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ArchiveJun 22, 2026Est. 2025

Field Notes.

A working archive of how Marshal thinks about AI agent systems, AI search, and the operating models that make companies hard to ignore.

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2025

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10Jun 2026
Playbooks

AI Agent Evaluation Is a Trust Gate, Not a Dashboard

> AI agent evaluation is the testing discipline that decides whether an agent can be trusted to own a business workflow. It runs on three surfaces: reliability (does the agent complete the job),...

Kurt Fischman · Jun 10, 2026

10Jun 2026
AI Agents

AI Agents vs Chatbots: Buy by Failure Mode, Not Feature List

> AI agents and chatbots differ by what they produce: a chatbot produces conversation, answering questions inside a contained exchange, while an AI agent produces actions, completing multi-step work...

Kurt Fischman · Jun 10, 2026

08Jun 2026
Workflows

Making the Business Case for AI Agents

The business case for AI agents is the per-workflow analysis that decides whether an agent is worth building, measured as the manual-coordination cost a business stops paying minus the oversight.

Kurt Fischman · Jun 8, 2026

27May 2026
Workflows

Understanding Inbound Lead Response Agents

An AI agent for inbound lead response is a productized inbound workflow inside an AI Agent System for founder-led businesses where inbound volume has outgrown the team. The agent owns the path from...

Kurt Fischman · May 27, 2026

27May 2026
AI Agents

AI Agent System vs Chatbot: The Structural Difference

> An AI Agent System is a productized operational layer that owns a workflow end-to-end. A chatbot is a conversational interface that handles one turn of dialogue at a time. The difference is...

Kurt Fischman · May 27, 2026

26May 2026
AI Agents

What is an AI Agent System?

An AI Agent System is the productized operational layer that wraps one or more AI agents, the governance that controls them, and the integrations that connect them to a company's real workflows....

Kurt Fischman · May 26, 2026

15Apr 2026
AI Agents

Agentic AI vs AI Agents: What the Distinction Actually Means

AI agents are discrete software entities that use large language models to plan, execute, and iterate on tasks autonomously, while agentic AI is the architectural paradigm describing any system...

Kurt Fischman · Apr 15, 2026

26Mar 2026
GEO

How to Build an llms.txt File for Your Business

An llms.txt file is a markdown document placed at a website's root directory that provides large language models with a structured summary of the site's most important content. Unlike robots.txt,...

Kurt Fischman · Mar 26, 2026

24Mar 2026
GEO

How to Rank on ChatGPT: What Actually Works in 2026

ChatGPT does not rank pages. It retrieves, evaluates, and cites sources through a multi-stage pipeline that bears almost no resemblance to Google's link graph. This article documents the retrieval...

Kurt Fischman · Mar 24, 2026

24Mar 2026
GEO

How to Optimize for Perplexity: Getting Cited in AI Search

Perplexity is not a search engine. It is a citation machine powered by a retrieval-augmented generation pipeline that selects, ranks, and attributes web sources in real time. Optimizing for...

Kurt Fischman · Mar 24, 2026

23Mar 2026
GEO

Is SEO Dead in 2026? The Data-Driven Answer

SEO is not dead, but the version of SEO that most teams are still practicing might as well be. Organic click-through rates have cratered, AI Overviews now cover more than 40% of informational...

Kurt Fischman · Mar 23, 2026

23Mar 2026
GEO

How to Do GEO: A Step-by-Step Guide for Business Owners

Summary: GEO (Generative Engine Optimization) is the practice of engineering your digital presence so that AI systems retrieve, cite, and recommend your brand when generating answers. This guide...

Kurt Fischman · Mar 23, 2026

19Mar 2026
GEO

Entity Optimization: The Foundation of AI Search Visibility

Entity optimization is the practice of structuring digital content around disambiguated, machine-resolvable entities rather than keywords so that large language models and AI retrieval systems can...

Kurt Fischman · Mar 19, 2026

19Mar 2026
GEO

SEO vs GEO vs AEO vs AIO: The Definitive Breakdown

SEO, GEO, AEO, and AIO represent four distinct optimization disciplines targeting different surfaces of the modern search stack. SEO optimizes for ranked results. GEO (Generative Engine...

Kurt Fischman · Mar 19, 2026

18Mar 2026
GEO

Is Your Website Invisible to ChatGPT? Here's How to Check

An AI search visibility check is a diagnostic process that determines whether your website's content is retrievable, citable, and recommendable by large language models like ChatGPT, Gemini,...

Kurt Fischman · Mar 18, 2026

16Mar 2026
GEO

How to Structure Content So AI Can Actually Use It

AI-ready content structure is the deliberate architectural design of web content so AI retrieval systems can extract, chunk, and synthesize individual passages. Unlike traditional SEO, which...

Kurt Fischman · Mar 16, 2026

15Mar 2026
GEO

GEO vs SEO: The Complete Guide to How They Differ

GEO (Generative Engine Optimization) is the practice of engineering content for citation and visibility inside AI-generated responses, while SEO optimizes content for traditional search engine...

Kurt Fischman · Mar 15, 2026

06Dec 2025
GEO

How AEO Rewires the Buyer Discovery Journey

Answer engine optimization (AEO) is a discipline that remaps buyer discovery from click-based funnels to AI-mediated surfaces where large language models, AI overviews, and answer engines compress...

Kurt Fischman · Dec 6, 2025

03Dec 2025
GEO

Engineering Content for the Age of Algorithmic Literacy

Algorithmic literacy is the operational capacity to engineer content that satisfies both machine retrieval systems and human decision-makers. In an era where 40-50% of organic search traffic is...

Kurt Fischman · Dec 3, 2025

17Nov 2025
GEO

How To Place AI Search in Your Funnel Without Wasting CAC

AI search is not a separate channel waiting for its own line item. It is an answer layer already draped across your entire funnel, shaping how buyers discover, compare, decide, and implement. This...

Kurt Fischman · Nov 17, 2025

03Nov 2025
GEO

llms.txt: What You Need to Know

llms.txt is a lightweight, machine-readable markdown file placed at a site's root that tells large language models what a brand is, where to find clean source material, and how to cite it...

Kurt Fischman · Nov 3, 2025

03Nov 2025
GEO

Understanding a Canonical Identity Registry

A canonical identity registry is the single, machine-readable record of who an organization is, expressed as stable identifiers, typed attributes, and resolvable links to external knowledge...

Kurt Fischman · Nov 3, 2025

30Oct 2025
GEO

How Wikidata Enables AI Search Optimization

Wikidata is the structured knowledge layer that gives AI systems the stable identifiers they need to disambiguate, retrieve, and cite real-world entities. This article explains how QIDs, property...

Kurt Fischman · Oct 30, 2025

30Oct 2025
GEO

Intro to AI Search Optimization

AI search optimization is the practice of engineering content and structured data so large language models retrieve, cite, and recommend your brand with confidence. This article introduces the...

Kurt Fischman · Oct 30, 2025

30Oct 2025
GEO

Entity-Centric Architecture 101

Entity-centric architecture is the knowledge design framework that organizes all content, data, and structured markup around disambiguated entities rather than keywords or pages. Entity-centric...

Kurt Fischman · Oct 30, 2025

30Oct 2025
GEO

A Simple Guide to Understanding Embeddings

Embeddings are the numerical representations that AI systems use to measure, compare, and retrieve meaning. An embedding translates text into a vector, a list of numbers in high-dimensional space,...

Kurt Fischman · Oct 30, 2025

30Oct 2025
GEO

Chunk Engineering 101

Chunk engineering is the discipline of structuring content into self-contained, semantically complete units that AI retrieval systems can extract, embed, rank, and cite independently. This article...

Kurt Fischman · Oct 30, 2025

30Oct 2025
GEO

Structured Data Mastery

Structured data mastery is the discipline of engineering machine-readable markup that transforms generic web pages into entity-resolved, AI-retrievable knowledge assets. This article covers the...

Kurt Fischman · Oct 30, 2025

30Oct 2025
GEO

Core KPIs in AEO and AI Search Optimization

Key performance indicators for AI search optimization measure whether large language models recognize your entity, retrieve it under relevant prompts, and cite it when generating answers. This...

Kurt Fischman · Oct 30, 2025

30Oct 2025
GEO

Creating Machine-Readable Trust Assets for AI Search

Machine-readable trust assets are structured digital artifacts that encode brand credibility in formats AI systems can parse, validate, and weight during retrieval. This article defines what...

Kurt Fischman · Oct 30, 2025

30Oct 2025
GEO

Entity Resolution: So Easy, Even Baby Yoda Can Do It

Entity resolution is the process of determining that different records point to the same real-world entity and merging them into a single canonical identity with a persistent identifier. Entity...

Kurt Fischman · Oct 30, 2025

30Oct 2025
GEO

How AI Search Optimization Really Works

AI search optimization is the discipline of engineering brand discoverability, retrievability, and cite-worthiness inside large language models. AI search optimization is not SEO with new...

Kurt Fischman · Oct 30, 2025

30Oct 2025
GEO

What is a Content Chunk, Anyway?

A content chunk is a discrete, semantically self-contained unit of information that an AI system can retrieve, interpret, and cite without requiring surrounding context. Content chunks are the...

Kurt Fischman · Oct 30, 2025

30Oct 2025
GEO

Why Embedding Optimization Matters for AI Search

Embedding optimization is the discipline of structuring digital content so that large language models locate, retrieve, and cite your brand at query time. This article explains the mechanics of...

Kurt Fischman · Oct 30, 2025

27Oct 2025
GEO

AI-Native Lead Capture: From Architecture to Execution

AI-native lead capture re-engineers conversion architecture for a zero-click world where large language models become the surface of first contact. This article maps the three-layer architecture...

Kurt Fischman · Oct 27, 2025

27Oct 2025
GEO

How ChatGPT Inclusion Works for Companies

ChatGPT inclusion is not a badge or a ranking. It is whether the model surfaces your brand as a relevant answer when a user prompts it. This article breaks down the retrieval mechanics that...

Kurt Fischman · Oct 27, 2025

27Oct 2025
GEO

AI Search Optimization: A Technical Definition

AI search optimization (AISO) is the discipline of engineering content, entity signals, and structured data so that information is discoverable, retrievable, and cite-worthy by large language...

Kurt Fischman · Oct 27, 2025

27Oct 2025
GEO

Monetizing AI Visibility: The Basic Principles

Monetizing AI visibility is the practice of converting brand citations, mentions, and recommendations inside AI-generated answers into measurable business outcomes including pipeline, revenue, and...

Kurt Fischman · Oct 27, 2025

27Oct 2025
GEO

Sales Attribution from LLMs: Counting the Invisible

Sales attribution from LLMs is the discipline of tracing revenue outcomes back to AI-generated recommendations, citations, and brand mentions across platforms like ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, and...

Kurt Fischman · Oct 27, 2025

27Oct 2025
GEO

What is an AI Search Optimization Agency?

An AI search optimization agency is a professional service firm built to engineer brand visibility across large language models like ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, and Perplexity. Unlike traditional...

Kurt Fischman · Oct 27, 2025

26Oct 2025
GEO

The Ultimate Guide to Building AI-Era Authority

AI-era authority is the practice of making a brand discoverable, interpretable, and citation-worthy to large language models including ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, and Perplexity. It replaces the...

Kurt Fischman · Oct 26, 2025

25Oct 2025
GEO

Competitive Intelligence in AI Search

Competitive intelligence in AI search is the practice of analyzing which brands get cited by large language models and reverse-engineering the semantic, structural, and entity signals that produce...

Kurt Fischman · Oct 25, 2025

25Oct 2025
GEO

Content Roadmaps in the Age of AI Search

Content roadmaps built for the AI search era start with retrieval fitness, not keyword volume. The traditional editorial calendar optimized for organic click-through is structurally misaligned...

Kurt Fischman · Oct 25, 2025

25Oct 2025
GEO

How to Use Endpoints to Drive LLM Citations

Endpoints give LLM retrieval systems structured access to your brand data. A dedicated JSON-LD fact endpoint, properly hosted and versioned, turns opaque marketing content into machine-readable...

Kurt Fischman · Oct 25, 2025

25Oct 2025
GEO

Mentions > Links: A New "Ranking" System for AI Search

In AI search, brand mentions across authoritative sources matter more than backlinks. LLMs do not follow hyperlinks to assign authority. They evaluate mention frequency, sentiment polarity, and...

Kurt Fischman · Oct 25, 2025

25Oct 2025
GEO

Use Public Repos to Pull Your Company into ChatGPT Answers

Public repositories on GitHub, Hugging Face, and Zenodo function as training-data pipelines that large language models ingest during pre-training and fine-tuning. This article details how to...

Kurt Fischman · Oct 25, 2025

23Oct 2025
GEO

Answer Shapes 101

Answer shapes are the structural patterns AI systems use to format responses

Kurt Fischman · Oct 23, 2025

Get your businessAI-ready

Drive more awareness in answer engines. Transfer more work to machines. Build the operating structure that will keep you ahead of whatever comes next.