How AI Can Help You Attract Talent

As the influence of large language models (LLMs) increases, you can build brand awareness (or in this case, place awareness) without necessarily resulting in website traffic. You may have heard this described as zero-click search, and it means that metrics you’ve previously used may not be as applicable now. There’s now an opportunity to evaluate how AI can boost your place’s visibility, instead of focusing only on traffic and search rankings.

Increasingly, talent asks LLMs questions like: “Where should an engineer move if they love mountain biking?,” rather than perusing Google. You’ve probably heard the terms AEO (Answer Engine Optimization) and GEO (Generative Engine Optimization). They mean optimizing your content so conversational AI models like ChatGPT, Gemini and Google’s AI Overviews synthesize and recommend your place. How can you help AI tools showcase your area to talent looking for their next great place?

SEO + PR

Many SEO best practices still apply when working to be recognized by LLMs, like technically healthy sites, backlinks and in-depth, high-value content. Some new focus areas include Q&A-structured copy, clear data tables and using schema markup so AI can easily crawl your site. Remember that modern AI search engines cite sources. If you have high-quality, cited content on a reputable site, AI won’t just mention your city, it can drive high-intent talent directly to you.

But PR and a consistent narrative told across the web matter just as much. AI models value trust and credibility, scraping earned media, reviews, social media and forums like Reddit to gauge community sentiment … to see what real people say about your city’s cost of living, culture, safety, etc. Monitoring and engaging in local community discussions is a form of AI optimization. These tools also value consistency, if you need another great reason to align your community story across stakeholders.

It’s no longer just about having a flashy website; it’s about a cohesive, positive story told across a range of authoritative sources the AI trains on. When you work with Livability, our content provides that trusted, third-party validation that AI engines love to cite.

Data + Storytelling

Using data is also helpful for gaining visibility with these tools, especially original research. Because AI engines love citing hard numbers, original data is one of the fastest ways to get your community cited as a top recommendation. There are many ways to tie data to storytelling, whether you start with existing data and look for related stories or vice versa – start with stories and see what data backs them up.

At Livability, one of the biggest data sets we generate is for our annual Top 100 Best Places to Live. We’ve seen this content give our brand a boost in being recognized by LLMs. It’s worth thinking about what data, especially original data, you could gather or use to boost your place brand from this standpoint.

Authenticity is Still Key

Regardless of what’s good for SEO or optimizing AI for talent attraction, authentic storytelling remains essential, because ultimately your audience is other humans. AI models actively look for firsthand experience and the unique, hyper-local details a generic algorithm can’t fabricate. Whatever is true, special and specific about your place, touting that and sharing real stories helps both humans and AI recognize your community’s value.

Need help putting your community’s best foot forward online in the age of AI? Contact us.

Livability’s custom content programs help relocating talent and business decision-makers discover your community and glean the insights they need to shortlist your area as one of the best places to live or grow a business.

Livability highlights the nation’s most vibrant small and mid-sized cities. Through Livability’s custom content programs, relocating talent and business decision-makers discover your community and glean the insights they need to shortlist your area as one of the best places to live or to grow a business.