How to Write an Elevator Pitch for People and AI Search
The Elevator Pitch Now Has Two Audiences: People and AI Search
What an elevator historian taught me about pitching people and machines
If you’re a thought leader, executive, or founder whose work is better than your visibility, your elevator pitch is the first place to look. Why is this?
The short answer is your elevator pitch now has two audiences: the person deciding whether you matter to them and the AI tool that may summarize what you do when someone goes looking. Write it in two sentences that name who you help and what changes for them. Add one human detail. Then use the same core language across your website, LinkedIn, bio, speaker page, and or podcast so people and AI tools can repeat you accurately.
A clear pitch does more than make networking easier. It helps the right clients, referral partners, event organizers, journalists, and AI search experiences understand why you are relevant before you ever enter the room.
The Chicago elevator that taught me about branding
One of the best parts of my teaching day on Michigan Avenue was the elevator ride.
I taught branding for creatives at Ascend Training in the Fine Arts Building on Michigan Avenue, which still has some of the last manually operated public passenger elevators in the city. The cars are maroon and gold, with accordion gates, glass doors, and an operator who takes you to your floor. Replacement parts and specialized mechanics have become hard to find, so these cars are being phased out. If you’re in Chicago, ride one while you can.
I never thought of that ride as a marketing lesson. Then, on a Friday morning in Charlotte, a professor emeritus of architectural history changed my mind.
Why an elevator works like a magic trick
Dr. Lee Gray has spent his career studying elevators, and he made the case that elevators are more important than just giving us a lift.
I heard him speak at CreativeMornings Charlotte, where the theme was Altitude. Dr. Lee Gray is a professor emeritus of architectural history at UNC Charlotte. Since 2003, he has written a monthly column on the history of vertical transportation for Elevator World magazine. He also wrote From Ascending Rooms to Express Elevators, a history of the passenger elevator in the 19th century.
He told us how he chose elevators as a focus. When it was time to pick a lifelong topic, he used one criterion: which one would be the most fun. Elevators won.
His argument for why they matter is compelling. The passenger elevator has one of the biggest cultural footprints of any building technology. You step into a closed box, the doors shut, and when they open, you are somewhere else.
Dr. Gray says the elevator works like a magic trick. That may be why elevators keep turning up in songs, movies, novels, and comic books. He also pointed out that an elevator is an awkward social space, where strangers have to work out how to behave in a few square feet.
I saw a design version of that at the Design Museum in London. The elevator doors carry a poster that reads, “Design. Humanity’s Best Friend.” The doors close, the message sits in front of you, and for a few seconds, you are a captive audience. Someone decided that moment was worth designing.
Why your pitch now has to work for people and AI search
The elevator pitch has always been a closed box: you get a few floors to make someone feel something before the doors open.
What has changed is who else is in the car.
The first rider is still a person. People rarely choose based on features alone. Facts matter, but people respond to relevance, recognition, and the possibility of a better outcome. A list of services or credentials may be accurate, but it does not necessarily give someone a reason to care.
The second rider is an AI tool. It may retrieve, summarize, compare, or surface your work when someone asks a relevant question. An AI tool has a better chance of representing you accurately when your public language is clear, consistent, and easy to restate.
Those needs work together.
A pitch that is specific and human is usually easier for a machine to summarize, too. The pitch that fails both audiences is vague: plenty of adjectives, no named audience, no clear outcome, and no evidence of why the work matters.
The payoff for getting this right is that the right clients, event organizers, referral partners, journalists, and AI search experiences can find you, understand your value, and describe you accurately before you ever enter the conversation.
How to write an elevator pitch for people and AI search
Here are five steps that make a pitch easier for people to remember and easier for AI tools to summarize accurately. I’m using them on my own pitch.
1. Name the audience and the transformation
Write two sentences that say who you help and what changes for them.
Avoid starting with “I’m passionate about” or listing services before the listener understands the outcome. Begin with the audience you serve, then explain the result you help create.
For example:
I help experts and executives turn their expertise into a clear, credible presence that makes them easier to find, trust, and choose. Through advisory work, keynotes, and workshops, I help them turn visibility into qualified conversations and real opportunities.
2. Add one human detail
Include a moment, a before-and-after, or a feeling your audience will recognize.
The best pitches do more than explain what you do. They show that you understand the problem from the inside.
For example:
I help leaders close the gap between “I’m excellent at what I do” and “Why isn’t the market seeing me?”
That sentence gives someone a recognizable tension. It is also easier to remember than a string of broad words such as “elevate,” “transform,” or “amplify.”
3. Use the same core language everywhere
Keep the language consistent across your website, LinkedIn, bio, speaker page, podcast, newsletter, and media materials.
You do not need identical copy everywhere. You do need consistent terms for:
- Who you help
- What you help them do
- What changes as a result
- The services or formats through which you work
- The language you want others to use when they describe you
Consistency helps people remember you. It also gives search engines and AI tools a clearer, more reliable picture of your expertise.
4. Test whether AI tools can summarize you accurately
Ask two or three AI tools to describe what you do, who you serve, and why someone might hire you based only on publicly available information.
Try a prompt like this:
Based only on public information, what does [your name] do, who do they help, and why might someone hire them?
Compare the answer with your intended positioning.
If an AI tool leaves out your audience, confuses your services, uses language you would never choose, or cannot explain your value clearly, that is useful feedback. The problem may not be the tool. It may be that your public presence is sending mixed signals. Answers vary by tool and by source, so ask each one to cite the pages it used.
5. Test whether a person can repeat it after one hearing
Say your pitch out loud in the time it takes to ride a few floors.
Aim for roughly 30 to 45 words, or about 15 seconds when spoken naturally. It should be long enough to name the audience and outcome, but short enough that someone else can repeat the essence without losing the point.
If you run out of floors, cut.
An elevator pitch example for AI search
Here is the difference between a vague pitch and a clearer one.
Too vague:
I help leaders elevate their brands and grow their visibility.
Clearer for people and AI search:
I help experts and executives turn their expertise into a clear, credible presence that makes them easier to find, trust, and choose. Through advisory work, keynotes, and workshops, I help them turn visibility into qualified conversations and real opportunities that attract attention, build brand trust, and nurture relationships.
Why does the second version work better?
It names:
- The audience: experts and executives
- The change: a clear, credible presence
- The business value: easier to find, trust, and choose
- The way you work: advisory work, keynotes, and workshops
- The outcome: qualified conversations and real opportunities
It gives people language they can repeat. It gives AI tools clearer context. And it gives a potential client a reason to understand why your work matters. If you’d like to share your two-sentence pitch, I’d love to read it. If your introduction no longer reflects the work you want to be hired for, you can explore how I work through my advisory practice.
Gain altitude before you write your pitch
Matt Olin, co-founder of CreativeMornings Charlotte, opened the morning with a reminder that thinking from a higher vantage point tends to be bigger and more creative, while thinking on the ground stays literal. His advice was to go up, gain some altitude, then come back down and make something worthy of the climb.
That’s how you want to treat your elevator pitch.
Step back far enough to see the whole thing: your expertise, your experience, the people you serve, and the transformation you make possible. Then return to the ground and write the version someone can say in a few floors.
Thank you to UNC Charlotte for hosting us during Niner Nation Week Homecoming and to the CreativeMornings Charlotte team for a morning worth getting up for. Thanks for the Homecoming T-shirt, too, which I have already worn to my Colvard Park in University City neighborhood gathering.
Frequently asked questions
How do I write an elevator pitch that works for AI search?
Start with two sentences. The first names the specific audience you help. The second names the outcome or transformation you create. Add a concrete detail that signals your experience or point of view, then use the same core wording across your website, LinkedIn, bio, speaker page, and other public profiles.
How do I know whether AI tools describe me accurately?
Ask two or three AI tools to describe what you do, who you serve, and why someone might hire you based only on public information. Compare the answers with your intended positioning. If the audience, outcome, or expertise is missing or inconsistent, clarify the relevant pages and profiles.
How long should an elevator pitch be?
Aim for about 30 to 45 words, or roughly 15 seconds spoken aloud. It should be long enough to name your audience and outcome, but short enough that another person can repeat the essence without losing the point.
Should my pitch use the same words everywhere?
Use the same core language across your website, LinkedIn, bio, speaker page, podcast, newsletter, and media materials. The wording does not have to be identical, but your audience, expertise, and outcome should remain consistent. That consistency helps people, search engines, and AI tools understand and repeat your message accurately.
Your next move
Your elevator pitch should make it easy for the right people to understand why you matter—and easy for AI tools to describe you without guessing.
Write your two sentences. Test them with a person and an AI tool. Revise until both can say back what you want to be known for.
If your expertise is clearer in your head than it is in the market, that gap is fixable. A strong elevator pitch can become the foundation for your website, LinkedIn profile, speaker materials, media bio, thought leadership, and AI visibility strategy.
About the author
Barbara Rozgonyi helps experts and executives become easier to find, trust, and choose by people and by AI tools so their expertise turns into qualified conversations and real opportunities. She helps close the gap between “I’m excellent at what I do” and “Why isn’t the market seeing me?” with clear messaging and a presence that moves the right people to act.
Barbara founded Social Media Club Chicago in 2008 and has published wiredPRworks since 2006. Follow her current work via the Brighter Presence newsletter and podcast.
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