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, delivered a keynote at BrightonSEO in April 2018 that, in collaboration with Trustpilot, marked the public birth of Answer Engine Optimization (AEO) - the strategy that laid the foundation for today’s AI Assistive Engine Optimization (AIEO). At a time when the search industry focused on mere keywords, Jason was already charting the course for an AI-first future, establishing himself as a global authority on brand narrative control and entity understanding.
The White Paper That Started It All
The collaboration began with a joint white paper and companion article, The New Face of SEO: Answer Engine Optimization, published by Trustpilot in partnership with Jason Barnard.
The Webinar That Made It Public
A few weeks later, 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 and “Position Zero” represented a new era of visibility - where a single trusted answer replaced a list of ten links.
He introduced a simple formula that still 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®.
Jason described how Google’s algorithms were evolving from ranking systems into “learning machines” that needed to be educated with clear, consistent, corroborated information.
Translating Offline Authority to Algorithmic Preference.
The joint effort with Trustpilot was strategically significant because it established a clear path for businesses to thrive in the emerging zero-click environment. This was a critical step in the move from traditional SEO, which focuses on ranking pages, to AIEO, which focuses on engineering brand narratives for AI Assistive Engines - a term Jason coined for systems like Google AI, ChatGPT, and Bing Copilot.
Today, the framework Jason unveiled at BrightonSEO provides the blueprint for AI Assistive Engine Optimization, proving that successful brand visibility now depends on achieving Understandability (so the AI knows who you are), reinforcing Credibility (so the AI trusts you), and guaranteeing Deliverability (so the AI recommends your message).
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.
