About Cory Maki

Cory Maki is an AI search strategist who helps SaaS companies and startups earn citations in AI-generated search results. His work focuses on Generative Engine Optimization (GEO), AI reputation management, and AI branding — the practice of ensuring that when AI search engines answer questions about your industry or product category, your brand is represented accurately and favorably.

Cory is the author of Reddit, AI Overviews & GEO: The SaaS Founder’s Playbook for Winning AI Search Visibility and the creator of the ARC Method, a structured framework for auditing, building, and sustaining AI search presence.

How Cory Maki got here

Cory started his career in search engine optimization and online reputation management over a decade ago. He worked hands-on with businesses of all sizes — startups, law firms, public figures — helping them control what appeared when someone searched their name online. That work gave him a deep understanding of how search engines evaluate trust, authority, and relevance at a technical level.

At Grit Daily, Cory served as staff editor and business development manager, covering the SaaS and startup ecosystem. He wrote about emerging companies, VC-funded startups, and digital marketing trends. That editorial role gave him a front-row seat to which startups broke through and which stayed invisible, teaching him patterns about online discovery that most practitioners never see from the outside.

In 2025, Cory began researching how AI search engines — Google AI Overviews, ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, and Microsoft Copilot — select which brands to cite in their generated answers. He found that each platform uses different source preferences, that Reddit had become the single most cited domain across multiple AI platforms, and that most SaaS companies had no strategy for this new discovery layer. He published his findings and framework in his ebook and now writes and teaches about AI search visibility full time.

What Cory Maki specializes in

Cory Maki’s expertise spans three interconnected areas:

Generative Engine Optimization (GEO) — the discipline of structuring and distributing content so that AI search engines consistently cite and recommend a brand. Cory views GEO as an evolution of traditional SEO, not a replacement for it. The foundation of strong SEO — technically sound websites, useful content, genuine authority — remains essential. GEO adds a targeted layer on top of that foundation.

AI reputation management — ensuring that AI-generated answers about your brand, your industry, and your competitors are accurate and favorable. As AI search becomes the primary way people discover software, the information AI surfaces about your company becomes your first impression. Cory helps SaaS founders monitor, influence, and improve how AI represents their brand.

AI branding for SaaS — building the cross-platform brand signals that AI models use to identify, trust, and recommend a company. This includes cross-source factual consistency, strategic community presence on platforms like Reddit and YouTube, schema markup, and content structured for AI extraction and citation.

The ARC Method

Cory Maki developed the ARC Method as a systematic approach to AI search visibility. ARC stands for Audit, Reddit and Reputation, and Citability. The framework takes SaaS founders from measuring their current AI visibility through building off-site authority to restructuring their websites for AI citation. The full system includes a ninety-day implementation roadmap and is detailed in Cory’s ebook.

At a glance

Get in touch

Cory Maki is available for interviews, podcast appearances, speaking engagements, and collaborations related to AI search visibility, GEO, and AI reputation management.

• Email: cory@corymaki.com
• LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/cory-maki
• Website: corymaki.com