Rewriting Discovery, Storytelling & Search
On this episode of Engineering Brand Love, Rick Milenthal sits down with Tom Howell, founder of FancyAI, alongside Shipyard partner Dave Grzelak, for a deep dive into the rapidly evolving world of generative engine optimization (GEO), AI-driven discovery, and the future of brand storytelling.
Together, they explore how AI platforms like OpenAI’s ChatGPT, Anthropic’s Claude, Google Gemini, and xAI Grok are fundamentally reshaping how brands are found, recommended, and trusted – and why creativity may become more important, not less, in the AI era.
The conversation spans everything from Reddit signals and influencer authority to personalized AI agents, the death of transactional search, and the return of authentic storytelling as a competitive advantage. Rick, Tom, and Dave also unpack the future of advertising in an AI-first world, the role of creators and podcasts in training large language models, and why the next era of marketing may reward relevance, humanity, and imagination over sheer media spend.
