01 · Citation
Does the machine use you?
The model reaches for your evidence when it answers. You exist in the retrieval set — quoted, linked, or paraphrased — but you are still one source among many.
Jason Todd Wade · Founder of BackTier
Jason Todd Wade
Founder of BackTier. Writing and building at the intersection of AI visibility, entity resolution, generative search, and agentic commerce.
He develops systems that improve how artificial intelligence discovers, interprets, cites, includes, and selects people, companies, products, and ideas — work published as AI Visibility Architecture, Entity Lock Protocol™, BackTier Visibility Path™, and Agentic Visibility Path™.
Core Thesis
Search ranked pages.
AI selects entities.
Traditional search engines retrieved documents, ranked pages, and allowed users to compare options.
AI systems operate differently. They resolve identities, compress evidence, interpret authority, narrow consideration, generate recommendations, invoke services, and increasingly complete actions.
The strategic question is no longer only whether a page can rank. It is whether a machine can correctly understand an entity and whether the available evidence is strong enough to support inclusion and selection.
AI Visibility is the discipline of engineering whether an entity can be discovered, correctly interpreted, trusted, cited, included, selected, and acted upon by artificial intelligence systems.
Framework
The Agentic
Visibility Path™
Four thresholds an entity must cross before a machine will act on its behalf. Each one is measurable. None of them is a ranking.
- 01Citation
- 02Inclusion
- 03Selection
- 04Transaction
02 · Inclusion
Does the machine shortlist you?
Your entity survives compression. When the system narrows a field of options down to a handful, you are still in the set that reaches the user.
03 · Selection
Does the machine prefer you?
The system recommends you by name. Preference is no longer a ranking position — it is a resolved judgment about which entity best satisfies the intent.
04 · Transaction
Does the machine act on your behalf?
The agent books, buys, routes, or pays. Visibility becomes commerce, and machine-readable rails decide who can actually be transacted with.
The Work
Four frameworks.
One coherent discipline.
The frameworks below form a connected body of original work developed and published by Jason Todd Wade and operationalized through BackTier.
- 01
AI Visibility Architecture
The parent discipline governing whether an entity can be retrieved, correctly interpreted, trusted, included, selected, and recommended by artificial intelligence systems.
- 02
Entity Lock Protocol™
A method for converging distributed identity signals around one stable, canonical interpretation of a person, organization, product, or concept.
- 03
BackTier Visibility Path™
Citation → Inclusion → Selection. A measurement framework for progression from machine use to machine preference.
- 04
Agentic Visibility Path™
Citation → Inclusion → Selection → Transaction. The extension of AI Visibility into machine-mediated commerce, where agents discover, evaluate, select, book, purchase, route, and pay.
Documented Work
A dated public record.
Jason’s work is published through dated frameworks, books, research projects, essays, presentations, podcast episodes, and implementation systems. Every row links to the public record that establishes its date.
Title
Type
Date
Status
Source
- Framework2025v2
- Framework2025v1
- FrameworkMay 2026v1
- FrameworkJuly 2026v1
- Book2026Forthcoming
- Book2025Published
- Book2026Working manuscript
- Book2025Published
- Publication2026–Ongoing
- Project AlamoField Study2026In progress—
- Podcast Series2026–Ongoing
- Implementation2022–Active
Featured Publication
Forthcoming
The End of Checkout
How AI agents, machine-readable commerce, and new payment rails could transform buying by 2030.
The End of Checkout examines the transition from human-operated ecommerce to machine-mediated purchasing. It introduces the Agentic Visibility Path™ and explains the infrastructure brands must enter before AI agents can discover, evaluate, select, and transact with them.
- Agentic commerce
- Machine-readable offers
- AI payment protocols
- Identity & authorization
- Stablecoins & tokenized deposits
- Agent-aware card networks
- The disappearance of checkout
Selected Analysis
AI Dive.
Jason publishes AI Dive, a numbered analytical series covering AI Visibility, artificial intelligence, search, markets, commerce, media, law, governance, and institutional power.
- 01
AI Visibility · 2026
From Findable to Selectable
- 02
Search & Media · 2026
Beyond SEO
- 03
Agents & Infrastructure · 2026
The Agent Internet
- 04
Search & Media · 2026
Reddit Brain
- 05
Agents & Infrastructure · 2026
The Memory Problem
- 06
AI Visibility · 2026
Beyond Claude
- 07
Search & Media · 2026
Google Didn’t Kill GEO — It Killed Fake GEO
- 08
Search & Media · 2026
SEO Under the Grass
Selected Projects
Systems,
shipped.
Companies, publications, and platforms built as applied AI Visibility Architecture — each one a working test of how machines resolve, cite, and select an entity.
- 01
Founder · AI Visibility Systems
BackTier
The operating company behind AI Visibility Architecture. Builds retrieval alignment, entity resolution, and decision-layer insertion systems so brands are correctly understood, cited, and selected by AI systems.
- Entity Lock Protocol
- Schema.org / JSON-LD
- CMS Architecture
- Retrieval Alignment
- 02
Author · Numbered Analysis Series
AI Dive
A dated, numbered analytical record covering AI visibility, search, agents, commerce, media, and governance — published as the citable public timeline behind the frameworks.
- Editorial System
- Structured Publishing
- Entity Graph
- RSS / Atom
- 03
Author · 2026
The End of Checkout
A 22-chapter examination of how AI agents, stablecoins, and machine-readable commerce rebuild buying by 2030. Introduces The Agentic Visibility Path — Citation → Inclusion → Selection → Transaction.
- ACP / AP2 / UCP
- MCP
- x402
- Agentic Commerce
- 04
Host · BackTier Media
AI Visibility Podcast
Conversations on how AI systems discover, interpret, and select entities — distributed across Spotify, YouTube, and syndicated feeds with machine-readable episode data.
- PodcastSeries Schema
- Automated Feeds
- Edge Functions
- OG Generation
- 05
Founder & General Partner
LRSVC
A Florida-based venture firm backing early-stage AI-native companies — products where artificial intelligence is the surface, not a feature. Portfolio companies get direct access to the visibility practice.
- Venture Capital
- AI-Native Software
- Agentic Infrastructure
- 06
Founder · Local Media
Lake Wales Guide
A regional publication engineered as an entity-resolution case study: structured local data, machine-readable place entities, and durable citation performance in AI answers and search.
- Local Entity Data
- Structured Content
- SEO / GEO
- Editorial Ops
About Jason Todd Wade
A Florida-based technology strategist, author, and founder of BackTier.
Jason Todd Wade’s work focuses on AI Visibility, entity resolution, and agentic commerce. He created AI Visibility Architecture, Entity Lock Protocol™, BackTier Visibility Path™, and Agentic Visibility Path™.
His background operating digital businesses across ecommerce, marketplaces, search, advertising, and publishing is the basis for treating AI discovery as an information architecture, identity, and distribution problem rather than a content problem.
Inquiries
For selected engagements.
Selected engagements are handled directly by Jason Todd Wade — AI Visibility strategy, entity-resolution projects, research collaborations, speaking, podcast appearances, and publishing.
Direct
email@jasonwade.com- AI Visibility engagement
- Entity-resolution project
- Agentic commerce strategy
- Speaking
- Podcast or media
- Research collaboration
All inquiries are reviewed directly.