250+ CMOs Gather at Pepper's INDEX'26 to Discuss the Future of AI Search and Organic Growth

250+ people at INDEX'26 New York

Jonathan Metrick (Sagard), Neal Behrend (Insight Partners), and Tara Marsh (Bain & Company), speaking on a panel on AI Search Trends from a Macro Perspective at INDEX'26 NY

Kishan Panpalia, Founding Team at Pepper, taking the workshop that was photographed over 200+ times

Hosted by Pepper, INDEX'26, one of the world's leading AI Search summits united leaders from KPMG, Uber, Samsung, Bain, Unilever, and more around the AI Search

NEW YORK CITY, NJ, UNITED STATES, June 4, 2026 /EINPresswire.com/ -- Pepper today announced the successful completion of INDEX'26: The GEO Growth Summit, one of the world's leading gatherings dedicated to AI Search, Generative Engine Optimization (GEO), and the future of brand discovery.

Held at The Union League Club in New York City, the invite-only summit brought together more than 250+ CMOs, Chief Growth Officers, investors, SEO and Growth Marketing operators, and enterprise leaders from some of the world's most influential organizations to discuss what many attendees described as the most significant shift in marketing since the invention of search itself.

Following a highly successful San Francisco edition earlier this year, INDEX'26 New York further cemented the summit's position as a premier forum for senior marketing leaders navigating the transition from traditional search engines to AI-driven discovery platforms such as ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude, Perplexity, and AI-powered search experiences.

The summit featured more than 25+ speakers and leaders from organizations including KPMG, Uber, Samsung Ads, Unilever, Bain & Company, Insight Partners, G2, Optimizely, DTCC, RocketReach, Major League Soccer, Horizon Media, Blackbird.ai, WiseLine, Arbor Realty Trust, and others.

Across keynote sessions, executive panels, investor discussions, and practitioner workshops, a single theme emerged - The interface between buyers and brands has moved inside the machine.

"Search created a generation of winners. AI Search will create the next generation. For more than two decades, brands optimized for rankings, traffic, and clicks. Today, buyers are increasingly discovering, evaluating, and shortlisting companies inside AI systems before they ever visit a website. The companies that win over the next decade will not simply be the most visible on Google. They will be the most retrievable, most cited, and most trusted across AI systems. What we witnessed at INDEX'26 was a recognition that this is no longer an SEO conversation. It's a boardroom conversation." said Anirudh Singla, Co-Founder and CEO of Pepper.

AI Search is moving from marketing trend to an executive priority. Throughout the summit, marketing leaders, investors, and operators explored how AI systems are fundamentally changing buyer behavior and how this was now a board-level conversation.

Speakers highlighted how AI engines increasingly synthesize information, recommend vendors, compare solutions, and influence purchasing decisions long before users reach a company website.

Key themes discussed throughout the day included:

- The rise of AI-native discovery journeys
- The changing role of the CMO in an AI-first world
- Consumer behavior when AI becomes the recommendation engine
- B2B demand generation in the era of AI answers
- Investor and boardroom perspectives on AI visibility
- Trust, compliance, and reputation management in AI-generated experiences
- Practical frameworks for operationalizing Generative Engine Optimization (GEO)

Executives across consumer brands, financial services institutions, enterprise software companies, and investment firms discussed how retrieval, citation, authority, and trust are becoming increasingly important competitive advantages in AI-mediated buying journeys. They all agreed to the fat that "GEO Is Not Just A Channel. It's a Strategy That Lies At The Cusp Of Multiple Channels," as quoted by Kishan Panpalia, Founding Team and Resident AI Search Expert at Pepper.

One of the most repeated themes throughout the event was that Generative Engine Optimization is not simply an extension of SEO. Rather, speakers emphasized that success in AI Search requires coordinated efforts across content, PR, brand, product marketing, thought leadership, customer advocacy, and technical infrastructure.

Attendees explored how organizations can move beyond tracking mentions and visibility metrics to building durable authority across the growing ecosystem of AI-powered discovery platforms.

INDEX'26 reflects the growing momentum behind AI Search as a strategic business priority, making it "one of the most actionable conferences ever", as mentioned by one of the CMO attendees of a Fortune 1000 company. As AI increasingly mediates the relationship between buyers and brands, conversations that once lived inside SEO teams are rapidly moving into executive leadership meetings, boardrooms, and investor discussions.

With successful editions in both San Francisco and New York, INDEX has quickly emerged as one of the industry's most important forums for leaders seeking to understand and operationalize the future of AI-driven discovery.

Pepper plans to continue expanding INDEX as a global platform for education, collaboration, and innovation around AI Search, GEO, and the next generation of organic growth.

About Pepper:

Pepper is an AI-native organic growth platform helping enterprises drive visibility across both traditional search and AI-powered discovery platforms. Combining strategy, technology, and execution, Pepper helps brands improve retrieval, citation, authority, and demand generation across Google, ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude, Perplexity, and emerging AI ecosystems.

Kishan Panpalia
Pepper
+1 4157545133
kishan@peppercontent.io
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