As Portland, Oregon, residents protest President Donald Trumps immigration policy outside an ICE facility, theyre also using a less expected tactic: the citys zoning code.
Portlands Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility sits in a remodeled bank in the citys South Waterfront neighborhood, not far from apartment buildings, restaurants anduntil it recently moved because of worries about ICEa local school. (As demonstrations increased, law enforcement used chemicals and munitions that ended up on the school’s playground.) When the federal government first wanted to lease the building in 2011, it had to get land-use approval as required by the city’s zoning laws. Portland put strict conditions in place in the approval process: Detainees couldnt be held for more than 12 hours or overnight.
Activists have said for years that ICE is violating those conditions and that the city should reconsider its land-use approval. In 2018, when protestors gathered at the same site to rally against the first Trump administration for separating thousands of immigrant children from their parents, activists argued that the violations should be cause to close the facility.
At the time, elected officials were saying it wasnt possible, says Holly Brown, one activist. But when Trump took office again earlier this year, protestors restarted their efforts to get the building shut down. This year, the city acted.
It took a lot of community pressure, Brown says. Weve been doing a lot of protests at City Hall. Weve shut down city meetings and refused to let them conduct their meetings until they deal with this. We also had someone file an official complaint with the city.
In July, the city’s permitting bureau launched an investigation, using data from the Deportation Data Project, a nonprofit that uses Freedom of Information Act requests to get detailed records from the government at detention facilities across the country. The data showed that the ICE facility had violated the citys rules 25 times over a 10-month period, according to the city.
In September, the permitting bureau issued a land-use violation to Stuart Lindquist, the property owner who rents the space to ICE for $2.4 million a year. Lindquist has challenged the citys action, asking for a formal administrative review in which a facilitator will determine whether the city correctly applied its land-use codes. He isnt exactly sympathetic to protestors: He reportedly hit one protestor with his Mercedes in 2018 and told a reporter that he wanted to fight activists. Id be glad to take them on one at a time. Bring em on, Lindquist told the Willamette Week newspaper in 2018. Neither ICE nor Lindquist responded to a request to comment for this article.
If the city shows that ICE is still violating the original agreement, Lindquist could face fines. But the citys process has also kicked off another possibility: Sixty days after it issued the noticein mid-Novemberit has the option to reconsider the land-use approval completely. The city could have a hearing on whether or not it still fits the original use that it was intended for, Brown says. In this case, I would say it does not.
A city spokesperson told Fast Company that if Portland does reconsider the terms of the land-use approval, that wouldnt necessarily mean revoking the approval; it might mean renegotiating the terms. Still, activists are pursuing the hope that this unlikely path could help shut the facility down.
Its something that wouldnt work everywhere, since many ICE facilities are in federal government buildings or rented from private prison companies in areas with fewer zoning restrictions. Portland also had unusually specific conditions in its agreement. But its one example of a creative way to take on a government agency that has few restraints.
This is definitely an example of the city and people who live in the city using the levers of power we have available to clamp down on ICE, Brown says.
Even if other cities don’t use this particular approach, they can look for other ways to act. “Every city can and should be looking at whatever creative opportunities exist within their own laws to prevent collaboration with the Trump administration,” says Matthew Lopas, director of state advocacy and technical assistance at the nonprofit National Immigration Law Center.
“The Trump administration has shown so much disregard for the independence and the safety of cities that it should be a priority of every city to protect their own community by refusing to collaborate to the fullest extent possible with this administration and their efforts to terrorize immigrants and entire communities,” Lopas adds.
Some cities have refused to let ICE use local prison space for detention sites, for example. When ICE has a contract in place, some states have chosen not to renew it. As ICE continues to ramp up arrests and detentionswith a tripling of its budget for enforcement and another $45 billion for new detention facilitiesit will continue to look for new space to operate, and some other states and cities may be able to turn to zoning laws to make it harder to build.
Activists in Portland are also trying to garner more protections for residents, including asking the city to ban face masks on ICE agents and adopt new policies to help limit where ICE can go. As in other cities, ICE arrests have surged in Portland this year. (One arrest this summer involved a father dropping off his child at a preschool; the man, who is married to an American citizen and was in the process of getting a green card, reportedly had no criminal history.)
Focusing on ICE’s land-use violation is a first step, Brown says. Its a learning period for us in what we can do. Were definitely going to keep moving forward and find other ways we can get the city to put pressure on ICE to back down.
As Nvidias value has soaredbecoming the first public company to hit $4 trillion in market capitalization earlier this yearits been pouring money into AI startups. Its venture arm, NVentures, is also backing less expected bets. The latest: Redwood Materials, the EV battery recycling company, which just raised $350 million in a new funding round.
Redwood launched in 2017 with the aim to build a U.S. supply chain for critical metals by pulling materials like cobalt and lithium from used EV batteries. But the company spun up another major business this yearusing secondhand EV batteries as a low-cost form of energy storage at data centers.
[Photo: Redwood Materials]
I think people misname them as a recycling company, says Joe Fath, a partner at Eclipse, which led Redwoods new Series E round. Recycling is really just the wedge. The company is a recycling giant, and currently processes around 90% of the lithium-ion batteries that are recycled in North America. But their energy storage business is equally important, and can help solve one of the biggest challenges for the AI industry right now: how to source the energy that data centers need.
“Power generation, storage, and cost to drive those GPUs is increasingly becoming a bottleneck, says Patrick Moorhead, CEO and chief analyst at Moor Insights & Strategy. For a company like Nvidia, which makes the energy-intensive hardware used in data centers, helping scale up energy storage for its customers helps its own business continue to quickly expand. (Nvidia declined to comment, saying that it doesnt discuss its investments.)
[Photo: Redwood Materials]
In some cases, data centers can use batteries to help them go completely off the grid, as in a solar-and-battery-powered project that Redwood built with Crusoe this year. Some customers also plan to use the companys batteries to store energy produced with natural gas. Redwood makes both the battery hardware and the software and electronics to run the system.
Speed to energy is paramount, says Redwood Materials CEO JB Straubel. By using storageand in particular a very modular, flexible approach like were doingpeople are able to bypass some of the very long interconnection queues to get electricity sourced directly from the traditional grid. In other cases, the batteries can connect to the grid and pull electricity from it when its cheapest. They also provide resilience if the grid goes down.
[Photo: Redwood Materials]
The approach also saves money. Cost is probably the leading advantage, because we’re refurbishing and using assets that were previously deployed in a different application. For the most part, we’re able to dramatically reduce our deployment costs, Straubel says.
Nvidia has also invested in other energy companies, including participating in a $863 million funding round for Commonwealth Fusion Systems, a startup that aims to put fusion power on the grid by the 2030s. But Redwood’s technology is ready for use now.
“Redwood is a leader in this market, and Nvidia is planting a flag in the sand on this key market,” says Dan Ives, global head of tech research at Wedbush Securities. “Nvidia is focused on building a vertical ecosystem, and Redwood investment is a perfect fit.”
Bethenny Frankel is a marketing maven. Shes best known for starring in the Real Housewives of New York City, and for launching the Skinnygirl lifestyle brand, starting with the now-famous skinny girl margarita. She then found a partner to help her manufacture the cocktail, which launched in 2009. In 2011, Frankel sold Skinnygirl for an estimated $100 million, but kept the rights to use the name. Since then, shes launched Skinnygirl salad dressing, shapewear, and popcorn, among other items.
Frankel has 4 million-plus followers on Instagram and 3.3 million on TikTok, where she sounds off on everything from coffee to handbags. Frankel is also the queen of affiliate and brand dealsnetting $7 million in 2024, a figure shes on track to exceed this year. In May, she launched The List, where fans can shop her closet as well as her obsessions, which range from furniture to makeup. Shes also an investor in Cumulus Coffee, ShopMy, and several other companies.
Frankel sat down with Fast Company to talk about her career pivotsand what it means to be a marketer in todays social-media-driven business world. She points out that consumers respond to authenticity and personal branding more than ever before, but also discusses the danger of blowback from putting your brandand yourselfout there.
Lets start at the beginning. Youve said going on Real Housewives was purely a business decision. Can you tell us about that?
Well, I turned it down for a month saying I wanted to be a natural food chef. But I realized it’s not that easy to get on TV. And if this fails, no one will know about it. And if it succeeds, then it’s a great platform. I definitely did not think it was going to be a cultural phenomenon.
How did you think about riding that zeitgeist?
My instincts were just right there always. I think I’m a born marketer. When I was a little kid I used to want to be a copywriter, and came up with slogans and names for people’s businesses and stores. I just have always been a person that leads with marketing first.
I had an agent who also represented the Kardashians, and they followed suit with monetizing the Kardashians after what I did with Housewives and the Skinnygirl margarita, which no one had ever done before. No one had monetized reality TV.
Now the audience is turned off by that. Everybody’s followed in my footsteps, and everything is a photo shoot and a book cover and a launch party and a fashion line that may or may not really exist. Versus on Housewives, it was me being flawed and using that platform to go through the struggles and possibilities of building a business, whether or not it would look negative or positive to the audience. It was just a true experience that I was going through.
What marketing advice do you have based on that experience?
The actual lesson was that people werent buying the product that I was selling. They were buying the authenticity of me.
They believed that I was being truthful about all areas of my life, so then they believed in what I was doing. And I think that’s where everybody’s lost their way, because everybody’s just trying to sell something to make a quick buck in the short term, but the audience is extremely savvy. While you may make money on a brand deal right now, in the long run they probably won’t trust you if you’re not telling the truth.
And that’s what’s key in social media, which is the new television.
How do you draw boundaries between your personal life and your professional life?
Attention is the new oil. I’m so grateful and so fortunate and so humbled by the fact that I have the attention of the people. There’s a handful of people in the world right now who have the attention of the people, because even in the last year, I’ve watched it change. Everyone’s desperate because there are more people in the store. So how do you get people to come up to your counter?
It is very manic and it probably really affects people’s mental health. So how do I deal with that? I don’t have to do any of this. And I think that’s what really separates me from the influencers and the content creator landscape. I wasn’t broke when I accidentally started doing this stuff and it was doing well. I was just sort of lonely. I was emotionally broke, I was sort of bored, with low-grade depression. I was at home screwing around. I found a real home in this medium.
[Photo: Julien De Rosa/AFP via Getty Images]
You mentioned authenticity is your superpower for engaging with people. What happens when theres backlash because youre putting your authentic self out there?
It’s such a trap because they want me to comment, because I opine. I never rate higher than when I’m commenting. But then if you comment, people always want to know what youre thinking. Everyone was mad at me because I wasn’t posting about Charlie Kirk.
I had never heard of Charlie Kirk in my entire life, until the mob was mad at me for not posting thoughts and prayers. A couple of hours later, I said to everyone, Sit the fuck down. I’d like to get educated. Sorry if you think I’m dumb, I can’t know what I don’t know. The thing is I don’t get to have the fluffy buffer of just doing a TikTok dance and people wanting that. People want my opinion. I am in the impact zone often, but that’s okay.
How do you deal with being in the impact zone?
You go through the storm; you deal with it, and then it passes. You don’t apologize if you’re not sorry, and you don’t beg. You decide what you truly think is the right thing to do. And you do that.
I’ve advised so many celebrities who have called me literally when they hit rough waters. I’m like, this is what you do. Theyre like, I don’t know how you do this.
In the Marshall Islands, where the land averages only 7 feet (2 meters) above sea level, people are acutely aware of climate change.
Their ancestors have lived on this string of Pacific islands for thousands of years. But as sea level rises, storms more easily flood communities and farmland with saltwater. Warming ocean water has triggered mass coral-bleaching events, harming habitats that are important for both tourism and fish that the islands economy relies on.
If the world fails to rein in the greenhouse gas emissions driving climate change, studies suggest low-lying islands like these could be uninhabitable within decades.
Marshall Islands President Hilda Heine talks about climate risks to her homeland while in New York for the United Nations General Assembly in September 2025.
Climate change isnt just a problem for islands. Countries worldwide are experiencing intensifying storms, dangerous heat waves, and rising seas as global temperatures rise.
Yet, after 30 years of international climate talks, 10 years of a global treaty promising to keep temperatures in check, and trillions of dollars in damage, the world is still not on track to stop rising global temperatures. Greenhouse gas emissions were at record highs in 2024, and it was Earths hottest year on record.
I study the dynamics of global environmental politics, including the United Nations climate negotiations. And my lab and I have been tracking countries latest climate pledgesknown as nationally determined contributions, or NDCsto see which countries have stepped up their efforts, which have slid back, and who has ideas that can deliver a safer world for everyone.
While the Trump administration has been pressuring countries to back away from their climate commitmentsand succeeded in delaying an International Maritime Organization vote on a global plan to tax greenhouse gas emissions from shipping after threatening other countries with sanctions, visa restrictions, and port fees if they supported itmany countries are still pressing ahead.
Trump agitates, but many countries are steadfast
U.S. President Donald Trump, whose administration came into office vowing to eliminate climate regulations and boost the fossil fuel industry, derided concerns about climate change in his Sept. 23, 2025, speech to the U.N. General Assembly. He called climate change the greatest con job ever perpetuated and ridiculed green energy and climate science.
Trumps language no longer surprises world leaders, though. More than 100 other countries announced new climate commitments during a high-level summit a few days later.
China, currently the worlds largest greenhouse gas emitter, was lauded for hitting its green energy targets five years early. Its rapid expansion of low-cost renewable energy and electric vehicle manufacturing has reduced pollution in Chinese cities while also boosting its economy and expanding the governments influence around the world.
Chinese President Xi Jinping announced the countrys first absolute emissions reduction goal at the summit, committing to cut its net greenhouse gas emissions by 7% to 10% from peak levels by 2035. China also committed to nearly triple its solar and wind power capacity and expand reforestation efforts.
While advocates and other governments had hoped for a stronger announcement from China, the new goals mark an important shift from the countrys earlier carbon intensity targets, which aimed to decrease the amount of greenhouse gas emissions per unit of economic output but still allowed emissions to grow over time.
[Chart: The Conversation, CC-BY-ND. Source: International Energy Agency, created with Datawrapper]
The European Union has yet to submit its new commitments, but the group of 27 European countries delivered a letter of intent, saying it would commit to a 66% to 72% collective decrease in net greenhouse gas emissions by 2035 compared with 1990 levels. Europe has seen a swift rise in renewable energy, up sharply since Russias invasion of Ukraine put the continents natural gas supplies in jeopardy.
The EU has also made waves by extending its carbon pricing rules beyond its borders.
The EUs Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism, scheduled to begin in January 2026, will be the first system to charge for the climate impact of imported goods coming into Europe from countries that dont have carbon prices similar to the EUs. The measure, meant to even the playing field for EU industries, sets a global precedent for linking carbon emissions to trade.
However, the EUs climate plans are also facing some headwinds. Its parliament is moving toward softening new corporate sustainability requirements after pressure from companies. And it may face calls from some member countries to delay a new carbon market meant to cut emissions from road transportation and buildings, Politico reported.
The EU has pledged to mobilize up to 300 billion Euros (about US$350 billion) to support the global clean energy transition in developing countries.
The United Kingdom, Japan, and Australia submitted their most ambitious targets to date. All three put them on track to reach net-zero emissions by 2050, meaning any greenhouse gases they emit will be offset by projects that avoid carbon emissions or remove carbon from the atmosphere.
In Australia, Queenslands recent announcement that it would extend existing coal power plant use to the 2030s and 2040s may slow national progress. But Queensland also supports scaling up renewable energy and is still aiming for net-zero emissions by 2050.
Norway committed to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions by at least 70% by 2035 compared with 1990 levels, which would align with the Paris Agreement goal to keep global emissions below 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit). However, it plans to remain a major oil and gas exporter.
Notably, many developing countries also stepped up their commitments.
Brazil pledged a net emissions reduction of 59% to 67% by 2035 and is maintaining its 2050 net-zero target. The government also drew criticism for approving plans for oil exploration near the mouth of the Amazon River.
Free riding and taking cover behind the US
However, while some new climate commitments signal important momentum in the fight against climate change, the tug-of-war between global ambition to slow climate change and strategic self-interests was palpable at the New York summit. The responses to Trumps remarks revealed both veiled critiques and deceleration of climate action by some governments.
China criticized backsliding by some countries, without naming names.
Brazil used the summit to call out countries that were late in submitting their updated climate commitments. Only about a third had submitted their updated pledges at that point.
While it is difficult to parse out individual country motivationseconomic stress, wars, and political influence can all play a rolemany scholars worry that U.S. backsliding will lead other countries to reduce their climate commitments, and some recent pledges appear to back this up.
Many petroleum-producing countries missed the U.N. pledge deadline. Qatar, which recently gifted the U.S. a jet plane for Trumps use and has an economy largely bolstered by the oil and gas industry, has not updated its pledge since 2021. The six-member Gulf Cooperation Councils average emissions reduction target is even lower than Qatars, at around 21.6% by 2030.
Similarly, Argentina, among the worlds top holders of shale oil and gas reserves, has not released its updated commitments. Progress on its previous commitment has been undermined by political shifts since President Javier Mileis election in 2023.
Milei initially vowed to abandon the 2030 agenda entirely and withdraw from the Paris Agreement, though his administration later backtracked. His dismissal of climate change as a socialist lie has aligned Argentina closely with Trump, culminating in a recently planned US$20 billion aid package from the U.S. to Argentina and raising questions about whether Argentinas climate stance reflects genuine policy or geopolitical strategy.
Also noticeably absent are commitments from India, Mexico, South Africa, and Saudi Arabia. Angola weakened its climate pledge, citing a lack of international funding.
A new way to make climate commitments?
While many countries are promising progress to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, the commitments formally submitted as of Oct. 20 were still far below the level needed to keep global temperatures from rising by 2 C (3.6 F), let alone 1.5 C.
Countries new climate pledgesknown as nationally determined contributions, or NDCsas of Oct. 20, 2025, compiled by ClimateWatch, were still far from keeping global warming under 2 C (3.6 F), let alone 1.5 C (2.7 F). The total includes 62 countries that had submitted pledges, including a U.S. pledge submitted before the Trump administration took office. It does not include Chinas announced pledge or the European Unions expected pledge. [Chart: ClimateWatch, CC BY 4.0]
To help boost national efforts and accountability, Brazil has proposed a new approach it calls a globally determined contribution. Unlike the 1997 Kyoto Protocol framework, which set fixed, country-specific emission reduction targets based on historical baselines, or the 2015 Paris Agreements pledge-as-you-can system, it would establish global targets aligned with the Paris Agreements temperature goals.
So, a globally determined contribution might state, for example, that the world will triple its renewable energy production and reverse deforestation by 2030. A target like that gives countries a clearer path of action. The new format would also allow city and state actions to be counted separately, increasing incentives for them to act.
As the host of the COP30 climate talks Nov. 10-21, 2025, Brazil is uniquely positioned to champion this concept. In the absence of U.S. leadership, the proposal could offer a rare opportunity for countries to collectively strengthen commitments and reshape treaty language in a way never seen beforeleaving open the possibility for progress.
Wila Mannella, a research assistant and graduate student in environmental studies at USC, contributed to this article.
Shannon Gibson is a professor of environmental studies, political science, and international relations at the USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences.
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
Leadership is not a title or a job description. It is the daily practice of turning authority into trust and presence into influence, according to renowned psychologist, University of Exeter Professor and former NBA player John Amaechi, OBE. Amaechi argues that leadership lives in ordinary moments: how you listen, the precision of your words, and the discipline of reflection.
Being a great leader is not magic, Amaechi explains to me, but rather the consistent choice to act with clarity and intention that helps others feel enabled, not stifled. Too often, people think of leadership as something to perform when the spotlight is on them. Amaechi says, In reality, the leaders who endure are those who embody their practice in every interaction. They understand that credibility is not claimed but conferred by others who watch, listen and feel the texture of their leadership every day.
In his new book, Its Not Magic: The Ordinary Skills of Exceptional Leaders, Amaechi outlines the following five practices to make leadership tangible and consistent.
Refine your observation practice
Each observation is a chance to deepen your understanding, not to catch others out.
Leaders who take observation seriously learn to notice patterns that others miss, from the subtle signals of disengagement to the small acts of initiative that deserve recognition, says Amaechi.
This practice requires discipline: to watch without rushing to judgment, to gather data rather than pounce on mistakes, and to cultivate patience until the fuller picture becomes clear. Observation done well creates the foundation for trust and insight.
Normalize, affirm, and reframe with precision
Confidence grows strongest where people feel seen clearly and encouraged thoughtfully.
It is easy to offer vague praise, but genuine affirmation demands precision, Amaechi explains. Leaders who normalize challenges and setbacks remind people they are not alone in facing difficulties.
Those who affirm effort and skill help individuals recognize their own capability. Reframing, when done carefully, shifts perspective from limitation to possibility without sugar-coating reality. Together, these practices build confidence that is both resilient and realistic.
Sharpen language to sharpen thinking
Sharper language builds sharper self-awareness and better decisions. Amaechi shared that leaders who are careless with language often leave confusion and unintended consequences in their wake. He said that precision in words is not pedantry but a discipline that shapes thought. Clear language, he told me, clarifies intent, defines boundaries, and sharpens focus. It reduces the margin for misinterpretation and models intellectual rigor.
In teams, this practice can elevate debate, reduce wasted effort, and make strategy actionable rather than aspirational. One action he recommended: Replace vague verbs with clear commitments and define success before you speak.
Model reflection openly
Leaders who model reflection permit others to think more deeply, not just perform better. Reflection is often treated as a private act, done in isolation. Yet when leaders show how they revisit their decisions, acknowledge their blind spots, and adjust their approach, they legitimize learning as a shared practice.
This openness dismantles the myth that leaders must be infallible, shared Amaechi. It signals that growth is valued more than perfection and that courage lies not in pretending to know everything, but in being willing to rethink. Heres an action to try this week: Share one decision you would make differently and why.
Manage your physical presence
Physical presence speaks loudly. Use it to invite growth, not inhibit it. From posture to tone of voice, from where you sit in a meeting to how you enter a room, your physicality shapes the atmosphere others inhabit. A leaders presence can constrict dialogue if it conveys impatience, intimidation or distraction, shared Amaechi. Equally, it can create space for others to step forward when it conveys openness, attentiveness, and calm. Presence is not performance but alignment: What you project outwardly should be consistent with the respect and curiosity you hold inwardly.
Action: Adopt a default stance with an open posture, slower tempo, and eyes on the speaker.
As Amaechi says in Its Not Magic, leadership is revealed in what people see you do, not what you say you value. For deeper tools and team diagnostics, Its Not Magic expands each practice and shows how to implement them at scale.
Marcel Shwantes
This article originally appeared on Fast Company’s sister publication, Inc.
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Today many people wish to break away from their corporate jobs and become entrepreneurs. And apparently they find satisfaction in doing so, because 96% of people who are self-employed have no desire to go back to a regular job.
You promised yourself this was the year youd finally launchand sustainsome sort of side project, be it picking up a few freelance clients, launching a blog, podcast, or YouTube channel, or setting up an e-commerce shop. One day in the hopefully not-too-distant future, your side hustle might even grow into a full-time business.
Raising your prices takes courage, but its often the only way to grow revenue when youre a freelancer, solopreneur, or running a small service business. But its possible to do it without losing your clientsheres exactly how.
Within my family, I’m known as the “AI Guy” so naturally, my sister-in-law excitedly told me how she took a photo of her living room, uploaded it to ChatGPT, and saw a photorealistic rendering of her room with specific couches from Kohl’s and Wayfair that she could buy.
While many businesses are encouraging employees to use AI more, they are forgetting that AI doesnt just affect productivity; its also changing how we shop. Had my sister-in-law searched for mocha leather couch, she would have seen a laundry list of options in a Google search; however, she only saw two options through ChatGPT, and this new way of shopping is having a widespread impact on businesses.
According to Adobe research, AI-driven referrals to U.S. retail websites increased more than tenfold from July 2024 to February 2025. Walmart is already feeling this impact, with ChatGPT now its single largest referrer, accounting for 20% of total referral traffic.
How Does AI Know What to Recommend to You?
Like a chef in a new kitchen, I’ve been testing how different AI platforms make recommendations since the release of ChatGPT in 2022. What I’ve found is that each chatbot has its quirks.
Perplexity loves authoritative sources like Wikipedia and CNBC. ChatGPT draws from its training data first, then performs web searches when you ask for something time-sensitive, and Gemini leverages Google’s massive search capabilities.
But despite their different approaches, they all follow the same core principle. When you ask for the best portable speaker under $100, they’re essentially doing what your audiophile friend would do: spending 30 minutes combing through Reddit threads, YouTube reviews, and product blogs, then distilling it into a recommendation.
However, they do it in seconds instead of the hours it takes your friend to text back. Unlike Google search results influenced by SEO and paid ads, these recommendations are purely organic. If a brand appears in an AI search, you know that referral was earned, not bought.
What Does This Mean For Your Business?
This AI-powered convenience marks a turning point in online shopping. In my 10+ years as a software engineer, I’ve watched companies obsess over SEO, but AI use is now giving rise to Generative Engine Optimization (GEO). With GEO, chatbots don’t care how good your website is; they care how good your reputation is.
Product results are selected independently and are not influenced by ads or partnerships; instead, chatbots like ChatGPT consider price, reviews, and ease of use, pulling real user feedback from public websites. GEO is still emerging, which means early movers have an advantage, so now is the time to act.
How Can You Set Your Business Up For Success?
Measure Your Current AI Referral Rankings
Before investing time into improving your business’s GEO standing, its important to know where you stand in the first place. AI Visibility checkers like HubSpots AI Search Grader, ALLMO.ai, and Trackerly.ai can help. A more cost-effective option would be to run your own tests and search for your product and/or brand across multiple chatbots, tracking the results.
For accurate results, I recommend performing each search in a new chat, similar to using an incognito browser tab. Pay attention to whether you’re mentioned at all, how you’re positioned relative to competitors, and what specific attributes the AI highlights about your business.
Integrate Directly With Chatbots
While experimenting with ChatGPT recently, I noticed OpenAI is capitalizing on the AI referral wave with their new “Instant Checkout” feature, enabling users to purchase recommended items directly within the chat from platforms like Etsy and Shopify.
Perplexity offers a similar feature, and both allow businesses to integrate their product feeds into the AI models with updated pricing, inventory, and checkout options. This direct integration does more than streamline purchasing; it signals to AI models that your business is established and trustworthy.
A customer can go from asking “What’s a good gift for a gardener?” to completing checkout without ever leaving the conversation. If you sell on Etsy or Shopify, setting up these integrations should be a priority.
Keep Your Warm Leads Warm
Building my AI company taught me one thing: past customers drive future sales. In real estate, 82% of transactions come from referrals, yet most agents struggle to sustain manual follow-up, so I developed Compai to do it for them. Follow-up is key because when AI chatbots evaluate which businesses to recommend, they look for consistent engagement, positive reviews, and evidence that past customers come back.
The businesses that nurture existing relationships through marketing newsletters, requesting product reviews, or automated follow-up tools naturally surface in AI recommendations. It’s not about gaming the algorithm; it’s about doing what good businesses have always done, just at a scale that’s actually sustainable.
What Leaders Are Missing
When business leaders ask me about AI, they’re usually motivated to increase productivity. But here’s what they’re missing: AI isn’t just changing how we work; it’s fundamentally changing how customers find businesses. My sister-in-law didn’t Google mocha leather couch and scroll through pages of results. She asked ChatGPT, saw two options, and made a choice. That’s the future of commerce.
GEO is in its infancy, which means businesses focusing on genuine customer relationships have a real shot at becoming the default recommendation in their field. The brands that will win aren’t the ones spending the most on ads; they’re the ones earning authentic advocacy from customers.
