What is a semantic long-term memory?

Semantic long-term memory is primarily a concept from cognitive psychology and neuroscience, referring to the way humans store and recall general knowledge and facts. It is not typically associated with brands or companies. However, brands and companies can leverage the concept of semantic memory in their marketing strategies by creating strong associations with certain concepts, values, or facts that they want consumers to remember. For example, a company might aim to be associated with innovation or quality, embedding these attributes into the semantic memories of consumers through consistent messaging, branding, and experiences. This way, when consumers think of the brand, they recall these general attributes or concepts, much like recalling facts stored in semantic memory.

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Building the Future of AI Discovery: Why Your Brand Needs a Semantic Memory Layer

Learn how an enterprise semantic layer helps your brand organize, connect, and leverage data for smarter AI-driven discovery and decision-making.

By Valentina Izzo

March 12, 2025

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4 min read

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The Disruption of Search: Why Brands Must Prepare for an AI-Driven Future

The next ‘customer’ your brand needs to engage isn’t a person, it’s an AI agent. There are no clicks, no user experience (UX) considerations, and no search intent to optimize for, just semantics that define your brand’s identity.

Brands that take control of their knowledge by building a strong ontological core will thrive in this AI-first landscape. Those that don’t? They risk fading into digital oblivion, lost in the ever-expanding AI black hole.

The way consumers interact with digital content is undergoing a seismic shift. Traditional search is giving way to conversational AI, where large language models (LLMs) like Grok, Perplexity, Gemini, and ChatGPT serve as the primary gateways to information. By 2028, organic search traffic for brands will decrease by 50% or more as consumers embrace AI-powered search (Gartner, 2024).

The latest data shows the urgency of this transformation:

Zero-click searches dominate Google: In the EU, only 374 out of every 1,000 searches lead to a click to the open web. In the US, it’s even lower—just 360 clicks per 1,000 searches (SparkToro, 2024).
AI search traffic is growing rapidly: In September 2024 alone, AI-driven search traffic accounted for 41% of all AI search interactions, signaling a significant shift in user behavior (Seer Interactive, 2024).

In this new era, brands that fail to embed their knowledge into these AI-driven systems risk disappearing into the void of irrelevance.
At WordLift, we are pioneering the future of AI discovery by equipping brands with the tools they need to remain visible and influential. Our approach builds a Semantic Memory Layer, an enduring, structured knowledge base that ensures AI agents can consistently access, understand, and recall your brand’s identity, products, and expertise.

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The Key to AI Visibility: Ontology & Memory

To thrive in this landscape, brands must shift their focus from optimizing for traditional search intent to creating ontologies, structured representations of their knowledge. In simple terms, an ontology is a map of meaning, defining relationships between concepts, products, and brand elements.
With a robust ontology in place, your brand isn’t just indexed by AI—it’s understood by AI. This distinction is critical as search transforms from keyword-based queries into complex, multi-step conversations. Without a well-defined ontological core, your brand risks fading into a vast AI black hole, unseen, unreferenced, and ultimately, irrelevant.

How WordLift Builds AI-Ready Brands

1. Bridging Search & Agentic AI

WordLift structures brand content into a knowledge graph, enabling AI models to retrieve and integrate brand insights into their responses. This ensures that as users shift from Google searches to AI-driven conversations, your brand remains discoverable.

2. Creating Persistent Brand Memory

By embedding structured data into AI memory systems, WordLift allows LLMs to retain essential brand knowledge. This enables AI agents to provide more personalized and consistent answers, whether recommending products, summarizing services, or engaging in industry discussions.

3. Ensuring Continuous Brand Presence

Unlike traditional SEO, where visibility fluctuates with algorithm changes, AI memory creation ensures lasting brand recognition. Your brand becomes part of the AI’s foundational understanding, reinforcing relevance in an ecosystem where clicks and UX no longer dictate success.

4. Facilitating Adaptation & Growth

AI-driven discovery is dynamic, and WordLift helps brands stay ahead by continuously evolving their knowledge graphs. This agility ensures that brands can quickly respond to AI advancements and emerging search behaviors.

“The brands that are thriving in the AI era are those that embrace structured data, build knowledge graphs, and think beyond traditional SEO. The future of digital discovery is about memory, not just search. At WordLift, we see our most successful clients proactively shaping their AI presence—rather than waiting to be found.”

Beatrice Gamba, Head of Innovation, WordLift

Proven Success: Transforming Brands with AI-Powered SEO

Our clients are already witnessing the transformative impact of AI-driven SEO and memory creation:

EssilorLuxottica, a global leader in eyewear, has leveraged AI to enhance its SEO strategies, resulting in a 16% increase in organic traffic across various brands.
Glasses.com, part of the EssilorLuxottica group, has seen a 27.78% increase in clicks on product pages through AI-generated content and dynamic internal linking.
Etilika’s AI Wine Sommelier has revolutionized wine pairing recommendations, boosting clicks by 22.13% in just one month and further increasing by 7.23% over the following months.

These successes underscore the power of AI in driving significant growth and innovation across diverse industries.