Ranking #1 doesn't guarantee visibility or conversions when AI answers appear above organic results. The game has shifted from clicks to zero-click marketing. What drives business outcomes now: being mentioned and cited by AI search engines like ChatGPT, Google Overview, Perplexity etc. Which means having defensible opinions backed by capability, and building topical authority that AI systems trust enough to recommend. We proved this when Recotap, a challenger ABM platform, a