📂 Stop chasing "universal" AI visibility tactics

Different LLMs reward different signals — and the data backs it up.  ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­

Today's newsletter is proudly supported by Embarque 🎉 ​ For two years in a row, SaaS founders and marketers reported content as the #1 driver of growth according to the State of SaaS Marketing Report. That's why I'm excited to partner with Embarque to help more startups level up their content and SEO with affordable done-for-you content production. With clients like Riverside, MentorCruise, EmailOctopus, and VEED... these folks know what they're doing. They'll handle the whole process from keyword research to backlink building. Make sure to mention "Corey" or "Swipe Files." Check out Embarque → A LinkedIn post from Benji Hyam this week crystallized something that's been bugging me about the whole "GEO" / "AEO" / "AI visibility" conversation. Every LinkedIn carousel and Substack telling you "this is how to get cited by LLMs" is making a universal claim about a non-universal thing. ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, AI Mode, Perplexity, and AI Overviews each retrieve information differently. Benji's team runs a visibility tool (Traqer) across clients and platforms — their data shows the scores don't line up across LLMs. If "X is how you win visibility" were true, scores would be consistent across platforms. They aren't. Specifically, from his team's data: Perplexity, AI Overviews, and AI Mode correlate higher with traditional SEO rankings. SEO fundamentals still carry. Gemini and ChatGPT rely on other signals — and his team can't yet say what. For SaaS marketers, this changes how to think about LLM visibility this year. Four moves to make. Pick a platform before picking a tactic Most "how to rank in AI search" advice doesn't say which AI. So it can't be evaluated and it can't be falsified. The first move is to stop reading horoscopes and decide which LLM you actually care about getting cited in. Your customers probably skew to one or two — find out which, then optimize for those. If you sell to engineers, ChatGPT and Claude probably dominate. If you sell to marketers, ChatGPT and Gemini are likely. If you sell to enterprise procurement, Perplexity is punching above its weight. Different audiences, different platforms, different tactics. Treat each LLM like its own channel We don't say "this is how social media works" and then write identical content for LinkedIn, TikTok, and X. But we still talk about LLM visibility like it's one channel. It isn't. Build a small matrix: rows are the LLMs you care about, columns are tactics (own-site content, Reddit presence, third-party reviews, structured data, citations from authoritative pages, etc.). Test which tactics move which platforms. Most squares will be empty for a while — that's fine. Falsify the universal claims one at a time. SEO is not dead — it's the floor The Traqer data point that stuck with me: Perplexity, AI Overviews, and AI Mode correlate with traditional SEO rankings. Translation: if your SEO foundation is weak, the LLMs that crawl the web for citations aren't going to pick you up anyway. You don't get to skip SEO and "go straight to GEO." SEO is the floor that gets you considered. The LLM-specific tactics are the ceiling on top. Be suspicious of the case studies Almost every "we got cited in ChatGPT and our traffic 5x'd" post fails to: Specify which platform(s) the citation actually appeared in Show the citation context (was it the answer, or a side mention?) Acknowledge that ChatGPT's browsing behavior has changed multiple times this year A case study that doesn't address platform specificity and timing is a marketing post, not data. Treat it accordingly. What to do this month If you're serious about LLM visibility: Pick two LLMs that map to your audience. Pick three concrete tactics you've heard advocated (e.g., "be on Reddit", "structured FAQ schema", "Wikipedia citation"). Run them. Track citation appearances over 4–6 weeks per platform. Drop the tactics that don't move the LLM you care about. Double down on the ones that do. That's a real experiment. Everything else is vibes. ​Read Benji's full post →​ Borrow shamelessly, test relentlessly. That's the only honest way to play this one. —Corey p.s. want my brain-power on marketing your business? Book a Marketing Power Hour or invest in a Swipe Files Membership. Swipe Files does not have sponsors. We have partners. We partner with trusted top-tier service providers. In fact, I reached out to them — each one has been carefully selected and vetted so I have 100% confidence in recommending them to you. Doing business with them supports this newsletter. 😊 See how these services can help you grow and mention "Swipe Files" or "Corey" for special treatment: ​Conversion Factory — My SaaS marketing and design agency without the BS of unpredictable costs or contracts. ​ReactSquad — The only developer matchmaking service for SaaS startups focused on vetted engineers who focus on React & Node.js. ​xFusion — Get trained, reliable, and affordable customer support reps ready to go for your business. ​Sales.co — Cold email from idea generation to A/B testing, all you have to do is show up for the sales call. ​Videodeck — Done-for-you video production with an expert team at an affordable price. ​Dofollow — My go-to service for sourcing high-quality backlinks in ethical ways to help you rank higher in Google. ​Embarque — Level up your content and SEO at an affordable price, from keyword research to content production to promotion. ​A Team Overseas — Proactive VAs for founders who need more than just order-takers. ​Latin Remote Workers — Save up to 70% on salaries by hiring exceptional talent from Latin America. ​Testimonial Hero — Done-for-you professional video testimonials and case studies. ​ 0 of 5 You're just 5 referrals away from unlocking 50% Off Next Reward 50% Off Share with 5 friends and become a Swipe Files member for just $249 (normally $499) or get 50% off your next year if you're already a member. 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Why would this time be different?

Just look back  ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­

​ "Five minutes each week that might change your life." 81 people had a breakthrough last week. Read this newsletter on MarkManson.net. ONE THING FOR YOU TO THINK ABOUT You've survived every single thing you thought you couldn't handle up until this point. Why would the next one be any different? Share this: ​​​​​ Reflect: Then consider sharing this thought with others. TWO THINGS FOR YOU TO ASK YOURSELF What's the hardest thing you've already survived? What are you convinced you can't handle right now? Recommended: Use these as journaling prompts for the week. ONE THING FOR YOU TO TRY THIS WEEK That thing you’re convinced you can’t handle—do something about it this week. Let me know what happens. Remember: Small changes lead to lasting breakthroughs. Reply to this email and let me know how it went. Do Something About AI This Saturday Sponsored by Outskill You've been telling yourself you'll figure out AI eventually. Outskill's 3-Hour AI Tools Workshop is this Saturday at 10 AM EST—so eventually just got real. There are thousands of AI tools out there, and figuring out where to start is the part that keeps people stuck. The workshop cuts through that. It walks you through 15 of the most powerful tools and exactly which one to use for which job. By the end, you'll have built your own AI automations and an AI co-worker you can actually put to work on Monday. It's led by expert mentors and includes a bonus follow-up session. Usually $395. For my readers, free. Save your free seat ​ LAST WEEK'S BREAKTHROUGHS In last week’s newsletter, I argued that you can only tell what you value by what you're willing to say no to, and asked you to say no to one thing. Georgia said no to alcohol after 20 years of self-medicating: “I’ve been saying ‘yes’ to alcohol since I was 12. For over half of my life I’ve been binge drinking to self medicate the feelings of unworthiness that consumed me for as long as I remember. Three weeks ago I finally said ‘no’. Over the last few years I’ve completely turned my life around through self reflection, therapy, and a career overhaul. But until then alcohol was numbing me. It served a purpose, and I valued it more than most things in my life. Now that I’m finally becoming the person I was meant to be, I'm realising something… I don’t value alcohol anymore. Alcohol over the last year or so had become more of a habit than self medication. I didn’t enjoy the way it made me feel anymore, and I really don’t like the hangovers that my 30s brought! So three weeks ago I said ‘no!’. And it feels amazing. I feel free. I feel at peace. I feel ready to be me.” David said no to dinner with his ex-wife—and meant it: “My wife and I were together for 6 years and have now been separated for about a year, with the divorce still pending. We share our dog Millie, so we still see each other every couple of weeks for handovers. I still love my wife, and for most of the past year I hoped we'd reconcile. The confusing part is that we still get along really well — we go for walks with Millie, have dinner together sometimes, talk for hours. But if I'm honest, part of me kept participating because I hoped she'd eventually change her mind. Recently I finally told her I'm not chasing reconciliation anymore. I respect her decision to separate, and after a year of hanging on, I realized I need to actually accept it and move forward. Then last week we went for a walk with Millie to discuss the settlement, and she surprised me — she apologized for how things had gone, and opened up about how she's still struggling with the separation herself. I mostly just listened. When we got back to her place, she asked if I wanted to come in for dinner. Normally I would have loved to. But I said no, and went home. It sounds ridiculously small written down, but it was hard. Part of me absolutely wanted to go inside, and I even felt guilty afterward for saying no. But I realized I can't keep participating in this half-relationship where I get pieces of the marriage I still want, while knowing she doesn't want the marriage itself. It's only been a week, but I feel better. I can't control whether my marriage ends or whether she ever changes her mind. I can control whether I spend another year waiting for her to. So somehow, saying no to dinner felt like a pretty big milestone.” Mike walked away from a friendship that only valued what he could provide: “I recently left a toxic friendship with a couple in which I was only valued for what I could provide, not as a human being. I used my professional skills to help them through a variety of legal, psychological, and emotional crises — at a cost to me of multiple job opportunities and even a first date. Once things started going well for them, I noticed they didn't want to hang out as much anymore. I was left off invites, and their friends started keeping their distance. When I asked directly, they told me I was imagining it. After a few months of this, I decided my dignity was worth more. I explained my feelings clearly, gave a timeline, and said I wanted a break from the friendship. They accused me of abandoning and betraying them. Throughout it all, I stayed polite — I returned everything of theirs, never spoke badly of them publicly, and kept my venting to my own support network. They've since tried to shame me on social media and in communities we share. My resolve got shaky, but rereading The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck gave me the strength to hold my boundaries. So, thank you. Being part of your newsletter gave me the tools to better myself and rebuild my life, and after nearly a year of unemployment, I'm about to start a new job — thanks in large part to it.” As always, send your breakthroughs by simply replying to this email. Let me know if you’d prefer to remain anonymous. Until next week, Mark Manson #1 New York Times Bestselling Author My Website – My Books – My YouTube Channel – My Podcast – My App WHAT ELSE AM I WORKING ON? An App That Delivers Life-Changing Honesty Over 41% of users call Purpose life-changing. Probably because it remembers your patterns and calls you out instead of cheering you on. Try It Free for 7 Days ​ FOLLOW FOR MORE ​​​​​​​​ ​ markmanson.net Want to share this newsletter via text, social, or email? Simply copy and paste the following link: https://markmanson.net/breakthrough/240-survive​ If you were forwarded this message, sign up to receive it each week here. It’s free. I never spam. About this newsletter: You are receiving this email because you signed up to my free newsletter. Each week, I send you a few powerful ideas, a few questions to ask yourself, and a few things to try in your life. If you no longer wish to receive this newsletter and all other updates from me, you can unsubscribe here. Disclaimer: By sending your breakthrough you are giving us your explicit consent to process the data and share it with our newsletter subscribers, MarkManson.net website visitors and on social media, including any sensitive data such as information regarding mental health, racial or ethnic origin, political opinions, religious or philosophical beliefs, sex life or sexual orientation. You may opt out and/or request deletion of the data at any time. You acknowledge that once we have shared your breakthrough with the other email subscribers we can no longer delete the data from their mailboxes. 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Apple foldables 📱, Nvidia price hikes 📈, future of MCP 👨‍💻

Apple is set to introduce its foldable iPhone at a launch event on or around September 9. Samsung has stolen some of the thunder from the launch ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌  ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ 

Sign Up |Advertise|View Online TLDR Together With TLDR 2026-08-24 AI adoption is now the clearest dividing line in startup economics (Sponsor) 40% of companies heavily using AI say inflation actually helped their business this year… only 12% of non-AI adopters say the same. That contrast turned up everywhere in Mercury's survey of 1,500 early-stage founders & builders: the companies leveraging AI the most are raising more, hiring differently, and reporting a different macroeconomic picture. Read Mercury's new report to explore: The 31-point confidence gap between heavy AI adopters and everyone else What startups spend on AI each month What junior hiring looks like at AI-forward companies and beyond Plus more on how founders are spending, raising, and hiring in 2026. Read the report. 📱 Big Tech & Startups Apple's Foldable iPhone Will Help Bring Some Magic Back (12 minute read) Apple is set to introduce its foldable iPhone at a launch event on or around September 9. Samsung has stolen some of the thunder from the launch by introducing a similar design, but that just reinforces that the new form factor is a winner. Apple's device reportedly excels as a camera viewfinder, but it lacks a telephoto camera, which could be an issue for early adopters spending over $2,000. The design also relies on Touch ID rather than Face ID. Nvidia Customers Notified About AI-Related Price Hikes Above 15% (2 minute read) Some of Nvidia's biggest customers have been told that the price of the AI servers containing its flagship Vera Rubin and Grace Blackwell chips is going up by more than 15% due to the soaring costs of memory chips. The price hikes will go into effect early next year. The increases will depend on the generation of Nvidia chips and the memory configurations. Nvidia has also raised prices for its gaming-oriented PC graphics cards. 🚀 Science & Futuristic Technology Chinese humanoid robots smash human records in 100m sprint and high jump at Beijing robot games (4 minute read) The opening day of the World Humanoid Robot Games in Beijing on Saturday saw Chinese humanoid robots break records set by humans, including Usain Bolt's 100-meter sprint world record. More than 2,000 humanoid robots participated in the event. There were 51 events and more than 1,000 competitions, including running, table tennis, and soccer. While the games showcased humanoid robots' rapidly evolving abilities, experts say it will still take time to achieve mass real-world deployment and that these robots are mostly still used for demonstrations, performances, and research. Amazon's Toaster-Shaped Robotaxis Are Hitting the Road (7 minute read) Amazon's all-electric toaster-shaped Zoox taxis are the first robotaxis offering rides on the roads without standard driver features like a dashboard or pedals. They can drive in either direction and hold up to four passengers sitting facing each other. Amazon has started rolling out the vehicles across San Francisco and Las Vegas. Tesla's Cybercab lacks a steering wheel and pedals, but it has not received the same regulatory approval as Zoox to begin offering rides to the public. 💻 Programming, Design & Data Science Free workshop: Agentic Loops using Cursor Automations and Sentry (Sponsor) Kent C. Dodds built Kody, and he's taking it apart live with Serge from Sentry: the agentic loops powering kody.codes Cursor automations Sentry webhooks + Seer what's next for Kody Bring questions. They're answering them live. Register free The New MCP Roadmap (8 minute read) The updated roadmap for the Model Context Protocol (MCP) sets the direction for protocol work over the coming months. It is organized into five priority areas: agentic messaging primitives, HTTP-native transport unification and hardening, agent identity and enterprise-ready security, improved primitives, and improved SDK developer experience. Specification Enhancement Proposals that fall within these priority areas get expedited review and have the best chance of acceptance. There's no reason for software to be slow anymore (27 minute read) A lot of the tedium it used to take to get a tricky optimization working is now gone. Many optimizations that were previously too risky to try make sense to try out now. AI drastically reduces the cost of optimization. It can turn days or weeks of work into a trivial loop. 🎁 Miscellaneous GTM Engineer, Applied AI at TLDR ($175-205k base + $40-60k bonus, Fully Remote) TLDR is hiring a GTM Engineer to join our Applied AI team and own our AI-native GTM stack. We're looking for someone comfortable building AI agents and working with HubSpot. Click here to learn more! Fable & The End of the Free Lunch (2 minute read) When Moore's Law was in full effect, it didn't make sense to ruthlessly optimize code, as a new CPU would arrive in 18 months that would double performance. Developers only started to have to think about parallelization, architecture, memory locality, etc, after Moore's Law started slowing down in the mid-2000s. Prior to Fable, it felt like a waste to spend too much time improving coding harnesses or context strategies, as a new model would arrive at the same price or cheaper in just a few months that would cover most of the problem. Fable is incredible, but the cost is so high that developers are now starting to think about what work should go where and optimizing their harnesses to provide weaker models with sufficient context to perform well. ‘Maybe I'm Psycho': Why Tech Founders And VCs Are So Online (11 minute read) New news is coming out so fast that it seems crazy for a founder not to be fully plugged in. Being online can help build a presence and keep people as informed as possible. Posting frequently can help drive inbound interest. Tech Twitter can provide a view of emerging consensus, but few immediately actionable insights. It's important to actively maintain cognitive security and cognitive hygiene, as spending too much time online can be dangerous. ⚡ Quick Links OpenRouter: One API. 500+ AI models. (Sponsor) Access models from 80+ providers with better prices, automatic routing and fallbacks, and no subscriptions. Build with the right model for every request. See how it works. How I Find Problems to Solve as a Staff Engineer (6 minute read) Finding problems comes from staying engaged with people's work long enough to see what no single request can show you. Fast and Hard Code (2 minute read) AI enables developers to pick less common languages and work with much harder technologies. An agent.md to improve LLM-assisted code quality (5 minute read) A good coding harness can help improve code quality dramatically. The CI platform engineers migrate to when YAML babysitting gets old (Sponsor) Buildkite runs agents on your own infra — any cloud, any OS, any chip, secrets never leaving your network. Uber and Shopify run 1.4B job-minutes a week. Try Buildkite free Nvidia Is Spending $6 Billion to Build a Powerful US Alternative to Chinese AI (8 minute read) Nvidia will invest $1 billion in AI startup Poolside at a pre-money valuation of $12 billion and will pay $6 billion to license Poolside's technology and hire the bulk of its engineers. Starting a quantitative trading firm with 0 experience (18 minute read) Table/game selection is just as important as execution, especially in markets. The asteroid currently hitting frontend web development (15 minute read) The front end is less risky to just hand to an agent, so many AI coders will feel comfortable just letting their agents handle it unsupervised. Love TLDR? Tell your friends and get rewards! Share your referral link below with friends to get free TLDR swag! https://refer.tldr.tech/7c97ce4b/ Track your referrals here. Want to advertise in TLDR? 📰 If your company is interested in reaching an audience of tech executives, decision-makers and engineers, you may want to advertise with us. Want to work at TLDR? 💼 Apply here, create your own role or send a friend's resume to jobs@tldr.tech and get $1k if we hire them! TLDR is one of Inc.'s Best Bootstrapped businesses of 2025. If you have any comments or feedback, just respond to this email! Thanks for reading, Dan Ni & Stephen Flanders Manage your subscriptions to our other newsletters on tech, startups, and programming. Or if TLDR isn't for you, please unsubscribe.