University of Richmond · School of Professional & Continuing Studies · AISEO.227
Building Brand Authority
in an AI-Driven Search World
A four-session, 16-hour course for professionals who want to become the brand AI answers name — taught on the University of Richmond campus.
Building Brand Authority in an AI-Driven Search World. The title says a lot on its own. AI is rapidly changing how people search for information, discover brands, and make decisions, and whether by choice or not, brands are now competing for visibility and authority in that landscape.
And Will Melton is the person you want teaching you how to navigate it.
What stood out to me most is that Will is not just teaching the concepts. He is actively working with the technology, experimenting with it, and bringing that experience together with years of working with brands.
I found a lot of value simply in being in the room, stepping away from the day-to-day, engaging in these conversations, and thinking about how these changes affect the work we do and where there are opportunities to use these tools more effectively.
As a digital marketer, I also appreciated how quickly the course moved from theory into practical application. We looked at how to track whether and where a brand appears in AI-generated answers, how customer questions change throughout the buyer journey, how connected content can build authority around a topic, and how signals beyond your own website shape how a brand is understood online.
Those are ideas I have continued thinking about and applying in my own work since taking the course.
Instructor
Will Melton
CEO of Xponent21 · Global AI Search Visibility Expert · AI Keynote Speaker
Will has spent the last several years researching how AI-driven search systems decide which brands to recommend — work that underpins Xponent21's AI visibility practice and has been cited in keynotes, client engagements, and the CARL dataset. He teaches the same material he uses with boards and executive teams, adapted for professionals ready to build authority in public.
Session breakdown
What we'll cover.
The New Search Landscape
How ChatGPT, Google AI Overviews, Perplexity, and Gemini change what 'being found' means — and why brand authority is now the central ranking signal.
E-E-A-T & Content Strategy
Experience, expertise, authoritativeness, and trust translated into a practical content model: what to publish, where, and how often so AI systems read you as credible.
Building Your Authority Engine
Turn speeches, case studies, bylines, and video into a system that feeds search indexes and AI training data — without becoming a full-time content operation.
Measuring & Scaling Authority
What to track when rankings are no longer the whole story: AI answer visibility, citation share, branded query lift, and the operational cadence that keeps it working.
Format
On campus, hands-on, and designed around a real work schedule.
- 4 morning sessions, 8:30am–12:30pm
- Wednesdays: April 28, May 5, May 19, and May 26, 2027 — no class on May 12.
- 16 total hours of instruction and workshop time
- Held on the University of Richmond campus
- Built for working professionals, not full-time students
How this course is different
Practical, peer-driven, and grounded in real AI-search data.
- Practical — every session is built around what you can publish, change, or measure next week.
- Research-backed — grounded in the CARL dataset and real AI-search behavior, not trends or speculation.
- Peer-driven — discussions, workshopping, and shared case work, not lecture-only delivery.
- Not theory, not pass/fail, and not one-size-fits-all — the course meets working professionals where they are.
Registration
Ready to enroll?
The official registration, payment, and session details are handled directly by the University of Richmond. Questions before you register? Email wmelton@xponent21.com.