Paula French on “The Signal”: What AI Search Means for Higher Education Marketing
June 26th, 2026 by
Enrollment marketers are losing prospective students at a stage they never even see.
Before a student fills out a form, visits a program page, or clicks a single ad, they are already building a short list. They are asking AI tools detailed questions, comparing programs, and forming preferences, and the institutions not showing up in those responses are not part of the consideration set.
Paula French, director of sales and marketing at Search Influence, joined Jeff Dillon on “The Signal” podcast to talk through what that means for enrollment marketing and what to do about it. The episode is titled “From Clicks to Conversions: A Practical Playbook for AI Search” and is available to stream on all major platforms.
AI Is Where Decisions Get Made Now
Research confirms what enrollment marketers are starting to feel.
Our AI search in higher education research, co-authored with UPCEA, found that half of prospective students now use AI tools as part of their research process, 79% read Google’s AI Overviews, and 56% are more likely to trust institutions that appear as AI-cited sources. Traditional search engine usage still leads at 84%, but AI tools have taken on a role that changes the stakes entirely.
AI does something old Google did not. It moves people toward a decision. Students are not just discovering programs through AI. They are evaluating them, narrowing their options, and, in many cases, making up their minds before they ever land on a school’s website. For enrollment marketers, the consideration set is being shaped somewhere they have historically had no presence in and no visibility into.
You Are Closer Than You Think
For institutions wondering where to even begin, the answer starts with what they are likely already doing.
Organic search is the foundation of AI search visibility. Google AI Overviews and Gemini pull from Google’s organic results. ChatGPT and Copilot ground their answers in Bing. This means that institutions already investing in organic search are building AI visibility at the same time. The key is making sure content is structured around how students are actually prompting these tools. Specific, question-based content focused on program outcomes performs well across both channels.
Where to Start
That translates into a clear starting point: Pick one high-priority program and go deep.
Write a clear description of what the program is, who it is for, and what the outcome looks like. Add program-specific FAQs drawn from the questions students are actually asking, not generic questions, but the specific ones that come up in real conversations with prospective students. That content structure is exactly what AI search tools pull from when generating responses to program-related queries.
Beyond the page itself, the signals institutions put out across their websites, social channels, profiles, and media mentions all factor into how AI understands and represents them. Those are all channels enrollment teams can actively manage, and building consistent signals across them is one of the most direct paths to earning visibility in AI-generated answers.
As Paula puts it, universities have more control over their AI visibility than they realize, and working on it does not have to be a daunting thing.
About the Episode
“From Clicks to Conversions: A Practical Playbook for AI Search” is the 92nd episode of “The Signal,” a podcast hosted by Jeff Dillon, founder of EdTech Connect. The show brings together researchers, practitioners, and technology leaders across higher education to examine the ideas shaping how institutions operate and compete. Dillon has been a consistent voice in the higher ed digital marketing space, and this episode continues a conversation he and Paula began earlier this year when the two appeared together in a SearchStax webinar examining how AI search is reshaping the student enrollment journey.
Want the full episode? Listen to “From Clicks to Conversions: A Practical Playbook for AI Search” on “The Signal” wherever you get your podcasts.
