Found, Not Chosen
Discovery and distinguishability are different problems, and most of us are working on the wrong one
Last week’s Note ended with a promise. Writing with AI turned out to be the easy half of the problem. This issue is about the hard half: the moment a client asks an engine to recommend a photographer, and the answer arrives before anyone visits your website.
Ask five AI engines whether anyone in Tucson brings a mobile photography studio to a client’s home or office, and my business appears in five out of five answers, ranked first in four.
Ask those same engines who creates fine art pet portraits in Arizona, and I appear in zero. Several recommend painters instead.
Same brand. Same credentials. Same afternoon.
In the Note, I called the hard half “discovery.” That word covers less of the problem than I thought. Discovery is whether the engines can resolve you: your name goes in, correct facts come out.
Distinguishability is whether the engines choose you: a buyer’s question goes in, your name comes out.
They are different problems. The second does not follow automatically from the first, no matter how much of the first you build. I started calling this condition in June: known but not recommended.
That still describes part of the problem, but not all of it. The more disappointing failure happens after the engine has found you, verified you, and assembled the facts correctly. It still has to decide what those facts mean.
