This central conclusion defined discussions at INDEX’26 New York, hosted by Pepper on May 27. More than 200 chief marketing officers, vice presidents of marketing, growth leaders, investors, and technology builders gathered for the New York edition of what Pepper describes as the world’s first The GEO Growth Summit. The summit was positioned not as a debate on whether generative artificial intelligence is disrupting search, but as a forum to define competitive success in the new environment.
Across discussions, participants identified a structural shift in organic discovery. Traditional search engine optimization frameworks were described as increasingly weakened. Customer acquisition costs continue to rise. Buyer journeys now span more than seven distinct touchpoints before final decisions are made. Throughout these fragmented journeys, artificial intelligence systems increasingly shape brand perception by synthesizing reviews, citations, third-party content, and digital authority signals before any direct consumer interaction occurs.
Anirudh Singla, Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Pepper, stated, “INDEX was created to bring together operators who are actively rethinking how growth works in a world where AI has become the primary interface for discovery. Search is no longer about ranking pages - it is about being retrieved, cited, and trusted by AI systems. INDEX’26 is where leaders come together to understand this shift and build practical strategies to win in the new era.”
Speakers emphasized that the implications extend beyond marketing departments. Investors and board members are increasingly questioning portfolio companies on artificial intelligence search visibility, often without marketing leadership present. This shift has reframed generative engine optimization as a matter of organizational continuity rather than a specialized marketing initiative.
Regulated industries highlighted additional complexity. Leaders referenced financial services environments, including DTCC and Arbor Realty Trust, where inaccuracies generated by artificial intelligence systems could trigger compliance risks in addition to reputational harm. These risks include misattributed claims, fabricated product details, and AI-generated responses that conflict with regulatory requirements, elevating the issue beyond traditional brand management concerns.
Lauren Wagner Boyman, Chief Marketing Officer of KPMG US, stated, “I think of myself as much more of an operations and architect of the department than a traditional marketer. We've gone from Chief Marketing Officer to Chief Architect.”
Discussions also reflected broader transformation in the marketing function. Insights from Drew Neisser of CMO Huddles, based on more than 600 chief marketing officer conversations, indicated that marketing roles are being restructured around speed, adaptability, and content efficiency rather than conventional brand oversight. Leaders from companies including Uber, Unilever, Major League Soccer, and Samsung Ads reinforced that in an artificial intelligence driven discovery environment, success depends on whether systems learn to trust a brand, rather than the scale of its media investment.
Deepak Subramanian, Global Vice President of Marketing at Unilever, stated, “The physical shelf had 100 options. E-commerce became endless but we shop above the fold - so 100 became 5. AI-led search is about to compress 5 into 1. You want to be that one - every time, in every platform.”
At the summit, Pepper introduced Atlas, an agentic operating system designed for organic growth. The platform is positioned as an outcome-driven system focused on traffic, citations, velocity, and pipeline performance in an artificial intelligence dominated discovery ecosystem. Separately, Guy Yalif of Webflow presented the AEO Maturity Model, developed using data from millions of business-to-business websites, offering organizations a framework to evaluate their readiness for artificial intelligence driven search environments.
Additional insights were presented by practitioners from RocketReach, Optimizely, Stacker, and G2, who outlined operational strategies currently being deployed within generative engine optimization frameworks.
INDEX’26 New York followed the earlier San Francisco edition held in April, which brought together more than 200 senior leaders from Salesforce, NVIDIA, Intel, Snowflake, Gong, and Demandbase. Organizers confirmed that future editions of the summit are planned for additional global markets.
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