About
I'm Ben Rees
VP of Marketing at Geckoboard. I write about AI and its impact on B2B marketing.
My work sits at the intersection of Generative Engine Optimization (GEO), Answer Engine Optimization (AEO), and marketing team alignment - helping businesses become more visible, accountable, and effective in the AI era.
My background is a bit unusual. I studied psychology, spent years as a developer, got an MSc in neural networks at King's College London, then moved through product management into marketing leadership. That mix of code, psychology, and commercial strategy still shapes how I think about AI, teams, and how meaning is built between people and systems.
I've written a whitepaper on Generative Engine Optimization in marketing, exploring how AI search systems are reshaping visibility, measurement, and brand meaning. A new version is in progress.
If you'd like to connect, I'm always open to thoughtful conversations on LinkedIn.
Current projects
Pirsigism
An ongoing experiment in B2B marketing and philosophy. It tests the idea that high-quality, meaningful content - not volume - is what shapes how both humans and AI systems understand a brand. Explore it at Pirsigism.com.
Cyberdyne
A technical side project exploring how far a self-hosted local language model can go on an average Dell laptop. Built with Ollama and other open tools - part of my work to understand how AI can be made more private, affordable, and personally useful.
Skynet
A long-term project using Python, Google Cloud, and Pinecone to build my own chatbot trained on more than 15 years of marketing experience. Designed as a personal knowledge system and conversational assistant for real-world strategy, messaging, and go-to-market work.