AirOps is Getting B2B Video Right. Here's What's Working — And What Could Go Further.

Episode 1 of Video Done Right. AirOps lives and dies by how well it shows up in AI search itself. That makes its video strategy worth a closer look — and there's a lot here other B2B teams can learn from.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CA3J93YHXMk

Key Takeaways

• AirOps treats YouTube like a real channel, not a dumping ground — playlists, thumbnails, and a curated home page.

• Brand-name guests like Andy Crestodina and Ethan Smith do double duty: human trust and LLM co-citation.

• Their own subject matter experts show up on camera. That's the signal LLMs use to decide who to cite.

• Original research published in video format is a citation magnet, because AI can't manufacture original data.

• The biggest opportunity ahead: cutting long-form interviews into single-question shorts and pairing every research post with a video twin.

Who AirOps is

AirOps is a content engineering platform built for AI search. They help marketing teams at Ramp, Webflow, Chime, and Klaviyo show up in answers from ChatGPT, Perplexity, Claude, and Gemini. They live and die by how well their own customers and content get cited by AI engines — which makes their own video strategy a useful tell.

When a company's product depends on AI visibility, watching what they do for their own brand is one of the best ways to learn what's actually working.

Their YouTube channel is a real channel

AirOps has an exemplary YouTube presence across the board. That matters because YouTube is one of the most-cited sources LLMs pull from, especially in the Google ecosystem. Three things make video disproportionately valuable for AI search:

• Video is inherently high-value content. It costs more to produce than a blog, and platforms reward that.

• Third-party platforms like YouTube weigh more than your own domain in AI citations.

• LLMs can read transcripts now, and very soon they'll watch the video itself.

AirOps has coverage across all of that — different format types, different topics, and the whole library has been organized into playlists with thumbnails that have variety and click appeal. Thumbnails matter especially for humans, because if people don't click, they're not watching, and the algorithm reads click-through as a signal of relevance.

Brand-name guests give them co-citation lift

AirOps regularly features recognizable experts in the B2B marketing space — people like Andy Crestodina and Ethan Smith. When experts in your category sit down with you, that's a strong credibility signal in two directions at once.

For human viewers, the trust transfers. Your brand borrows credibility from the guest. For LLMs, co-citation is increasingly a marker of authority — the model sees the same names appearing alongside yours and starts treating you as part of the same expert cluster. There's also straight brand lift in the room: associating yourself with luminaries in your industry rubs off, especially over time.

They put their own people on camera

This is the part most B2B companies miss.

It's inherently less trustworthy when a company toots its own horn. "We're great, trust us" doesn't move anyone. But when your own people show up on camera, you're feeding the AI a clear signal of who at your company knows what — which is exactly what an LLM needs to cite you back as the source.

Internal SMEs can speak with clarity and authority on their area of expertise. Both AI and people prefer specific information to generalized marketing fluff or corporate-speak. Meaty, protein-packed data beats sugary marketing every time. If the people who really know the subject keep showing up to talk about the issues that matter, the trends, and the insights, the LLMs and the buyers will catch on.

Original research published as video

AirOps publishes original research, and they package it as video. That's a high-value differentiator for both AI search and human readers, because original data is one of the few things AI can't manufacture. It has to point somewhere — and your video can be one of the things it points to.

The newer opportunity layered on top of that: every key finding in a research report is its own potential video. You could create a video for every single point in the research at very low cost, and combined with the transcripts, that's even more surface area for AI search to discover and cite.

Customer case studies, on camera, with hard numbers

We always like these. Buyers want to see the story of how you helped someone like them. A well-produced case study video with clear results — data, ROI, named outcomes — is the gold standard. Both decision-makers and AI bots glom onto it.

A real customer saying a real number on camera lands harder than the same line in a text paragraph, and it's much harder for an AI to summarize that away.

Conference content as a content flywheel

AirOps has a conference coming up, and you can tell they're set up to harvest content from it. That means the event won't just promote itself for one week — it'll feed the brand for months in between.

Conferences are a goldmine for content. People are dressed to network, all in one place, and ready to talk. Done wisely, you can get batches of interview content from a wide variety of experts, customers, and execs and use that for months.

A few opportunities to consider

This isn't a criticism. These may already be on their roadmap, or there may be a good reason they're not doing them yet. But when we help clients build a video strategy, here are some things we look for.

Long-form interviews cut into single-question shorts

It didn't seem like AirOps is systematically taking long-form interviews and cutting them into shorts. The format that's going to win for LLM search is single question, single answer — highly targeted, very relevant. If you plan to structure a longer interview that way from the start, one long video can become 10, 20, or even 30 short-form videos.

If those shorts get embedded on highly targeted, optimized blog pages with a transcript and a summary, that's a lot of citation coverage that helps both people and AI bots find your stuff.

Video twins for research-rich and text-only posts

Some of AirOps's customer stories are text only, and some of their research-rich posts don't have a video twin. Pretty much anything you put out today has the opportunity for a quick video summary to ride alongside it — same content, second format, double the surface area for ranking.

Steady cadence, not just launch spikes

We see content spikes around launches, but not so much a steady drumbeat. Frequency is rewarded. It builds expectation, it builds credibility, and when your industry is moving as fast as B2B AI is, the brand that's always there to comment on what's happening carries more weight.

AI search bots are increasingly weighting frequency and recency in citations, and that makes sense. Old news is inherently less relevant, and can frequently be inaccurate when the technology keeps evolving.

Why this matters

Video isn't going away. It's only getting more important, especially in the AI search visibility game. If you think your customers aren't watching video, that's not true. And if it were, the AI bots are reading the transcripts for sure.

You just have to play the video game now. Remember when companies debated whether they needed a website, or social media? We're in the same transformation with video, and AI search just sealed the deal.

If your competition is out there doing video content and you're not, that's probably not going to go great.

If you'd like me to evaluate your own video strategy the way I just looked at AirOps, book a 15-minute call. We'll do a private one where we go through what you're doing and where the opportunities are. Or stick around — this is a live series where we do these teardowns in the open.

Frequently Asked Questions

Why is YouTube important for AI search visibility?

YouTube is one of the most-cited sources LLMs pull from for B2B information. Video is high-value content, third-party platforms weigh more than your own domain in AI citations, and LLMs can read video transcripts (with full video understanding coming soon). A well-organized YouTube channel with playlists and clear thumbnails gives both humans and AI a reason to click and cite.

What does AirOps do well with B2B video?

AirOps runs an exemplary YouTube channel with curated playlists, brand-name expert guests like Andy Crestodina and Ethan Smith, internal subject matter experts on camera, original research published as video, customer case studies with hard numbers, and conference content used as a year-round flywheel.

Why should subject matter experts be on camera?

LLMs need a clear signal of who at your company knows what before they'll cite you as a source. When internal experts show up on camera and speak with specificity and authority, you're feeding both the AI and human buyers exactly the signal they need. Brand voice alone is treated as marketing — expert voice is treated as authority.

What's the biggest video opportunity AirOps could go after next?

Cutting long-form interviews into single-question, single-answer shorts is the highest-leverage move available. One long interview can produce 10 to 30 short videos, each one targeting a specific question buyers are asking AI engines. Embed each short on a dedicated blog page with the transcript and a summary, and you multiply your AI citation surface area dramatically.

How often should B2B companies publish video content?

Steady cadence beats launch spikes. AI search engines weight frequency and recency in citations, because old content is more likely to be inaccurate as technology evolves. The brand that consistently shows up to comment on what's happening in its industry will be cited more often than the brand that only publishes around launches.