Part of GEOly's "GEO / AEO Expert Watch" series · meet **Ethan Smith**, a quick map of their public work and where to follow them — with links to the original sources.
Who is Ethan Smith
Ethan Smith is founder and CEO of Graphite, a San Francisco SEO and growth-marketing agency whose clients have included MasterClass, Thumbtack, and Ticketmaster. He is a partner at Reforge and an adjunct marketing professor at IE Business School. Smith publishes data-backed research on AEO, GEO, and AI SEO, arguing that AI search is a far bigger channel than most marketers assume and pressing for clearer, evidence-driven terminology.
These experts track AI Overviews / AI Mode and algorithm updates first-hand: who gets cited, why citations swing, and how trust signals affect appearance. They are GEO’s weather station. Their recurring focus areas include: AEO, GEO, AI SEO, Graphite.
What GEO / AEO practitioners can learn from Ethan Smith
- **Citations are volatile**: for the same query, sources can differ sharply across time and platforms — single snapshots mislead, so monitor continuously. - **Trust signals gate inclusion**: E-E-A-T, author/source credibility and factual consistency increasingly act as the threshold for being cited. - **Make monitoring systematic**: turn core questions, competitors and brand terms into fixed probes you run on a schedule and diff over time.
**GEOly angle**: A rigorous, data-first take on the AEO vs GEO vs AI SEO debate and how big the AI search channel really is.
What it means for brands going global
For global-facing brands, do not treat one day’s mention in ChatGPT as victory, nor one day’s disappearance as disaster. Build cross-platform, cross-time citation monitoring (exactly what GEOly does) and judge GEO health by trend, not snapshot.
Follow Ethan Smith: homepage & socials
- [LinkedIn](https://www.linkedin.com/in/ethanls) - [Company](https://graphite.io/about) - [Blog](https://www.graphite.io/blog/aeo-geo-ai-seo)
To meet more experts across GEO, AEO and agentic commerce, visit the [GEOly author hub](/blog/author).
*This profile is an editorial compilation of publicly available information, curated by the GEOly team for industry learning and reference. All links point to the expert's own public pages. Contact us for any correction or removal.*
