How Do AI Engines Decide What to Cite? The FSA Framework Explained

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How do AI engines decide what to cite? They prioritize content that demonstrates freshness, structure, and authority—not just traditional SEO signals or domain authority.

In this episode of Found in AI, Cassie breaks down the FSA Framework (Freshness, Structure, Authority), a practical model for understanding why AI systems like ChatGPT, Gemini, and Perplexity consistently cite some brands while completely ignoring others, even when those brands have high domain authority.

The episode explains why traditional SEO alone is no longer sufficient for AI visibility, how AI engines evaluate entities instead of pages, and why small or lesser-known sites can outperform industry giants when their content is easier for AI systems to extract and reuse.

In this episode, you’ll learn:

• Why AI search has overtaken traditional search behavior
• How Google’s shift toward AI Mode changes content discovery
• The three factors AI engines rely on to select sources
• What freshness signals actually look like to a large language model
• How to structure content so AI systems can extract and reuse it
• Why authority in AI search means entity strength, not domain authority
• How Cassie used the FSA framework to start appearing in AI-generated answers
• A simple diagnostic test to understand why you’re not being cited
• A 30-day plan to improve AI visibility—even with a small site

If you’re trying to stay visible as generative search rewrites how people discover information, this episode provides a clear, actionable starting point.

Let’s connect:

LinkedIn → Cassie Clark | Content Strategist
Website → cassieclarkmarketing.com

Keywords: AI Search, FSA Framework, Generative Search, AEO, GEO, AI Visibility, Structured Content, Content Strategy, Entity Authority, SEO Strategy, Search Trends, Digital Visibility, LLM Citations, Freshness Signals, Content Optimization

P.S. Is your brand losing its "Answer Authority"?

Most series A/B and enterprise brands are being "nudged" out of AI search results because of entity gaps and "stale" content. I am opening 3 specialized audit slots for January 2026 to help you reclaim your Share of Voice using the FSA Framework (Freshness, Structure, Authority).

Request your 7-Day AI Search Visibility Audit: https://cassieclarkmarketing.com/ai-search-visibility-audit/

Transcript

0:16

(Transcribed by TurboScribe.ai. Go Unlimited to remove this message.) Have you ever looked at a chat GPT or perplexity answer and thought, hey, why on earth is it citing that random blog post and not mine? Well, if you have felt this frustration, you are not alone. Marketers tell me this constantly, Reddit is full of these questions, and everywhere you keep up with the happenings of content marketing, well, it's the same story. And here's the big secret nobody told us at the start. AI citations aren't random. They feel random because we don't really know the decision making process under the hood. And it's not likely these AI companies are going to tell us how it works. But once you start looking at enough AI answers, the patterns become, well, kind of predictable. And this is exactly why the FSA framework exists. Hi, I'm Cassie Clark, fractional content strategist for early stage startups and host of this podcast Found in AI, where we help break down what's happening inside AI search, so you don't get lost in the middle of it. Today is a solo episode. It's just me. But we're talking about something super important, the FSA framework, which is a simple practical model for generative engine optimization that helps your brand show up inside of AI answers consistently, and sometimes almost instantly, if you're like me and count an eight-ish hour lag instant. We'll talk about that in a minute. So if you've ever wondered why some tiny website with a domain authority of four gets cited over industry giants, well, this episode is going to explain it based on what we know so far. Let's just dive right on into it. So over the last several months, Gemini, ChatGPT, and Perplexity have kind of moved from this cute little conversational tool into like a full-blown discovery engine. And while that might not have been the intended use case at the start, that is exactly what is happening when users use these models. People use them the way that they use Google. So they get in there and they ask questions like, hey, what does this thing mean? Or compare these two tools, give me recommendations for, or my favorite that I use all the time. Explain this to me like I'm five. In marketers, they started noticing this when AI engines sent traffic to their websites and Google was not. So for a while, AI search optimization felt optional. It felt like a future thing, a hey, we're going to keep an eye on this and maybe figure it out later kind of thing. But then on December 4th, 2025, Google quietly replaced the classic search button on their home page with a new default button, AI mode. And as of this recording on Friday, December 5th, there has been no press release, no keynote, no hype cycle, nothing. It's just a subtle nudge into a new era of AI-driven search. Sure, you can still reach traditional Google search, but it's looking like it's going to be not the default option anymore. So honestly, the message is pretty loud and it's pretty clear. AI search is now the primary discovery experience. Traditional search is just kind of the fallback at this point. This is the biggest shift in search behavior since 1998. I think I was maybe six. But even I know that over the last 25 years, nothing this big has happened. And it kind of underscores why the FSA framework is essential for content marketing because SEO alone will not get you inside of those AI answers. So let's call this out directly right now. Traditional SEO and AI search are not the same thing. SEO helps you rank inside of Google's index and that absolutely still matters because people, particularly the older demographic, will still use traditional Google search. But the AI engines, they work differently. They don't rank or scan keywords and they don't reward clever metaphors or fluffy 800-word intros. These AI engines do three things consistently across all of the models. One, they synthesize meaning. Two, they extract usable chunks. And three, they match those chunks to the intent of a query, a prompt, or a question. Your keywords, yeah, still helpful for traditional Google search. The structure and clarity of your content is absolutely critical for AI. And this is where marketers get a little bit frustrated because traditional SEO wisdom doesn't explain why one brand gets cited in an AI answer and another is just completely invisible. So instead of treating AI like a mysterious black box based on experiments and based on what we know, we can kind of narrow it down to three factors that matter most for AI search. Those factors are freshness, structure, and authority. And that's the entire FSA framework. The FSA framework is a content marketing concept for generative engine optimization, or GEO, if you like to call it that. This framework helps you influence AI engines and how they choose sources. It helps you understand why brands get cited and some don't. And it helps you build a predictable visibility inside of those AI answers. So to be clear, it's not a replacement for SEO. We still need our SEO strategy. It's kind of the visibility layer on stacked on top of it. So let's dig right in. Let's break down each part of the FSA framework, starting with F, freshness. Freshness simply answers the question, how recent and how actively maintained is your content? AI engines really favor content that looks updated, new, or, well, just alive. So it's essentially the heartbeat of your website. So this is why you can publish a blog post at 10.30 p.m. on a Thursday night. And by Friday morning, it is cited in a Google AI overview by like 5.30 a.m. And in perplexity by like 6.01 the same day. 6.01 a.m., same day. Yeah, that happened when I published a blog post explaining the FSA framework. The AI engines picked it up instantly and then began using it within their answers. I checked. You know me. I definitely checked. So here's what we can gather based on that and based on past experiments. The freshness signals that AI engines likely care about include, one, recently updated content on a topic. Two, new related pieces within the last three to six months. Three, active site behavior like adding new pages, revising content, updating schema markup. And four, recency in site maps and feeds. And just kidding, five, recent brand mentions elsewhere on the internet. Freshness doesn't mean going in and just changing the published date and calling it done. Instead, fresh means meaningfully updated. And the best part, and here's the good news, you don't have to rewrite everything from scratch. Instead, just go in and rotate updates across your topic clusters. Go in and update your stats and examples. Go add a 2026 update section, which is super critical right now as we're going into January. And then update everything whenever your product or industry changes. So these AI engines reward what feels current and maintained. And they punish what looks abandoned. So this is why those older blogs are particularly invisible in AI search. You got to go update them. That's just how it is. So let's go on and move into structure, which is the S of the FSA framework. Structure is how clean, clear, and machine-readable your content is. So AI engines don't read content like people. They can't really pick up on your vibe. They can't really guess what it is that you mean. I'm not talking about hallucinations. I'm just talking about when they go out and read your content, they can't guess at it. Instead, they're scanning for those clear definitions, clear headings, short paragraphs, one idea per section, those lists that we're adding in, and they're really essentially looking for extractable chunks. In other words, AI engines love content that looks like it was written for a very tired, very overworked machine. And if you think about it, a very overworked, very tired human reader. So think of your structure as your extractability. What that means is, can an AI engine extract or lift your definition of something without needing context from the paragraph above or below? If the answer is yes, good news. You are AI friendly. If not, that means we need to change some of that structure a little bit. So here are some common structural patterns that these engines love that are pretty easy to go in and add in. That's a clear H2 and H3 that mirrors exact questions users are prompting inside of those queries. Go in and update your paragraphs. Put your definitions at the top. I like, if you go look at the FSA framework blog post, under each section of the framework, definition, and then I describe it. And then I get into the narrative. That's a simple, simple little fix. Pretty, pretty nifty hack if you ask me. These AI engines also love some structured lists, like step-by-step instructions. They really like tables and comparison box too. Now, here's a tiny little confession. You'll notice this within the FSA framework blog post. As a writer, I love a good narrative. And sometimes I have absolutely created content that is a structural nightmare. I've added in big fluffy intros, clever metaphors, you name it. And these AI engines, they hate that. I personally like them. I think it shows personality. But there's an easy fix for old content if it looks like that. Just go add in a definition up top, like I mentioned. Rewrite your headings as questions. Break your steps into lists and add a key takeaway section so the AI engines immediately know what this blog post is about. And then use everything else for your narrative. Structure is the easiest thing in the FSA framework to fix. And it's the fastest payoff because it signals those freshness signals. And hey, AI, look, this is a new piece. So it really plays into the F of the FSA framework. So finally, we have authority. Authority is what the AI model knows about you or your brand. Now, to be clear, this is not domain authority in the traditional sense that SEO specialists love. Instead, it means entity strength. Basically, that boils down to how often does your name or brand appear connected to a specific topic across things like, well, your own website. External websites like Reddit or high authority blog pages. You know, HubSpot would be one for my brand. If you're appearing on podcasts or are you on social media and you're talking about the same topic in all of your posts. So if you think about an AI engine as like having a library, the more books you put on the AI model's bookshelf, the more likely it's going to pull you when someone asks a question in your lane. So to give out those authority signals, here's what we need to do. We need to publish consistent content on narrow sets of topics on your website. Repurpose those across your social channels. We need to get cited or mentioned by others on third party sites. We need to update our author bios and about pages to clearly signal our expertise. We're going to add in that author data and we're going to show up on other platforms like podcasts, guest posts, webinars, wherever. Just other places that is not your own content. And here is the hopeful part. You do not need a big website to build authority. As I've talked about on this podcast in recent episodes and across my blog, I outrank SEMrush inside of chat GPT answers constantly. And that's not because my domain is bigger, but it's because my entity is stronger for that prompt or query. And so when a user prompts a question, it just knows to just automatically cite me instead. Authority comes from depth, not size. And that's good news for these smaller brands. So now that we know what the FSA framework is, we need to talk about how to use it to diagnose our content to see if it shows up inside of those AI answers. So here's the simplest way to do that. Anyone can do this. First, we're going to pick a query where you think you should be cited. Then we're going to run it through chat GPT, Perplexity, and Gemini, all three of them. We're going to make a note of who is cited. And then we're going to compare content. So that means going in and asking, is the competitor's content fresher? Is their structure cleaner? Do they look like they have more authority on this topic? You're going to have to go to like their social media profiles to see their footprint a little bit. Use this as your map and pro tip. People don't prompt these AI engines with one keyword like they would traditional Google search. Charlie Graham told us on a recent episode that chatbot users are using prompts with 12 words or more. So test the things your audience would actually say when you're going in and running this exercise. And because this podcast is all about sharing results and learning in real time, it is time for an update on what has been working and what I'm learning. So back in August 2025, I ran a prompt, recommend a fractional content strategist for my series A startup. And guess what? I did not appear anywhere in our top five list. A little bit rude if you ask me. I wasn't in chat TPT. Perplexity didn't mention me. Gemini definitely didn't mention me. So I made it my mission to change all of that. I've been working on this for a little bit. I've talked about this on a couple of episodes. So I applied the FSA framework, which means I went out and I created fresh content. I have been consistently adding structured data and clean definitions to my content. I'm tightening my positioning on my website. I have been using one definitive descriptor everywhere, which is Cassie Clark is a fractional content strategist for series A, B startups. And then I started intentionally showing up on multiple platforms. And if you didn't know this, I just started with YouTube. So if you're over there, go find me. Once I started all this, within weeks, I started showing up in all three engines. My domain authority is still tiny, like under two. And my backlink profile has not changed any. So what that tells me is the FSA framework did the heavy lifting over here. And the biggest takeaway of all is that smaller brands can absolutely do the same and appear inside of these answers. AI answers aren't really random and they can be influenced if your content is fresh, if it's structured properly, and if you start building authority across other websites. So if your brand isn't showing up yet, it is 100% fixable. Start with your most important topics and work on one FSA core principle at a time. If what is happening over here is the truth, which I think it is, these engines will start pulling you into the conversation when a user starts asking about your lane. So listen, if you want more experiments and breakdowns like this, hit the little subscribe button. Episodes drop every week unless it's a holiday. And if you want more help on making your brand show up in the AI engines, head over to CassieClarkMarketing.com. Tiny PSA. I'm creating a mini course and checklist on applying the FSA framework to your own website. If you want early access to that, hop on the email list and I'll send a message to you as soon as it's live. The link for the email, newsletter, the visibility report is in the show notes. Okay, thanks for listening. Go out and make some fresh, structured and authoritative content today. I will see you in the next episode.