The Vault Unlocked - How to Get Your Business Recommended by ChatGPT, Claude and Other AI Search Tools

Episode Date: July 8, 2026

Your customers stopped Googling. They ask ChatGPT now. And when ChatGPT answers, it recommends someone. If that someone is not you, this episode explains exactly why, and exactly what to do about it. One founder already cracked it: 10 million impressions from ChatGPT, zero dollars in ad spend, and an American Marketing Association campaign of the year award to prove it was not luck. Anya Cheng spent her career building products and marketing at Meta, eBay, Target, and McDonald's tech headquarters before founding Taelor, an AI-powered menswear rental company in Silicon Valley. She is a Northwestern lecturer, TEDx speaker, bestselling author, and mentor at 500 Startups. In this conversation, she opens the playbook most agencies are still guessing at. The episode starts with the business itself: an AI stylist backed by human experts that dresses busy operators for the outcome they need. A deal to close. A courtroom to win. A first date that earns a second one. Then Kayvon does what he does on every episode and reverse engineers the real gold. The conversation turns to how Taelor actually acquires customers, and the answer is not ads. It is AI search. Anya breaks down why sentiment now outranks keywords, why Reddit threads and review platforms feed the machines, why AI can analyze your video and podcast content beyond the keywords Google Search relied on, and how a human-AI content flywheel turns proprietary data into a moat no competitor can copy. This one is for founders, operators, and marketing leaders who feel the ground shifting under their acquisition strategy. If your growth plan still assumes people find you through a search bar, you are optimizing for a behavior that is disappearing.  The conversation covers answer engine optimization, AI SEO, generative engine optimization (GEO), and the practical mechanics of getting cited by the likes of ChatGPT, Claude and Gemini. It digs into proprietary data as a competitive advantage, building content flywheels that combine human expertise with AI scale, customer acquisition without paid ads, subscription business models, and what it takes to become an AI-native company instead of a company that merely uses AI. Topics covered: How Taelor's AI plus human stylist model works Why fashion companies were built for the wrong customer The shift from Google search to AI recommendations Sentiment, reviews, and context: the new ranking signals The exact content system behind 10 million ChatGPT impressions Why proprietary data is the only real moat in the AI era The 40 percent problem: fashion's unsold inventory crisis Dressing for outcomes: deals, courtrooms, and second dates Looking to dive deeper into these conversations and connect with our host and guest? Follow Anya Cheng: Instagram Facebook LinkedIn Learn more about Taelor.style   Use code PODCAST25 for 25% off your first month with Taelor   Use code PODCASTGIFT for 10% off a Taelor gift card  Follow Kayvon: Instagram Facebook LinkedIn TikTok     Want to go deeper with Kayvon? Subscribe to the newsletterBook a discovery callGet your Revenue Engine Scorecard™️Hire the right salespeople  

10 million impressions from chat GPT, zero dollars in ad spend. That's not a typo. That's what today's guest pulled off and it won her campaign of the year from the American Marketing Association. Anya Chang spent her career leading product at Meta and eBay. Then she walked away and built Taylor, an AI styling company that dresses busy men so they can get the job, get the date, and close the deal. But here's why this episode matters to you.

Anya cracked the new search game. People aren't Googling anymore. They're asking AI. And she figured out how to make her company the answer. If you're building a brand, selling anything, or wondering why your traffic is drying up, this is the playbook. Let's unlock it.

Anya, welcome to the show. I'm excited to have you. I think what you're doing is amazing. So just for the listeners here, Today is a little different episode here. Today is not about what you're doing in your business or how you're doing it in your marketing. Today is how you show up. How are you looking when you're going into the meetings?

How are you dressing? Anya has created what I think is a phenomenal opportunity for people to be able to get onto a subscription and wear high designer fashion at half the fraction of the cost. So Anya all away from the Silicon Valley, working with AI companies and startups. stepped out and created taylor.ai tell us all about that ania yeah yeah so at taylor we help people to look great without doing shopping or laundry and how how does it work is that um we offer a i style less for people and then send people real clothes for them to rent uh so we'll say unfortunately you are in Vancouver but anyone in the u.s uh we uh when people signed up pay a monthly fee and we send them real clothes for them to rent.

And after renting the clothes, they can decide if they want to buy it or just simply wear for a couple weeks. Say you travel to New York, you can change your address to New York's hotel. So the clothes are right in the hotel whole weeks that you can look great. And once you're done, we turn the dirty clothes into a prepaid envelope, give it to hotel lobby. You can go home without doing any laundry. So no more shopping or laundry. I love the concept.

And I just want to make sure people understand this. This is basically you can rent high fashion. When we talked about high fashion, we say it was medium to high, I believe. It's high quality. It may not be high fashion because sometimes high fashion, they are fashionable, but may not be high quality. So we offer only high quality brands. They might be the most well-known brands such as Johnson Murphy, Bonovo, Marine Dayer, and BYOT cuts, or it might be emergent brands that were really cool, that's trendy,

or they might be most well-known, amazing brands in UK, in Canada, in Japan, but not yet available in the U.S. yet. So high-quality brands. High-quality brands, however, I think it's important to discuss this first, is you get on and you get a consultation of your look. So if you're someone who's going through, say, I don't know what my my vibe is or I'm going through a brand a new brand change or I'm trying to find a style. I see all these people with cool style.

How do I get style? You'll sit with one of your brand consultants. Is that correct? That's right. So we have a few human stylists behind and then behind their workflow. There is obviously powerful AI to help those human stylists. But for customer, they interact with a professional stylist. who have 10 years of experience,

and then those stylists to talk to you and figure out what is best for you, like getting a job, getting a day, or close a deal. Most important is for people about their goals. We help our customer to achieve their goals. For example, we go to a conference. One of our customers, he said, I want to close a deal there,

and our stylist decided to send him a dolphin print shirt. He's like, what? Why? Our customers said, give you a truck. for conferences, all about conversation opener. And he will close. People start by saying, not sure, interesting, sure. And they start a conversation. And of course, he closed a deal.

And that's what we do to help people achieve their goals. It was very unique in really understanding what it is you're trying to achieve, find a style to adopt to that, and then sending in that the clothes, and then wearing it and then shipping it back. Yeah. It's a living like your Uber. right, you get on Uber, you get off Uber, someone else get on Uber, that your Airbnb rides, you're a stay, you get out of it,

you check out with Airbnb, someone else checking. So instead of buying everything, nowadays we don't buy DVD anymore, we open Netflix show, we watch a show whenever we want to, access versus ownership, Spotify, we listen to the podcast, we don't record a CD anymore from the Vogue on lots shows, And now we can listen anytime we want. So it's the same concept. But then we apply for fashion.

So people don't have to store lots of clothes at home. But they always something that they can wear, always looks great and saving time. So I'm always playing skeptic because I'm always thinking about someone who's driving their car right now, listening to this podcast. I'm thinking about you. And you're thinking, what in the world? Like I would never wear you's clothes.

Or maybe they're thinking, What I was thinking is like that I'm going to New York next week. And actually I'm already thinking about what am I going to wear. I'm like, I don't want to wear. I don't want to pack that. I want to just pack. I don't want to do a check in. But if I have to bring the suit and all this stuff, I got to check in the bags,

et cetera, et cetera. And then you just said, oh yeah, we can just send it there. What happens when you send the clothes there? I get there, but the clothes don't fit or they don't fit as well. What happens in that scenario? Yeah. So if you're really afraid that you are first time, customer, like just use the first time, you can always, we can always ship it to your home and

you decide if you want to bring to a conference. We are the subscription. So usually if for the first time you are not knowing you enough, sometimes customers say, I'm definitely size million and I think I weigh 200 pounds. Turn out that he's not. He can't wait or he lose way. He doesn't know, right? So if you're really afraid, but if for subscriptions, it tend to we know it right away. After you ran for six clothes and you return, you tell us, oh, you know what? I think I gained way it recently.

It'll be tied in the belly area. Then we know, and the next shipment is better. And for people in terms of on second hand, here's how we think about it. For when you go to a restaurant, the spoon that you use probably eaten by 100 people before. But you go to a hotel, you step on the bed, probably 100 people slept there before.

But we all still use those things. And secondhand, we own circular. It's just all over the place. Everywhere now is second hand. So just more about focus of access versus ownership. So you don't have to buy everything. I like the idea that it's not just about having to buy everything. It's also about from when we talked is it's about changing up the style.

It's about being able to wear the clothes for a couple months and then changing the style up and not having to host it and hold it in your closet. you know, for it to collect dust. Yeah. Or when you may never, like, I personally never like to wear, like buy like really white stuff because I get dirty pretty quickly. And so I know that looks really good, but I don't buy a white shirt. But for in this case, you can rent something or, hey, I never think I can wear pink.

Oh, but the stylist recommends that, hey, you would be perfect for pink. Give you a try. You only need to wear for a week. You don't have to keep it forever. So why not try something out of comfort zone? Hey, floral short is trendy. Hey, pretty short, short is trendy now. And those loose pants, like the jeans are getting really big now.

Those back, like really loose jeans are very... The bell bottoms. Yeah, the big gal bottoms. Yeah. So give you a try, which you probably never tried before, and you may never like it. But just for a week, now you can try something different. And you might discover you are actually perfect. for purple or greens were certain style that you didn't know that you were fit very well.

Let's take a step back here. Let's talk on the business side of this. Where did you come to the idea of this? Like what was going on where you thought? Because this is very interesting. And I like it and I could see it. I could see how people would have an affinity towards it. I can also see why people would be scared of it. But how did you come up with this? What came, what was going on in your life that you decided, you know what? This is what the world needs today. Yeah, when I was working for meta and eBay, I came from marketing backgrounds, but I do over time became head of product and leading their technology teams, product manager, US dry designers, and technology team globally. So I feel an impassal syndrome from time to time. And I'm a woman

leader. I'm from Taiwan originally. I'm an immigrant. I'm a immigrant. I'm a minority. So I feel like, hey, I need to dress up like who I want to be. No one should find out that I'm freaking out every day. I look like dress the part, dress for success. So I start looking for some options out there. I look at stitch fix. People pick clothes for you, but you have to buy as soon as you receive the clothes. And buying is not just about money. It's a lot of my spaces. How many times am I going to wear this? How do I outfit it? this outfit. Can I find somewhere that's cheaper? After you buy the clothes, you do have to do laundry, you do have to do ironings. It's a lot of work. So I start looking for rent home

subscriptions such as newly by urban outfiters, such as rent the wrong way or more. Those are amazing women's rental company here in the U.S. But they don't require me to spend hours to pick. There was a aha moment that I realized fashion company has designed. for people who are into fashion. Not for people like me. I just want to get ready for my day and be successful. I don't care what I wear as long as I get a job, get a date, and close a deal. And I start doing research as a good marketer.

We all know, researching customer, interviewing your persona, understanding the reach out for the focus group. And I found that a lot of people think like me. They hate shopping. They hate laundry. They are very practical. They have been wearing the same thing last 10 years. They opened their closet. There were only five pen brands, Nike, Lulu Lemon Banana Republic, and they are all busy men.

And that's how Taylor was started. And you just said something very interesting. They're all busy men. That's right. Is Taylor more geared for men versus women or is there a mix? We only provide men's wear. Oh, I did not know that. Okay.

Great. Okay. So this is now I'm getting it. Yeah. So you even have an ideal market. So this is for the working man that has no time to go shopping, doesn't hate them all. You don't even start talking about ironing the clothes. Oh my God.

So that makes a lot more sense. So this is menswear. And for busy, I'm going to say entrepreneurial C-suite, busy men traveling, looking for being able to send their clothes, get there, wear them. drop them off, move on with their lives. Yeah, or a single guy who really not into fashion but want to look great. A lot of our customers are sales guy. They are realtor.

They know looking good. First impression matters. They only have a few seconds to get attention from their clients, customers. But they don't want to wear the same thing again and again. They don't want to think about fashion. They definitely hate to go more, go to a mall. And they love there as a personal stylist on their side. almost like the gadget guy behind a superhero,

just like an exactly assistant to helping them out, while they don't have to pay premium just like celebrities in those Hollywood. And how are you attracting the men right now? Like what type of marketing are you using and or business tactics are you using for the awareness? Yeah. So a lot of our traffic entry to come from Gemini and Chachypte. We do very well in AISEO, AEO, AGO, AGO, AGO, So we work with, we manage those things.

And for people who may not familiar with that, as you know, people don't always search on internet anymore to ask those AIs to answer the question. And the difference between the AI SEO search engine optimization from before searching engine optimization for Google is that it did hear a lot more about sentiment. Before it was more about as many keywords as you can put on your website,

as many relevant links linking to your side and you rent high. Those were still somehow to be true. But now the AI even care even more about sentiment. So how people say about you on Reddit, how people were reviewing trust pilots in Google map and yachts, it become even more valuable. How people say about you and how people use you in what context is valuable. Also, Gemini and those Chachypti, they do. you read more than text. So in the past for Google, you have to put the text of every images

and video because Google, the squalor, but doesn't read those things. But nowadays, those AI actually can read video so they know the content from your podcast, for example, and those multimedia unstructured data become even more valuable. This has turned into Taylor.aI now into marketing SEO, GEO services. So let's dive into that because I think that's super important right now

and the game as has changed. And it seems like you figured out the game or you're working the game. So when you started, you just named you said C, you said SEO, you said AIEO, you said GEO. I think you named a couple.

What were they all? Yeah. I think this is the terminology doesn't matter. What's really matter is that people search. our ask questions on Chachupidi and Gemini today. Yeah. They're going Google.

So which you want the ChachapD answer, whatever question they ask, such as, hey, I'm going to your for conference, what do you think should I wear? You want the answer coming from like Taylor's side, for example, my side, versus I don't want them coming from GQ. I want Taylor to be the answer when ChachapD answer those questions, right? Because Chachapee doesn't know the answer. So Chachviti have to go find on the Internet for whoever provided an answer and feed it to the customers and the users. So in our model, for example, we write blog content.

That's specifically tailored to what kind of question people will ask through Chachyptee. So people ask Chachypti very differently from when they search on Google. In the past, they might say, man's wear trend, 2026. But today, when they go to ChfGPT, they were like, hey, this. I'm going to this conference. This is a conference. This is I want to close a deal with the client. This is why I'm selling.

Tell me, what should I wear? They tell a lot more context, right? So you have to think about what people will be asking them, those AI-S-E AI tool, AI search engine, AI chatbot, and come out with the answer that you think will be relevant to the questions. Then you put those questions in on your website, for example, but become blog. or you partner with bloggers on those.

So blogs are still more important than ever, it seems like, right now is what I'm hearing. I think that content continued to be important, the podcast, the PR, the blog. However, I think how it becomes structure becomes different. For example, instead of saying that as a third party view of like fashion this year, most trendy color, by the way, is a mocha, which is a light brown. And last year was the red wine color maroon. So instead of think about these, you think about, for example, with our fashion, like stylus to write something, which we say it's actually from the stylus with a point of view, it become much more relevance nowadays. And that's how we were able to want

American Marketing Association. Last year, we were the best campaign of the year because we get 10 million impressions from chat GPT without spent any money. Wow, this is amazing. I didn't even know that we're going to go down this road. So you guys got a big award because you guys figured out how to get

the most impressions from chat GPT. I'm just trying to reverse engineer, right? So the whole point of the podcast, right, is to figure out what's that one thing. If people are listening here, I want to give them this one thing. And we're going to get to this one thing. And right now what I'm hearing is there's a way to win the GPT game so that you show up. And if you do that enough, you start getting awards, you start getting recognized.

And what I'm hearing from you is being, you said, the sentiment, you said in relevance. So, and then I'm also thinking, is there backlink still a thing? Are people, are back links very important? I think it's less important than before, but it's still a component of search and optimizing because CHGPD today is still calling Google. So whatever you run high on Google, still fit into CHGPT. You just on top of what's in the past, there are more stuff. And also, whatever information is proprietary become even more important.

I would give you an example. How do we get one of the award was that we start with what? people will ask and then we put together some of the answer and the questions from marketer. We ask our human stylist, they provide a point of view on those answers, which you couldn't find it on the internet, which would bring our proprietary data. But then from those answers, we use augmented with AI. So AI, more information become those amazing content, which could be putting on our product detail page.

You see this short, you should pay the shirt with the other sure. and then it linked to the blog page with internal linking from these white shirts. It linked to this block talking about how to wear a white shirt but not boring. And then we send this information when customers are renting clothes, we send the styling notes. So then when they open their package with rental clothes, you also say, hey, Mr. Key, wear these with another brown shoes. You will be perfect for day night. but if you don't want to go to day night, you want a more casual,

white sneaker is your perfect bet. So you also have this information and customer provide feedback. Feedback of the clothes, customer buy the clothes, or customer browsing on the side, who haven't signed up, they also click around and read the information.

And all of those information, feedback to the AI again, so the AI generating better content and our human styles are revising again. So it's a flywheel that is human, AI, human AI, human AI. And that's how we were able to make

these amazing content that include proprietary data and also attract a lot of impressions from Gemini and Chad GPD. So you're doing the heat maps. What I'm hearing is you got the heat maps going on the website. The AI is looking at the heat maps, looking at where people are going and then

getting smarter as it creates more of that content and answering more of those questions because it's pulling the questions off of the placement of where people are going on your website. but also the actual live human feedback that's coming even off website. Like actually, when they get the packages, they're giving back your feedback. So basically taking the feedback of all your customers and just keep asking the questions and having AI get smarter and smarter.

That's right. And this becomes incredibly important. And so one concept that you should know in the era of AI, data is a goal. Because AI only grow with proprietary data. If you don't have a proprietary data, which means whatever you're using through Gemini or CHHGBT, you can still do a great job for productivity, but it's going to be unlikely that you become a true AI-native company. But nowadays, it become more valuable with proprietary data. For example, Mr. Key interviewing hundreds of people.

So you have a lot of insight on how to be a successful marketer. And that's something that other people don't know, only mostly you know. and you also have additional point of view from those conversations with a guess. And that's something that cannot easily find on the internet. And they become a goal today. So for example, after people renting clothes, they tend to give us feedback.

After we rent the clothes, we tend to know the real quality after washes. Okay, renting three times, second button, fall off. So we know those feedback, then we make AI model and agents again and become a tool for a fashion brand to predict what's going to sell. And they become our proprietary data and allow us to be an AI native company. Yeah. So your data, the data, it's all in the data is what you're saying. And you're collecting the data points, the AI is making the recommendations

and really looking at the data quicker and faster than any human can and creating more outputs and opportunities from that data. So you end up, you're going to end up being a data company versus. That's right. That's right. That's right. Today, 40% of clothes goes to unsold. So it's a $40 billion in the U.S. today of the clothes for menswear actually unsull every year.

So we have found that our data insights can really help fashion brand. Imagine you are fashion designer. You are designing something. They're supposed to be 22 years from today. Imagine you are wholesale buyer. You have to buy, place, $400 million of clothes. And all you have was last year's sales number. And as you know, what's trendy in fashion last year?

It's not trendy. It's not as far as if, what I'm pretty much as tomorrow's weller, based on yesterday's weller. Right. So how we were able to do is we found this amazing insight from the customer can help solve the industry problem and also reduce the future waste from those brands. You just said a static, 40% of the clothes at the end of year go to waste? Yeah, in the war today. And then 30% of the clothes in the world actually goes to landfill.

In the world? In the world? Yeah, most of a brand only have sales through rate between 20 to 80%, which means an average 40% will end up on sale. And those clothes that end up in the landfill, usually you get burned and then you generate 8% of carbon emissions. Wow. I did not know that. 40% of the clothes that you go searching through in a mall, let's just say, on a rack will end up 40% of it on average ends up in the landfill being burned. That's right. That's right. So it's a lot of waste. It's a real problem in the industry, not to mention even for people after buy the clothes and they go. home. Most of people only wear less than 20% of what they have in their closet. You just love

the few shorts. You always think that one day I wear a less skin gene that I bought five years ago, which you never do. And by the end of the day, you feel like, okay, I'm going to give it to pool and donate somewhere. Most of them just end up in the landfill again. The donations end up in the landfill as well. So that's what you're trying to. So Taylor.a.I is not just becoming a the fastest growing data company around fashion and clothing, you're also actually doing one step better in helping the world become a better place and an emissions free place.

Now, I believe the real wear data is valuable. Think about this. Almost all of the e-commerce, they only know how people buy, but they don't know what people, real feedback after they wear the clothes. Right? If I buy the clothes,

I don't even know if am I wearing, or someone else wearing it. How many times I wear it? When I wear it, how do I feel? Oh, the shoulder is a little bit too tight. He'll be a little bit itchy after I wash five times. It's shrink after watched 10 times. You don't know those things.

The other thing is that today, if I ask you which brand is mostly sustainable? Then you answer based on whoever do most marketing saying that around sustainable. Right? Nobody knows. How do you know? Did you actually do a test wash? Like, oh, you can wash 10 times. This one only wash five times.

You don't know that. But we do. As a rental company, we know the true quality of a garment. We know which brand the product is really most sustainable. And we believe those data can help them as well because a lot of them, they don't even know. They outsorted to big manufacturer. They outsorted to small factory. After batches of batches of inventory, they don't even know the true quality or the issues of garments.

And that's where we come in. We put the missing feedback loop between the customer's feedback to the brand partners or brand designers or the wholesalers. And all of this stem from a day. I love the quote you said earlier. You basically said, I don't care what I'm wearing. I just want to wear something that makes me look good. Act as if because I just want to get the deal done today.

That's right. That's right. One day we have a customer, he said, we say, hey, how's going? What do you want to wear next few weeks from our human stylist? And he said, I am going court. I'm getting divorced. I want to fight for my children.

I want to get the rights. And so I don't care what I wear as long as I win the case. So that's it. That's his goal. Anything that I wear can close a winter case. We have a customer say, I don't know, but I'm going on day nights tomorrow. So our stylist is saving a blazer. He's like, you know, I'm pretty more like a hot type of person.

I'm not always needing blazer. And I was the stylist, I know, it's day night. Just bring it. After he walked out the restaurant at 9 p.m., the woman feels a little bit chilly. He put the blazers on the top of the shoulder. I love it. I love it. The next day.

Yeah, you got a second date just because of the blazer. This is fascinating for all the men listening right now. if you have a fashion problem or if you want to make fashion easier for yourself and be able to have, I would say, more options in the closet, this is the place to be. It's tailor.a.i. For any of those listening, like what are some last words for them of where they can maybe find you, what they need to know about your services and where they go. Yeah, go on a website, which is taylor.com.

that's T-A-E-L-O-R-T-Y-E-T-Y-L-E-T-L-E-T-L-E-T-L-E-T-L-E-T-L-E-R-T-E-E-E-L-T-E-L-E-E-T-E-E-E-T-E-E-E-P-E-C-E-E-L-E-E-E-C-E-L-E-E-V-E-J-E-A-L-E-R-E-E-E-J-E-E-L-E-A-L-D-E-W-R-E-L-E-E-C-J-S-E-C-E-E-F-E-E-D-E-F-R-E-E-J-F-D-E-E-E-E-W podcast gift, then you get 10% of gift card. And we'll make sure we have that all in the show notes. Again, thank you. I know you must be really busy on the back end there. So thank you so much for stopping by and letting us know a little bit more about obviously what Taylor.a.I is, but I think there was even more gold here with how we can start thinking about how we show

up in the LLMs and GBTs and that for our businesses. Yeah, thank you so much. This is Anya Chen from Taylor. Thank you.