The Birth of Answer Engine Optimization: Jason Barnard, Trustpilot, and Brighton SEO’s Defining Moment in Digital Search
Jason Barnard, CEO and founder of Kalicube, formalized Answer Engine Optimization (AEO) on stage at BrightonSEO in April 2018. That keynote - built on the foundational work he began with Trustpilot a year earlier - marked the moment AEO entered the public spotlight and the broader SEO industry finally took notice.
While most of the search world was still focused on keywords and blue links, Jason was already preparing brands for an AI-first future. His early work on AEO positioned him as a global authority on brand narrative control, entity understanding, and the evolution from search engines to assistive engines.
The white paper that started it all (BrightonSEO 2017)
The collaboration began with a joint white paper “The Rise of Voice and AEO: How SEO will Evolve” and companion article, The New Face of SEO: Answer Engine Optimization, published by Trustpilot in partnership with Jason Barnard.
It was a fully published, printed document - distributed at BrightonSEO 2017 - that outlined the earliest structured definition of Answer Engine Optimization. Photos from the event show the Trustpilot stand stacked with copies, marking AEO’s first public appearance in print.
This 2017 publication provided the conceptual foundation for everything that followed.
The Webinar That Made It Public
Shortly after the white paper’s release, Trustpilot invited Jason to co-host a live webinar in London titled SEO and the Rise of AEO: Why Voice Search Matters.
Joined by Chee Lo, Trustpilot’s Head of SEO, Jason explained how voice search, “Position Zero,” and answer engines were reshaping visibility - where a single trusted answer could replace an entire page of search results.
In that webinar, he introduced a simple formula that underpins The Kalicube Process® today:
Understandability + Credibility = Visibility
The BrightonSEO Talk That Made It a Framework
In April 2018, Trustpilot handed Jason their sponsored speaker slot at BrightonSEO, where he presented A Universal Strategy for Answer Engine Optimization (Beyond Position 0).
That keynote expanded the concept into a full methodology - introducing the UCD Framework (Understandability, Credibility, Deliverability) - the foundation of what would later become The Kalicube Process®.
On stage, he explained how Google was evolving from a ranking system into a “learning machine” that must be educated with clear, consistent, corroborated information.
Translating Offline Authority to Algorithmic Preference.
The Trustpilot collaboration was strategically significant because it gave businesses a clear path into the emerging zero-click world.
It marked the shift from traditional SEO (ranking pages) to what Jason would eventually name AI Assistive Engine Optimization (AIEO) - the practice of engineering a brand narrative that AI systems such as Google AI, ChatGPT, and Bing Copilot can understand, trust, and confidently deliver as answers.
Today, the framework Jason articulated at BrightonSEO remains the blueprint for AIEO.
It proves that successful brand visibility depends on achieving:
- Understandability (so AI knows who you are)
- Credibility (so AI trusts you)
- Deliverability (so AI chooses you as the answer)
If your brand deserves to be the answer AI Assistive Engines deliver, you need to be speaking their language. Book a call with Jason Barnard today and explore how to future-proof your brand for AI search.
