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LLMs are designed to answer questions, so when someone asks ChatGPT, Google AI Mode, Perplexity, or Claude a specific question, those systems look for clear, direct answers they can understand and reference.

A well-structured FAQ page can provide that.

According to Semrush, more than 80% of AI Overview queries are informational, and 82% of those queries have search volumes below 1,000 searches per month. That means the opportunity often lies in the specific questions people ask when they're comparing options, solving problems, or seeking guidance.

Most companies already have access to these questions, so in this issue, we'll look at several places to uncover them, including sources that most marketers rarely use.

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Google Search Console AI performance reports and controls to block your content in AI responses. Google is rolling out new Search Generative AI performance reports within Google Search Console and is also testing the ability to block your content from showing up in AI Mode and AI Overviews with a “toggle” within Search Console. [Source: Search Engine Land] 

AI search is exposing a hidden weakness in the way many brands operate. Only 22% of US marketers recently polled by Adobe's digital marketing platform, Semrush, said they had a "fully integrated" AI search and search engine optimization strategy. The rest described some version of a gap. [Source: Business Insider]

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AI models want content that directly and accurately answers the questions users are asking. Here are five great sources:

Most people use GSC to look at their highest-impression or highest-clicked queries, but for FAQ ideation, you want high-intent, long-tail questions where you're already ranking on page one or two with a low click-through rate.

Those are the queries where you have relevance but not a strong enough answer, which translates to prime candidates for a dedicated FAQ page.

You can retrieve them using Regular Expressions (Regex) in the GSC query filter. To find question-based queries, use:

^(who|what|where|when|why|how|which|whose|whom|is|are|was|were|do|does|did|can|could|will|would|should|has|have|had)\b

Then cross-reference the average position against CTR. Queries ranking in positions 4–20 with low CTR are your sweet spot because you're relevant enough to rank, but not yet answering the question well enough to earn the click.

The People Also Ask feature is one of the few public windows into how Google maps the relationships between questions. It's a map of how your audience's curiosity evolves as they research a topic.

Look further than the first four questions that appear, click to expand the tree, and follow where it leads. Tools like AnswerThePublic and AlsoAsked can surface these branching question clusters at scale, helping you map how topics are explored across thousands of searches.

The recurring questions you find deep in these clusters are high-signal candidates. They represent genuine, repeated user demand, which is the kind of signal AI models are trained to respond to. A question that appears consistently across PAA trees for five to ten of your priority topics is almost certainly worth a dedicated FAQ answer.

AI engines love unique, non-commodity information, and the richest source of FAQ ideation is the people in your company who talk to customers every day.

Your customer service team fields questions from real people, and in turn, those questions reveal genuine confusion, hesitation, and the specific natural language your customers use to describe their problems. This matters for AI visibility because AI models are trained on natural, conversational language. 

A shared Slack channel or Google Doc where your CS team drops recurring questions is enough to start. If your company records sales calls and your AI policy permits it, use an LLM to analyze call transcripts and surface the most common questions and objections.

The queries people type into your site's search bar are direct signals of intent that your existing content isn't satisfying, either because the information is hard to find or because it doesn't exist. Pull these queries monthly and filter for question-based phrasing as they're especially useful for FAQ content on product, service, and support pages.

Reddit shows you how people phrase their problems in the real world, unfiltered, unpolished, and in the language they'd use when talking to a friend.

Start by searching your target topics on RedditAnswers or Google to identify the subreddits where your audience gathers. Then search within those communities using your priority keywords and sort results by Best and Top.

Reddit threads are uniquely valuable because they surface the "OK, but what about…" layer of audience curiosity and the secondary follow-up questions that arise after an initial answer is given. 

Building FAQ content that addresses these secondary questions improves topical depth and strengthens the topical authority signals that AI models favor. If a Reddit thread about your topic has 200 comments and a recurring follow-up question that nobody has answered well on the open web, that's an AI citation to work on.

Because users treat AI as a conversational assistant rather than a search engine, the questions they ask ChatGPT or Perplexity differ from those they type into Google. 

They're longer, more specific, and more contextual.

A Google search might be "best fintech marketing agency," but the same intent in an AI prompt might be "We're a Series A fintech company with a small marketing team. We need an agency that understands regulated financial products, can handle SEO and content strategy, and has experience growing B2C fintech brands without relying heavily on paid ads. Who would you recommend?" 

Use specialized platforms like the Semrush AI Visibility Toolkit or SE Ranking, and look into the "Topic Opportunities" or "Missing Prompts" reports in these tools.

Input your domain alongside your top competitors, and the tool will show you the exact thematic clusters and conversational prompts where AI platforms are citing your competitors but completely omitting your brand, then use these exact missing prompts to build out your new FAQ pipeline. 

Use this prompt to extract FAQ opportunities from a raw customer support transcript or sales call recording.

The scenario: You are a Chief Marketing Officer. You have a transcript from a recent customer call where the customer asked multiple questions about the product, and you want to turn those questions into structured FAQ content optimized for AI search visibility.

The prompt:

Here’s a transcript [insert transcript] from a customer-facing conversation. This may be a sales call, customer onboarding session, customer support interaction, webinar Q&A, community discussion, or product demo.

Your goal is to identify high-value content opportunities that can improve our visibility in Google AI Mode, AI Overviews, ChatGPT, Perplexity, Claude, and other AI-powered search experiences.

Questions

These are the most popular AI tools we use at Rise Up Media. If you're not using them already, they're worth a look.

Full disclosure: some links above are affiliate links. If you sign up, we'll earn a small commission at no extra cost to you.

The questions your audience asks will keep evolving as your product changes, your competitors change, and the search environment matures.

Find momentum that makes sense for your business, and revisit your research regularly to keep showing up with the right answers as your customers' questions evolve.

Until next time, keep exploring the horizon. 🌅

Alex Lielacher

P.S. If you want your brand to show up in Google AI Mode, ChatGPT, and Perplexity, reach out to my agency, Rise Up Media. That's what we do!