Legal Marketers Need to Act Now to Be a Part of AI Responses

AI Is Becoming the New Gatekeeper for Legal Intake

The window for law firms to embrace AI in marketing is closing fast. Generative AI search isn’t a shiny side channel anymore—it’s becoming a primary gateway for people looking for legal answers and, increasingly, legal help. ChatGPT alone now reaches about 803 million monthly users and drives more than 5.1 billion visits a month; together with Microsoft Copilot, the ChatGPT ecosystem sits around 858 million users. [1] That scale matters because every one of those visits is a moment where someone chose a chatbot over a search bar.

Even more telling is how much “search” volume is shifting. First Page Sage estimates that ChatGPT has captured roughly 9% of worldwide search query volume, and its share continues to climb. [1] A platform that didn’t exist a few years ago is now handling a meaningful slice of what used to be Google’s territory. For law firms, that’s like a new referral channel appearing overnight—except it’s algorithmic, always on, and evolving weekly.

Younger audiences are leading the shift, which is why “waiting it out” isn’t really an option. In First Page Sage’s demographic breakdown, Gen Z already routes about 17% of its searches through ChatGPT-style tools, compared with about 5% for users 65+. [1] The next generation of legal buyers is growing up AI-first. As they hit stages of life where legal needs spike—first jobs, family changes, property, business ownership—their default will be to ask AI before they ask Google.

The legal profession is noticing. The American Bar Association projects that LLM-based search will take about 15% of search market share by 2028. [2] Whether that number lands a bit higher or lower, the direction is locked in: AI answers will be a standard first stop for legal questions.

What this means for marketers is simple but uncomfortable. If clients are increasingly asking AI for “the best employment lawyer in my city” or “what to do after a slip-and-fall,” and your firm doesn’t show up in those answers, you’re invisible at the exact moment intent is highest. Pew Research puts teeth on this risk: when AI summaries appear in search, users click traditional results only about 8% of the time, and just 1% click the citations inside those summaries. [3] So even if your content is excellent, AI can absorb it and answer on your behalf without ever sending you the visit you used to rely on.

Early Movers Gain, Late Adopters Lose Ground

Legal marketing has seen this movie before. When SEO became a serious driver of intake, the firms that invested early built a moat: they owned rankings, attracted links, accumulated reviews, and stayed top-of-mind online for years. AI visibility is a similar inflection point, with one twist—it’s moving faster.

The advantage for early movers compounds because LLMs learn from patterns. If your firm consistently appears in authoritative pages, directories, and reviews for a practice area, AI systems get more confident recommending you. Over time, they repeat what they’re confident about. Yolando, an AI visibility platform focused on measuring and improving LLM recommendations, captures this dynamic: firms that show up “early and often” in AI answers build momentum that’s hard for slower competitors to break. [4]

Waiting has a real opportunity cost. Every month, competitors are publishing AI-friendly explainers, tightening directory profiles, and collecting reviews that train machine perception of their brand. If you’re absent during this formative period, you’re letting others become the default names the models lean on. Catching up later means trying to dislodge established AI “favorites” with years of citations and trust signals behind them.

And AI doesn’t live in a silo. Google is embedding generative answers directly into mainstream search via AI Overviews, and Microsoft has done the same in Bing and Copilot. [3] That means the impact isn’t limited to people who explicitly open ChatGPT. AI is increasingly on the front page of “normal” search too. The old funnel is being rewired from the top down.

How to Get Started Now With AI Visibility

The good news: AI visibility isn’t random. You can audit it, improve it, and track it much like SEO—just with different success metrics. Here’s a practical, marketer-friendly path to start now without boiling the ocean.

1) Audit what AI already says about your firm

Start by testing real client prompts across major AI systems. Use questions prospects are already asking:

• “Who are the best [practice area] lawyers in [city]?”

• “Recommend a law firm for [issue].”

• “What’s the difference between [two legal options] in [jurisdiction]?”

Then check whether your firm is mentioned, how you’re described, and who shows up instead. Also prompt directly about your firm: “What can you tell me about [Firm Name]?” If the response is thin, outdated, or inaccurate, that’s your baseline problem statement.

Manual audits are eye-opening, but they’re hard to scale because answers vary by model and shift over time. Tools like Yolando help by offering continuous multi-model visibility tracking (mentions, citations, sentiment) and competitive benchmarks in one dashboard. [4] Think of these platforms as “rank trackers for answers,” not links.

2) Use structured prompts to decode what AI prefers

Once you’ve mapped your baseline presence, go deeper. Create a list of common client scenarios and question themes for each practice area. Then run them systematically and log outcomes.

Pay attention to:

• Which firms are cited repeatedly?

• What sources are referenced (bar associations, directories, blogs)?

• What language the AI uses when describing “top” firms?

This is prompt research in the same way keyword research was for SEO. You’re learning the phrasing, content types, and authority signals that AI systems reward. Tools like Yolando can automate this by tracking prompt clusters and showing which competitor wins which query category. [4]

3) Build content designed for LLM discoverability

Traditional legal content still matters, but the goal is shifting from “ranking” to “being quotable.” AI systems promote what they can verify and summarize cleanly. [2], [4] Your content should be structured so an LLM can lift it confidently.

A few high-leverage moves:

• Write in plain English, but keep it jurisdiction-clear. AI loves direct, scenario-based answers that specify location and law. [2]

• Use FAQ and Q&A formatting. Tight questions with short, accurate answers are easy for AI to extract.

• Add proof points. Awards, years in practice, bar admissions, and niche experience give the model concrete facts to cite. [2]

• Stay current. Fresh publish dates, updated practice pages, and timely legal explainers increase the odds that browsing-enabled AI tools surface your content. [3]

If you’re thinking “this sounds like good SEO,” you’re right. The difference is that now you’re optimizing for a LLM intermediary that decides what the user hears first. 

4) Tighten the Off-Site Trust Signals AI Uses to Judge You

AI models don’t learn about your firm only from your site. They synthesize directories, listings, press, and reviews. [2], [4] So the usual local-SEO hygiene is now AI hygiene too.

Make sure your Avvo, Justia, Martindale-Avvo, bar association, and Google Business profiles are complete and consistent. Lock down your NAP data everywhere. Ensure practice descriptions match across platforms. And keep pushing on reviews. FindLaw’s consumer research shows people are significantly more likely to hire lawyers with reviews, and younger buyers are especially review-driven. [5] AI systems mirror those trust cues when choosing which firms to recommend.

Stop Guessing: Use Yolando to Make AI Visibility Actionable

If this all feels like “SEO all over again, but faster and fuzzier,” you’re not wrong. The difference is that AI visibility is harder to manage with gut checks and one-off experiments. Answers vary by model, geography, and prompt phrasing—and they change as LLMs update. Trying to track that manually across ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude, Perplexity, and AI-powered search experiences quickly becomes a full-time job.

That’s why AI visibility platforms are showing up now, and why Yolando is worth a close look for law firms. Yolando positions itself specifically as a system to help firms get found, cited, and recommended by generative engines, and its workflow aligns tightly with how legal intake is shifting. , [2]

Here’s what makes Yolando more than “just another dashboard” for marketers:

• Continuous cross-LLM auditing, not occasional spot checks. Yolando runs daily monitoring across major AI assistants and answer engines to see where your firm appears, how it’s described, and which competitors are getting pulled into the shortlist instead. That means you’re not waiting for a quarterly report to discover you’ve vanished from high-value prompts.

• AI-native visibility metrics that map to real growth. Instead of rankings and clicks, Yolando tracks things like AI share-of-voice, citation share, and prompt win rate—metrics that reflect whether your firm is actually being recommended when people ask AI for help. This is the new top-of-funnel KPI.

• Transparent source and narrative tracking. Yolando shows which sources LLMs rely on when they talk about your practice area—your site, bar resources, directories, competitors’ explainers, reviews, etc. That clarity tells you why the model is confident in someone else and what evidence you need to publish to change that.

• A Knowledge Base + Marketing Studio loop built for GEO. Yolando doesn’t stop at diagnosis. It builds a structured, machine-readable brand memory and then turns gaps into publishable, on-brand content designed for LLM discoverability (FAQs, explainers, comparisons, jurisdiction-clear guidance). In other words: measure → understand → generate → re-measure. That closed loop is what makes AI visibility improvable instead of mysterious.

For legal marketers, this is the real advantage: Yolando gives you a practical way to compete in a world where AI assistants already dominate AI-search usage and are increasingly the first touchpoint for legal research. [1] You don’t need to become an LLM scientist—you need a repeatable system that makes AI visibility measurable and actionable.

The Time to Act Is Now

Law firms are right to be cautious about hype. But this isn’t hype—it’s a distribution change. AI is becoming the intake gatekeeper, especially for younger and research-heavy audiences. The question for legal marketers isn’t “should we use AI?” It’s “are we visible when AI is asked?”

Start small: audit, log prompts, tighten trust signals, publish in a format LLMs can quote. Then measure again. Treat AI visibility like the next evolution of SEO and reputation marketing.

In a few years, most prospects won’t remember whether they first found you through Google, Bing, or ChatGPT. They’ll just remember that when they asked for help, your firm was the one the answer engine trusted enough to name.