LinkedIn feeds everything else. Google AI Overviews pull from your website. But ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Copilot disproportionately pull from LinkedIn. One article, published on your CMS and distributed on LinkedIn, now covers both citation surfaces in a single workflow. No copy-pasting. No reformatting. No forgetting to post.

→ Internal links make the blog work harder. Every article you publish also strengthens everything you've already built. Averi's auto-generated internal links scan your content library and suggest contextual links — right anchor text, right placement — so Google understands how your content connects. Topic clusters that signal authority to search engines and AI systems, built automatically.

We didn't plan this around the LinkedIn data — we shipped LinkedIn posting and internal links two weeks ago.

But the timing makes the point: the content engine workflow was designed for exactly this moment. Strategy, creation, publishing, distribution, and linking — all in one place, all optimized for the way AI search actually works in 2026.

— Averi Team

We just launched resources.averi.ai — and it's exactly what it sounds like.

431+ free templates, playbooks, guides, tools, and frameworks for content marketers and startup founders.

Here's what's inside:

→ 50 ready-to-use templates for content strategy, SEO, social, email, and editorial calendars — the kind of docs that usually live in someone's private Notion and never see daylight.

→ 20 tactical playbooks with phases, checklists, and timelines. Including "The First 90 Days" — a launch playbook for standing up content marketing at a new company from scratch.

→ 18 free tools — interactive calculators, content analyzers, and generators you can use right now without signing up for anything.

→ Complete pillar guides covering content marketing, SEO, AI content strategy, startup marketing, content ops, and lead generation. Each one is the kind of deep dive that would normally be a $49 ebook from someone's course funnel.

→ Benchmarks, comparisons, industry breakdowns, and a 75-term glossary — because half the battle in content marketing is just knowing what "good" looks like for your stage and vertical.

Not sure where to start? There's a 2-minute Content Strategy Quiz that gives you a personalized recommendation based on your stage, team size, and goals.

HubSpot lost 80% of their organic traffic in 10 months.

The company that literally wrote the book on inbound marketing, with 81 domain authority, 120+ million backlinks, and one of the best SEO teams in the world… watched their monthly organic visits plummet from 24 million to 6 million.

If that doesn't get your attention, this will: 60% of all Google searches now end without a single click to any website. When AI Overviews appear, that number jumps to 83%. Industry projections suggest we're heading toward 70%+ zero-click rates by mid-2026.

The old playbook is dead. And here's the thing nobody's talking about: this is actually good news for seed-stage startups.

LinkedIn is now the #2 most-cited source in AI search. And it just rewrote its algorithm to make that permanent.

Two independent studies dropped the same finding this month. SEMrush analyzed 325,000 prompts across ChatGPT, Google AI Mode, and Perplexity — and found 89,000 unique LinkedIn URLs cited in AI responses. Profound's research confirmed it separately: LinkedIn is the most-cited domain for professional queries across every major AI platform.

Then, on Monday, LinkedIn rebuilt its entire feed ranking system using large language models and GPUs. The new algorithm prioritizes topical relevance and demonstrated expertise over connection-based reach. Posts that show depth on a subject can now travel across the network even without existing connections.

What this means in practice:

→ Your LinkedIn posts are no longer just social content. They're source material for AI answers. When someone asks ChatGPT or Perplexity a question about your industry, the AI is pulling from LinkedIn — and the new algorithm decides which posts it surfaces.

→ Posts with 10+ comments tend to get cited more frequently. Engagement isn't just vanity anymore — it's a signal that AI systems use to gauge authority.

→ LinkedIn officially published a guide on getting cited by AI chatbots this week. Their own recommendations: lead with direct answers, make bold expert claims, use ranked lists, and include specific dates. The platform is now coaching its users on GEO. When the platform tells you how to optimize for AI citation, believe them.

→ 85% of brand mentions in AI answers still come from third-party pages — not your own website. LinkedIn is the most important third-party page for B2B. If your founders and execs aren't publishing consistently, you're invisible in the fastest-growing citation source across every major LLM.

→ The window is open but closing. Most brands haven't adjusted their content strategies for LinkedIn's new role in AI search. The ones that move first accumulate citation history before competitors catch up.

The bottom line: LinkedIn just became a GEO channel. Treat it like one. The posts your team publishes this month will show up in AI answers for the next 6-12 months.

→ Read the SEMrush study on ALM Corp · See LinkedIn's official AI optimization guide · LinkedIn's algorithm update on Search Engine Land

We all know the industry loves to pretend it’s got it all figured out.

But here?

We tell the truth.

Every week, we’re asking you to share how things really work behind the scenes. Because getting better starts with getting honest.

Don’t worry, it’s a safe space.

Drop your vote.

A tourism board roasted its own city — and drove a million flight searches in five weeks.

"I wouldn't come here, to be honest." That's the opening line of Visit Oslo's "Is It Even a City?" — a 1 minute, 45 second video in which a 31-year-old local named Halfdan walks around Oslo telling you everything that's wrong with it. The restaurants are too easy to get into. The art galleries have no lines. You can walk from one side of the city to the other in 30 minutes. You might bump into the King just walking down the street. Standing in front of Edvard Munch's "The Scream," he sighs: "It's not exactly the Mona Lisa."

Every complaint is a selling point. Every flaw is a flex. And the entire thing is shot beautifully — golden hour transitions, harbor swimming, Michelin plates — while Halfdan deadpans over it like he's reviewing a 2-star Airbnb.

The numbers: 1 million views on day one. 13 million+ views across TikTok, X, Instagram, and YouTube. 7.4 million flight searches to Oslo in the five weeks after launch — a 17% increase over the same period. International arrivals up 26% from 2019 levels. Coverage from NPR, Ad Age, Fortune, The Guardian, Fast Company, Adweek, and dozens more. The video was nominated for ICCA's Best Marketing Award. Multiple destinations tried to copy it. None landed the same way.

Why we love it:

Visit Oslo's marketing director Anne-Signe Fagereng said the inspiration was simple: Oslo is the underdog. Not Stockholm. Not Copenhagen. The unknown sibling. Instead of pretending otherwise with glossy drone shots and a soaring soundtrack, they leaned into it. The entire video is a local shrugging at his own city while the camera shows you exactly why he's wrong. The tension between what Halfdan says and what you see is the entire campaign.

It also landed at exactly the right cultural moment. Europe is drowning in overtourism — Barcelona, Venice, Amsterdam all fighting back. Oslo positioned itself as the antidote: come here, there are no crowds, no lines, and nobody's trying to sell you anything. The reverse psychology wasn't gimmick — it was genuine positioning against a real industry problem.

The algorithm could never because no optimization engine would recommend opening a tourism ad with "I wouldn't come here." No A/B test would greenlight a protagonist who's visibly bored by his own city. No performance model would suggest spending your entire video budget on a guy who calls The Scream "not exactly the Mona Lisa." The ad breaks every rule of destination marketing — lead with aspiration, show smiling faces, end with a CTA — and outperformed them all because it felt like something a real person would actually say. You can't optimize your way to dry Nordic humor.

The startup takeaway: when you're the underdog, stop pretending you're not. The brands that try to look bigger than they are get ignored. The ones that own what makes them different — even the awkward parts — become magnetic. Oslo didn't have the Eiffel Tower. So they made not having the Eiffel Tower the entire pitch.

→ Watch the video · Read the AFAR deep dive · See the full media coverage list

Strategy You Can Steal

The "LinkedIn GEO Sprint" — Turn Your LinkedIn Into an AI Citation Machine (75 minutes)

LinkedIn just became the most important third-party source for AI visibility in B2B. But most startup teams are still posting the way they did in 2023 — sharing links, writing vague thought leadership, and hoping the algorithm picks it up. This sprint turns your LinkedIn presence into a deliberate GEO strategy in one sitting.

Block 1: Audit Your AI Presence on LinkedIn (15 min)

Open ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Google AI Mode in separate tabs. Run these three prompts:

Screenshot every response.

Look for two things: does your brand appear? And when AI does reference your space, which LinkedIn profiles or posts does it cite? Those cited profiles are your competitive benchmark. Study what they're doing that you're not.

Block 2: Build Your "Citable Claims" List (20 min)

AI systems cite specific, definitive statements — not vague thought leadership. LinkedIn's own guide confirms this: bold claims, ranked lists, direct answers, and specific dates get cited.

Write down 10 claims your founder or team lead can make with authority. Not opinions — positions. Examples:

→ "Internal linking is the most underrated SEO lever for startups in 2026"
→ "Most content strategies fail because they're decks, not workflows"
→ "AI search visitors convert at 5x the rate of Google organic — and most startups aren't tracking it"
→ "The first company to answer a question on LinkedIn owns that answer in AI search for months"

Each of these is a LinkedIn post waiting to happen. They're specific, quotable, and structured for AI extraction.

Block 3: Write Your First 4 Posts (30 min)

One post per claim. Use this structure — it's built for both LinkedIn's new algorithm and AI citation:

Line 1: The claim. Bold. Direct. No preamble.
Lines 2-4: The evidence or context. One stat, one example, or one personal experience.
Lines 5-7: The implication. What should the reader do differently?
Last line: A question that invites comments. (Posts with 10+ comments get cited more frequently.)

Write all four now. Schedule them across the next two weeks. You're not trying to go viral — you're trying to be cited.

Block 4: Set Your Tracking Baseline (10 min)

Before you publish, run the same three AI prompts from Block 1 again and save the screenshots. In 30 days, run them again. The difference is your GEO lift from LinkedIn.

Also check: are your posts showing up in Google AI Overviews for your target keywords? LinkedIn content is increasingly surfacing there too — and Google's algorithm update this month is strengthening expertise signals.

The output: 4 scheduled LinkedIn posts built for AI citation, a baseline AI visibility audit, and a repeatable framework you can run monthly.

The companies that win AI visibility in 2026 won't be the ones with the most content on their blog. They'll be the ones whose experts show up consistently on the platforms AI trusts most. Right now, that platform is LinkedIn — and the window to establish citation history before your competitors catch up is measured in weeks, not quarters.

Know of a role that should be here? Reply to this email and we'll feature it next week.

Did You Know? —  93% of Google AI Mode searches end without a click. But when AI-referred visitors do click through, they spend 68% more time on your site than traditional organic visitors.

The traffic is smaller. The intent is enormous.

Til next time,