Foundation Marketing Expands AI Search Visibility Services Through Profound Agency Certification
Foundation Marketing Drives has joined Profound’s inaugural Agency Certification Cohort, strengthening its capabilities in generative engine optimization (GEO) and AI search visibility. The certification recognizes agencies with demonstrated expertise in measuring how brands appear across generative AI platforms and developing strategies to improve their visibility in AI-generated answers.
Foundation is one of 18 agencies selected for the inaugural certification cohort. As part of the program, the agency will incorporate enterprise-level AI visibility measurement into its client engagements, giving brands a data-driven baseline for understanding how they are represented across AI search platforms.
The Drives development comes as generative AI increasingly influences the way B2B buyers research companies, evaluate vendors and build shortlists. Instead of relying exclusively on traditional search engines, buyers are increasingly turning to AI platforms to identify products, compare solutions and gather recommendations.
AI Search Changes the B2B Buyer Journey
As Drives AI-generated answers become more influential in the research process, brands face a new challenge: ensuring they are accurately represented and consistently cited by AI platforms.
Foundation’s April 2026 analysis of 57.2 million citations across five major AI platforms found that Reddit was the largest external source cited for B2B SaaS brands, accounting for 20.8% of all external citations in the study.
The Drives importance of community-driven content was even more pronounced for unbranded discovery searches. Foundation found that 30.9% of citations on unbranded discovery queries came from Reddit, meaning nearly one in three external sources cited by AI when helping buyers discover B2B software originated from the platform.
These Drives findings highlight the growing importance of third-party conversations, community discussions and user-generated content in shaping how brands are represented in AI-generated responses.
For businesses, this creates a need to look beyond conventional search engine optimization. Visibility in AI search requires understanding which sources AI platforms rely on, what information they surface and how frequently a brand appears in relevant answers.
Bitly Demonstrates the Impact of AI Visibility Strategy
Foundation has applied this approach through its work with Bitly, a link management and URL shortening platform.
During a 12-month engagement, Foundation developed Bitly’s Reddit presence from a relatively inactive branded subreddit with only 38 members into a more active content and discovery channel. Rather than measuring success primarily through conventional referral traffic, Foundation shifted the program’s focus toward AI citation share and visibility.
The Drives results were measured across 218 tracked prompts in Profound. Bitly achieved an 11.7% citation share among link-shortening brands, nearly twice the share of its next competitor.
The Drives program also generated a 422% increase in Reddit referral sessions, rising from 178 to 930 during the 12-month period.
Bitly’s Reddit strategy subsequently received recognition from Reddit as an official success story on the platform’s business channel. Foundation also reported that eight branded subreddit threads were cited directly in Google AI Overviews, with four of those threads appearing in the number-one position.
The Drives case demonstrates how community content can contribute not only to traditional referral traffic but also to a brand’s visibility within AI-generated search experiences.
Bringing AI Measurement Into Every Engagement
Following its certification, Foundation is incorporating the same measurement discipline into its broader client offering.
The agency now provides clients with a Profound-powered baseline audit at the beginning of an engagement. The audit is designed to establish where a brand currently appears within AI-generated answers before a strategy is developed.
The Drives baseline can help identify existing visibility, citation patterns, competitive positioning and areas where additional content or distribution could create opportunities.
Foundation then combines these insights with content strategy and execution, monitoring metrics such as citation share, share of voice and sentiment across the
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