Why AEO in 2026 Is Just the Evolution of SEO with Rebecca Busk (CEO, Kvalifik)

**Dave Gerhardt** (0:01)
You're listening to The Dave Gerhardt Show.
Hey, it's me, Dave. That's me, I'm Dave. Before we get into today's episode, I wanna give a quick shout out to our friends at Webflow who are sponsoring this episode. Webflow is the agentic web marketing platform for high-performing brands. Their platform lets you build fully custom websites that rank in AI search and make your website your biggest growth engine without being dependent on a developer. I know that because we use Webflow at Exit Five, no developers here. This episode is part of a three-part AEO series that we're doing with Webflow over the next few weeks. I've been having a bunch of conversations with practitioners who are deep in the weeds on AISCO and web optimization. We talk about what's working, what's changing. With real examples, you can go and apply to your job right now in marketing. Webflow also put together this free AEO assessment. You can check it out after this episode. We'll link to it in the notes here. AI is changing how buyers discover and evaluate your brand, and this resource will tell you exactly where you stand. You'll get a personalized score showing how your site performs in AI search today, visibility into how likely your brand is to be cited by answer engines, and a breakdown across your content, technical foundations, authority, and how to measure where you show up so you know where to focus. We'll put the link in the notes here. Thanks again for Webflow to create this series with us all about AEO, one of the hottest topics we've had in marketing. A big appetite for it, and I know this is going to be a great interview. So let's get into this episode.
Everyone's trying to figure out what actually matters when it comes to AI and search in marketing right now, and my guest today has your back. Rebecca Busk runs Kvalifik, a Webflow-focused agency in Denmark that's been doing branding, design and web for 11 years. And AEO is the thing she's talking about with clients every single day right now, and she came on the podcast to break down exactly what's working. We cover 10 specific things you need to check on your site for content quality right now.
The technical side, we talk about content strategy, we talk about authority, does PR come back in this world? Reddit, G2, LinkedIn, does social signals matter in AI search? If you've been talking or thinking and hearing about AEO and aren't sure what to actually do about it, this episode is for you. Enjoy my conversation with Rebecca.
Is this true you started as a consultant and now you do own the company?

**Rebecca Busk** (2:31)
Yeah, I did.

**Dave Gerhardt** (2:33)
Okay, so I want to ask about, we're talking about Louisville being a D1 athlete, but I got so many, we're going to get back there. I want to talk about that. How did you go from working at the company to owning the company?

**Rebecca Busk** (2:43)
Well, honestly, it was quite a mix of timing, trust, maybe a little bit of craziness, to be completely honest. Kvalifik was at a very difficult place at the time I started, and there was a lot of debt, very little money in the bank, and some people are ready to move on.
It was not that the Polish perfect opportunity from the outside that most people will expect when you see, oh, I became a partner in an agency. But I saw something in it and I saw a team that got real talent and I was really lucky I got the opportunity and the owners trusted me enough to let me step in, but I also think you have to be a bit naive to trust and brave to say yes to this kind of the opportunity because there's absolutely no guarantee it would work. I think they had about like $320,000 in debt when I started.

**Dave Gerhardt** (3:29)
Oh boy.

**Rebecca Busk** (3:29)
Oh boy. And we were an agency of about 10 people at the time. So if you do the math, that's a lot of money that you have to pay back to the government. But I really believe that I could change things. And I've been on the other side and I know what I hated when I worked with agencies. So I know all the things I wanted to do differently.

**Dave Gerhardt** (3:48)
What did you hate?

**Rebecca Busk** (3:50)
What did I not hate? No, I'm just kidding. Often it's like the agencies just make things too complicated.

**Dave Gerhardt** (3:56)
Well, I'm saying it because like everyone who listens to this podcast works in marketing. And so either they work at an agency, they've hired an agency. So like this is the audience to like vent about those things, you know?