SMASH 2026 Recap: AI Search and Budget Takeaways for Senior Living Marketers
November 5th, 2026 by
TL;DR: Three takeaways from SMASH 2026 in Las Vegas: build AI the way you build anything that matters, automate the admin so people can do the creative thinking, and pitch marketing budgets with honest ranges rather than made-up exact numbers.
Key Insights
- AI adoption happens in stages, and the organizations that manage it well put the right person or team in charge of it.
- Plenty of processes call for automation first, and bundling automation with AI into a single initiative is a smart way to get both done.
- The best use of AI is to free up more time for creative thinking and strategy, with a human at both ends of every process.
- A marketing budget request lands best when it ties to the rooms it can fill, uses a range, and is honest about uncertainty.
I spent October 5-7 in Las Vegas at the Senior Care Marketing & Sales Summit (SMASH), and it was a milestone week for Search Influence. I was invited to speak, which was an honor, and in conjunction with my presentation, we launched our new Senior Living Search Behavior Report. I really wanted to bring some data on how families use search and AI in their senior living research, so in addition to bringing senior living SEO tactics to the stage, I also brought data to help marketers make a case to focus on AI SEO / GEO.
Between my own session and the research launch, I also made time to sit in on other talks. This post is my recap of the two sessions that stayed with me, along with a look at what we presented. If you work in senior living marketing, I hope you’ll find something here you can put to use. If you want to learn how about how AI SEO / GEO can help occupancy and revenue at your communities, reach out!
What We Shared at SMASH 2026
My session, “Your AI Traffic Will Plateau. Then What?”, covered how senior living marketers can track AI visibility, shape the signals AI reads across their websites, listings, and directories, and describe their communities the same way everywhere.
Session Highlights
- How AI search works. AI search understands full questions, summarizes what it finds, and gives a direct answer with source links to back it up.
- Citation and mention. There are two ways to be included in an AI answer. A citation means your brand is the source of the answer. A mention means your brand is in the answer. Families ask informational questions, like “how much does assisted living cost in Palm Beach, FL?”, and commercial ones, like “what are the best independent living communities in Raleigh, NC?” Each calls for a different goal.
- What it takes to show up. AI authority is a probability game. The communities that appear more often and more consistently across the web are more likely to be surfaced and cited.
- Where to start. The top three must-dos: make your highest traffic page AI-readable, build two or three authoritative citations, and set your AI visibility baseline.
New Data From the Senior Living Search Behavior Report
During the session, we also debuted brand-new data from the Senior Living Search Behavior Report, a survey of 300 families who are currently searching for senior living or have searched in the past 12 months. Some top takeaways:
- 43% start their search with a search engine or an AI tool before contacting any community.
- 69% trust a site more when an AI answer cites it.
- 57% seriously consider only two or three communities.
- 44% remove a community from their list over something they read online.
The report has all 35 figures, the methodology, and the respondent profile. If you missed the session, download the full report and bring the numbers to your next marketing meeting.
Leading Organizational Change: When the Future Won’t Sit Still
Mathew Sweezey’s session on AI adoption and enablement matched our own experience as an organization at Search Influence. He described three levels of adoption: Adapt, Rewire, and Reinvent.
As organizations build their AI enablement infrastructure, the right team or person has to manage it.
- An opportunity for service providers. Managed service providers can evolve their offerings to support this, and some agencies, Search Influence included, already build and maintain AI enablement tools and infrastructure for their clients.
- Quick tools versus true infrastructure. You can create an AI tool quickly. A true AI infrastructure for a team or company takes more care.
- Use time-tested development processes like Scrum and Agile, including user stories, two-week sprints, and proper QA.
Mat also made a point I have felt strongly about since people started using AI in their processes. Most processes need automation, and that’s okay. Many teams bundle automation and AI-driven improvements together, rightfully so, and get it all done through their AI initiatives.
His last point was about the benefit of working with and through AI. A human is always in the loop. At Search Influence, we call it the “AI Sandwich”:
- Human: Sets the direction and prompts the AI
- AI: Does the heavy lifting and produces the first draft
- Human: Reviews the work, refines it, and adds the human touch
Mat talked about getting “more cycles” and reducing the time between creative thinking and direction. There is so much waste and admin in our days. Think about all the copy and paste, and the switching from one system to another, one document to another.
How much of your time goes to creative thinking and strategy, compared with admin that could be handed to the machine?
- Keep the creative thinking and strategy for yourself. Those skills are what will help you stand out.
- Give yourself more cycles. Build that muscle, and spend less time on cmd+C, cmd+V. That extra time goes to the work only people can do: the ideas, the judgment, and the relationships.
How to Pitch a Marketing Budget Increase to Senior Living Leadership
Susan Wenograd presented a strong framework for pitching marketing budgets to leadership at senior living operators, built around shifts in occupancy.
Here is the framework in short:
- Align with leadership on occupancy. Agree on what they consider strong or weak occupancy before you ask for anything.
- Review occupancy monthly at a minimum. Levels can change quickly.
- Remember that doing nothing costs money. A flat budget has a price, too.
- Tie the request to rooms. Estimate how many rooms or spots the increase can fill, and use a range like 4 to 7, not false precision like 5.2 rooms.
Leadership may ask whether you can guarantee results. A good answer is that the increase reduces the uncertainty in filling the beds, but does not eliminate it. You can also tie the likelihood of hitting your goals to the anchor data: “Based on last month’s performance, this is our estimate.” Then share what has to be true for the estimate to hold.
Where to Start After SMASH
Pick one of these this week:
- Ask what part of your workflow is really an automation need, and fix that first.
- Decide who owns your AI tools and processes.
- Take a budget request you have been sitting on and rewrite it with a room range and a “what has to be true” statement.
Not sure which one to start with? Our team can show you where your community stands in search today. Book a call and ask for your Flyover Report, which covers your AI visibility, your competitors’ visibility, and your top opportunities.
Search Influence is a digital marketing agency that provides AI SEO, traditional SEO, digital advertising, and analytics for senior living communities. Learn more about our senior living marketing services today.