TOFU content is back in play for AI visibility.

I tested whether a brand cited at the Problem stage of a conversation survives to the Selection stage. Ran 20 buyer journeys twice through GPT-5.2 in Semrush's AI Visibility Toolkit, once with minimal reasoning, once with high.

Minimal reasoning: 0 journeys show this kind of persistence. High reasoning: 4 journeys, persisting across all 5 stages.

All 4 persistent journeys are in Finance. The same authoritative-source content (regulatory pages, official brand sites) that drives Finance's +28pp citation lift also anchors persistence.

Loosen the test from cited domain to brand mentioned in the answer text, and persistence shows up in 3 high-reasoning journeys vs 2 minimal-reasoning. Consumer Tech enters here through Sony and Canon getting named without links, which is its own form of category dominance.

In my recent AI Mode study, users reacted hardest to shortlists at decision time, which made BOFU prompts look like the only game worth playing. Persistence pulls the focus back up the funnel for high-reasoning sessions.

If your buyers run hard prompts, the Problem stage matters again.

Full analysis in this week's Growth Memo.