AI Search Strategy Lead (AEO / GEO)

AI Search Strategy Lead

At PNC, our people are our greatest differentiator and competitive advantage in the markets we serve. We are all united in delivering the best experience for our customers. We work together each day to foster an inclusive workplace culture where all of our employees feel respected, valued and have an opportunity to contribute to the company's success. We are looking to hire an AI Search Strategy Lead within PNC's Marketing organization.

The Evolution of Search: From Keywords to Conversations The digital landscape is undergoing its most significant transformation in two decades. For years, Search Engine Optimization (SEO) was defined by the "ten blue links"a race to rank for specific keywords on a static results page. Today, that paradigm is shifting rapidly toward Answer Engine Optimization (AEO). Users are no longer just searching; they are conversing with Large Language Models (LLMs) and expecting direct, synthesized answers from platforms like Google AI Overviews, ChatGPT, Gemini, and Perplexity. At PNC Bank, we recognize that appearing in these generative environments requires a fundamentally different strategy than traditional search. It requires a deep understanding of entities, structured data, and the probabilistic nature of AI models. We are seeking an AI Search Strategy Lead to pioneer our approach in this emerging field. This is not just a job; it is an opportunity to define how a leading financial institution connects with customers in the age of artificial intelligence.

Position Overview: The AI Search Strategy Lead is a pivotal new role situated within the Digital Growth Marketing organization. You will operate adjacent to our established SEO Content and SEO Strategy teams, serving as the bridge between traditional organic search principles and the new frontier of generative AI. While traditional SEO focuses on driving clicks to a webpage, this role focuses on optimizing for the "zero-click" future and ensuring PNC serves as the authoritative source of truth within generative responses. You will be primarily focused on identifying specific tactics and opportunities to help PNC improve our presence in generative answer engines.

The ideal candidate possesses a rare hybrid background: 5+ years of experience in technical and content SEO combined with a passion forand deep understanding ofhow LLMs operate, source information, and hallucinate. You understand the nuances between different models (e.g., how Perplexity cites sources versus how ChatGPT synthesizes training data) and can translate that technical knowledge into actionable marketing strategies.

Strategic Context: Why AEO Matters in Banking In the financial services sector, trust and accuracy are the currencies we trade in. When a current or prospective customer asks an AI agent, "What are the best mortgage options for a first-time homebuyer?" or "How does a high-yield savings account work?", the answer they receive must be accurate, compliant, and helpful. As the AI Search Strategy Lead, you will ensure that PNC's financial expertise is correctly interpreted and surfaced by these models. This goes beyond simple keyword optimization; it involves training the digital ecosystem to recognize PNC's authority. You will navigate the complexity of "YMYL" (Your Money Your Life) topics in an AI-first world, ensuring that our content is structured in a way that LLMs prefer and prioritize. This role requires a strategist who can look at the search landscape not just as it is today, but as it will be six months from now. You will be responsible for future-proofing our organic visibility strategies against the volatility of algorithm updates and the rapid deployment of new AI search features.

Core Responsibilities: Your day-to-day work will balance high-level strategy with granular technical analysis. You will be expected to:

• Optimize AI-Driven Product Recommendations You will analyze and optimize how PNC's financial products are recommended by AI agents. This involves reverse-engineering the logic used by generative engines to improve customer acquisition and retention across all lines of business. You will test different content structures and schema markups to see which formats yield the highest visibility in AI-generated answers, moving beyond traditional click-through rate (CTR) metrics to measure share of voice in conversational results.
• Competitive Intelligence & Differentiation The AI search landscape is a competitive battleground. You will monitor competitor offerings and AI capabilities across all business segments to identify opportunities for differentiation. This includes analyzing how competitors are cited in answer engines, identifying gaps in their entity coverage, and deploying counter-strategies to capture those conversational queries. You will act as the internal subject matter expert on the changing search landscape, keeping stakeholders informed of new entrants and features in the generative search space.
• Data Quality & Regulatory Compliance In banking, accuracy is non-negotiable. You will ensure data quality and regulatory compliance in models used for risk assessment and product personalization across the enterprise. Unlike generalist marketing roles, this position requires a keen awareness of financial regulations. You must ensure that optimization tactics never compromise compliance or lead to misleading financial advice being generated by third-party AI tools. You will work to minimize "hallucinations" regarding PNC's products by ensuring our public-facing data is unambiguous and machine-readable.
• Cross-Functional Strategic Alignment AEO is not a siloed activity. You will collaborate closely with product, marketing, and compliance teams to align AI initiatives with growth strategies for all business lines. You will educate content creators on how to write for machines as well as humans, helping them structure articles, FAQs, and product pages in ways that LLMs can easily ingest and cite. You will advocate for technical changes that improve our "entity authority" within the Knowledge Graph.

Technical Qualifications & Tool Proficiency To succeed in this role, you must be comfortable working with enterprise-grade data and analytics platforms. While we do not expect you to build LLMs from scratch, you must have a functional literacy in how they process natural language. Recommended Tech Familiarity:

• SEO Intelligence: Deep experience with platforms such as Conductor, Ahrefs, Semrush, and BrightEdge is essential. You should know how to use these tools not just for keyword volume, but for gap analysis, backlink authority, and SERP feature tracking.
• Analytics & Performance: Proficiency in Google Analytics or Adobe Analytics is required to track the downstream impact of your strategies.
• Search Console: Mastery of Google Search Console is expected, particularly for diagnosing crawling, indexing, and structured data issues.
• LLM Literacy: A conceptual understanding of Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG), vector search, and tokenization is highly preferred.
• Emerging AI Search Tracking Tools: Familiarize yourself with new technology platforms like Profound and Athena and stay informed on what new capabilities exist in the marketplace that could help accelerate PNC's AEO objectives.

The Ideal Candidate Profile We are looking for a pioneersomeone who is not afraid to test hypotheses in an environment where the "best practices" are still being written.

You are an investigator: You enjoy testing queries across different platforms (Gemini vs. ChatGPT vs. Bing Chat) to spot patterns in how they retrieve information.

You are a translator: You can explain complex technical concepts regarding LLMs to non-technical stakeholders in marketing and compliance.

You are adaptable: You understand that the tactic that worked yesterday might be obsolete tomorrow, and you thrive in that state of constant evolution.

You are data-driven yet creative: You rely on data to make decisions but use creativity to solve problems that data tools haven't caught up to yet.

This position is primarily based in a location within PNC's footprint. PNC will not provide sponsorship for employment visas or participate in STEM OPT for this position.

Job Description Leads the analytics processes across multiple functions or business units leveraging an array of complex analytical tools to create data driven solutions. Serves as mentor to more junior employees. Consults with clients and mentors consultants on tool and strategy implementation and monitoring, statistical scoring, business intelligence, data quality, and analytical product / solution development. Determining the optimal analytic approach and supporting development, implementation and enhancements. Assists peers with guidance on analytic approaches related to more complex solutions. Conceptualizing, developing and continuously optimizing analytical solutions for business leadership to enable data driven decision making. Analyze results and make recommendations for key business partners and senior management or communicate conclusions from complex analytical solutions to a wide range of audiences.

PNC Employees take pride in our reputation and to continue building upon that we expect our employees to be:

• Customer Focused - Knowledgeable of the values and practices that align customer needs and satisfaction as primary considerations in all business decisions and able to leverage that information in creating customized customer solutions.
• Managing Risk - Assessing and effectively managing all of the risks associated with their business objectives and activities to ensure they adhere to and support PNC's Enterprise Risk Management Framework.

Qualifications Successful candidates must demonstrate appropriate knowledge, skills, and abilities for a role. Listed below are skills, competencies, work experience, education, and required certifications/licensures needed to be successful in this position.

Preferred Skills Analytical Thinking, Business Intelligence (BI), Concept Development, Data-Driven Decision Making, Data Integration, Market Research, Performance Metrics, Qualitative Research, Strategic Planning

Competencies Analytical Thinking, Business Acumen, Business Analytics, Consulting, Decision Making and