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Delia Rowland
Case study
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A Noble pilot in the AI SEO agency category
Every agency selling AI optimization services is also trying to win AI visibility for themselves. The brands jockeying for position in AI search results are the same brands that understand exactly how AI search works.
That makes standing out exceptionally hard.
Avenue Z is an AI-first marketing and PR agency trusted by leaders in consumer brands, tech, and finance to drive revenue and reputation across channels from ChatGPT to The Wall Street Journal, Shopify to TikTok.
They understand AI search as well as anyone in the industry. But when they analyzed their AI visibility data in late 2025, they identified a clear opportunity to expand their presence across high-intent queries. Prompts like "What are the top AI SEO agencies?" on ChatGPT, Gemini, and Perplexity were largely concentrated among a small group of established players, with the top three agencies appearing in 58–78% of responses.
Here's how we closed that gap.
LLMs like ChatGPT and Gemini don't make up their recommendations. They draw from articles and third-party content they've already absorbed like listicles, roundups, comparison pieces, industry analyses. A brand that shows up frequently in those articles is more likely to show up when someone asks an AI assistant for a recommendation.
The hypothesis: if Avenue Z and Noble worked together to place Avenue Z in the specific articles LLMs rely on for AI SEO queries, visibility should follow.
Results were tracked using Peec, a monitoring platform that measures how often a brand appears in AI-generated responses. Peec runs each tracked query daily across major AI platforms and reports three metrics:
On the specific queries Noble targeted, Avenue Z recorded the largest ranking improvement of any tracked competitor.
At the start of the period, Avenue Z had minimal visibility in AI responses for "top AI SEO agencies" queries. By the end, they were showing up consistently and being mentioned significantly earlier in responses. The +15.8 position improvement was more than 3x the next biggest mover in the category.
To put that in context: the other seven tracked agencies — all of which actively optimize for AI visibility — saw position changes ranging from roughly +1 to +5 over the same window. Avenue Z moved 15.8.
121-day view
The impact wasn't limited to the targeted prompt cluster. Across all of Avenue Z's tracked queries — not just the AI SEO ones — their visibility also climbed.
On the broader set of queries, Avenue Z climbed to #4 among tracked competitors with 28% visibility, overtaking four established agencies.
This suggests that Noble's placements for the AI SEO cluster had a spillover effect by improving Avenue Z's presence not just on the targeted queries, but across a wider set of prompts where LLMs draw from similar source material.
90-day view
How This Looked Against the Competition
What makes Avenue Z's climb stand out is the competitive context. Over the most recent 90-day window across all prompts, several tracked competitors also gained ground. The category leader held #1 at 48% visibility with a 7-point gain. Other tracked agencies rose between 4 and 5 points. Two agencies lost ground, dropping 5 and 7 points respectively.
Avenue Z started below the category leaders and recorded a +15.8 position improvement on the targeted prompts — more than 3x the next biggest mover. Across all tracked prompts, that translated to climbing to #4.
In a category where every player is actively working on AI visibility, no one else moved that far, that fast.
Since the campaign launched, Avenue Z has tracked that AI-sourced contacts grew 5.26% period over period.
On the targeted AI SEO prompts, Avenue Z's visibility grew 250%. From ~2% to ~7% — the fastest growth rate of any tracked agency in a category where every competitor is actively optimizing.
Avenue Z achieved the largest position improvement of any tracked competitor — by more than 3x. A 15.8-place gain on targeted prompts, versus roughly +1 to +5 for other agencies in the category.
Across all tracked prompts, Avenue Z climbed to #4 among top tracked competitors. They overtook four established agencies, reaching 28% visibility in the most recent 90 days.
The gains outpaced a competitive field. Several tracked agencies also improved during this period, but none matched Avenue Z's rate of climb.
AI visibility is driving real inbound. Avenue Z tracks leads from AI platforms since November 1, with AI-sourced contacts growing 5.26% period over period.
Measurement period: December 3, 2025 – March 31, 2026 (121 days for targeted prompt trajectory); approximately December 1, 2025 – March 31, 2026 (90 days for all-prompts competitive snapshot)
Tool: Peec AI, which monitors brand mentions in AI-generated responses. Peec queries LLMs daily through their standard user interface capturing the same responses a real user would see.
Metrics: Visibility = percentage of AI responses that mention the brand. Position = average ranking among brands mentioned in a response (e.g., if Avenue Z is the 3rd brand named, their position for that response is 3). Sentiment = whether the mention is positive, neutral, or negative.
Two views referenced: The 121-day view is filtered to the "top AI SEO agencies" prompt cluster — the queries Noble's placements directly targeted. The 90-day view shows all of Avenue Z's tracked prompts, providing the broader competitive picture. Both come from the same Peec dashboard; the differences are the date range and prompt filter.
Limitations: No control group. Competitor movements — both gains and losses — may reflect their own campaigns. The 121-day position figure blends pre- and post-placement data into a period average. Tracked competitors are limited to 8 agencies visible in the Peec dashboard. The spillover to non-targeted prompts is observed but not isolated — other factors may have contributed.
For the full methodology and raw data, contact Noble.
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