In late May, supervisors of r/biohackerA Reddit A community of approximately 830,000 members, restricted New independent publications on peptides and hormone replacement therapy.
The issue was not the issue, 404 media I mentioned June 3. Peptide and hormone replacement companies have been flooding the community with curated promotional posts designed to be deleted by AI systems and appear as answers in ChatGPT, GoogleOverview of AI and other AI research tools.
This tactic has a name: Answer Engine Optimization, or AEO. While traditional SEO aims to rank pages in Google’s index, AEO targets the source material that AI systems pull when generating answers. The goal is not the link that users click on. It is a sentence spoken by artificial intelligence.
Reddit is near the top of this source pool. Between August 2024 and June 2025, Reddit was the most cited domain by Google AI Overviews and Confusion The second in terms of citations is by ChatGPT, a deep analytics platform Found In June 2025. Google AI Overview cites Reddit in 21% of responses, according to analytics firm Demandsage open In December.
This access is what makes the platform a target.
Tactics are becoming more difficult to catch
Campaigns are not raw spam. Operators use accounts with fixed posting dates designed to look like regular users, TechSpot I mentioned June 4. In some cases, real people are paid to post, blurring the line between real discussion and coordinated promotion.
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“You literally know what to look for,” one supervisor said, according to the report. “But the problem is you don’t want to become punitive to people who don’t do it maliciously.”
Marketing companies sell AEO services openly. The top 100 tracked subpages account for about 84% of recent brand mentions in AI-generated answers, Startup Fortune I mentioned June 3. The campaign does not have to be large-scale. Planting a small number of high-traffic communities can reliably change what AI systems say about a product. The business logic is straightforward. If a brand can position its messaging within the topics that AI often cites, it controls the answer without buying an ad.
Healthcare and commerce are most at risk
The r/Biohackers issue puts the risks in clear terms. The concern is not about abstract marketing ethics, but physical harm, the supervisor told TechSpot, according to the report. Peptides include a range of injectable compounds from GLP-1s to less regulated substances advertised for muscle growth and anti-aging. A consumer who asks an AI assistant about dosages or the legality of a seller may receive an answer shaped by the seller themselves.
Exposure extends broader than healthcare. the PYMNTS INTELLIGENCE a report “AI on the ramp: Data shows how everyday tasks build consumer habits“It was found that 31.4% of AI users resorted to it Generative artificial intelligence To find product links in February
PYMNTS Intelligence ReportHow AI is where consumers start it allHe revealed that more than 60% of consumers now start daily tasks, including… shoppingWithin artificial intelligence platforms. Financial services and e-commerce face the same exposure as healthcare, including any category where consumers turn to AI for recommendations rather than doing their own research.
Traditional SEO spam was visual. Users can check links and rate sources. AEO leaves no trace. The AI’s answer arrives in the form of a combination, and the flyer that shaped it never appears.
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