There Are Two Kinds of AI Memory
New bjrees.com tracking data shows branded AI visibility holding steady for months while topical visibility decays in 6-7 weeks - confirming the AEO decay-curve hypothesis with real numbers.
Ben Rees - 23 June 2026
Back in November, I proposed a hypothesis: branded AI visibility decays slowly, topical visibility decays fast, and most GEO advice optimises for the wrong one.
Eight weeks of tracking bjrees.com across Google Search and AI Mode (35 capture runs, 13 April - 15 June 2026) backs it up. Branded queries held at 100% → 100%. Topical "Scaling B2B Marketing" queries fell 75% → 46%. AEO-specific queries fell 38% → 17%, and 6 of the 12 non-branded queries behind that number never ranked at all.
The model, the per-query evidence, and the mechanism behind why branded and topical memory behave so differently are all in the infographic below.
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