AI engines don't return a ranked list — they synthesize one answer and cite a handful of sources. AEO is the distinct discipline of being one of those sources. It shares SEO's foundation but adds levers SEO never had, and it's measured as share-of-voice over time, not a fixed rank.
Roughly half of Google searches now return an AI Overview, and about 85% of AI citations come from third-party sources — not your own site. Search stopped being a list of ten blue links and became a synthesized answer with a handful of named sources. Getting into that answer is a different job than ranking a page.
So AEO shares SEO's technical foundation — crawlability, valid markup, genuinely useful content — but adds levers SEO never needed: entity resolution, quotable facts, third-party mentions, and YouTube presence. Work the foundation and ignore the new levers and you stay invisible to the engines that now sit between you and the searcher.
And because AI citations are probabilistic — engines churn 40–59% of their cited sources every month — there is no fixed rank to hold. AEO is measured as share-of-voice over time: how often you're named across your topics, tracked as a trend rather than a snapshot.
Seven levers move AI citations. Most sites work none of them — because they aren't the levers SEO trained everyone to pull.
The AEO action layer is the umbrella that ties the other AEO services — entity, data-driven content, schema, technical remediation — into one coordinated program. It comes in up to three modes, so it fits how you'd rather run it.
We generate the assets and a prioritised set of AEO recommendations — entity fixes, fact-dense drafts, schema, robots.txt edits — and you (or your own AI) apply them. No access to your site needed.
You grant scoped, revocable access (scoped OAuth, a WordPress application password, or a temporary invite); our agents implement across the levers, then you revoke. Priced on value, not tokens.
Your AI agent calls the AEO tools directly over the Model Context Protocol and gets the result inside its own workflow. Billed as credits per call.
| Mode | How it's delivered | Access needed | Who executes | Priced on |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| ① DIY | we generate the assets & recommendations → you apply | none | you (or your AI) | cheapest |
| ② Done-for-you | you grant scoped access → we implement → you revoke | OAuth / app-password / temp invite | us (agents) | value, not tokens |
| ③ MCP | your AI calls our AEO tools as a service | none | your AI, via our tool | credits per call |
There's no rank to screenshot, so we measure on the same three honest tiers we use everywhere — and the AEO scoreboard is share-of-voice over time.
The levers are in place — entities resolved, fact-dense drafts shipped, valid schema, AI crawlers allowed in robots.txt. Provable immediately by free, independent APIs.
Your AI share-of-voice baseline forms and starts to trend — how often ChatGPT and Perplexity name you across your topics. Early evidence the work is landing.
A sustained share-of-voice gain that outlasts monthly churn. The long game — tracked transparently, never sold as an instant citation.
The AEO action layer is billed as usage-based credits — burned per task as we work the levers — quoted enquiry-based against your actual scope. A five-page site and a ten-thousand-URL catalogue need very different work, so a single package price would either mislead or pad.
The audit is free. Everything after it is enquiry-based: no fixed package prices, no anchor tiers, no promises of instant citations. If a number would mislead you, it isn't on the page.
Answer Engine Optimization — also called Generative Engine Optimization — is the practice of getting your brand cited or named by AI answer engines like ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini and Google AI Overviews. Instead of chasing a ranked link, it targets the synthesized answer the AI gives directly, where most cited sources are third-party pages.
They share a technical foundation — crawlability, structured data, quality content — but AEO adds distinct levers: entity and Knowledge-Graph presence, fact-dense content with statistics and citations, YouTube and review-site presence, and being mentioned by trusted third parties. And because AI citations are probabilistic, AEO is measured as share-of-voice over time rather than a fixed rank.
The ones almost nobody works: being a recognised entity, publishing content dense with quotable facts, having valid structured data, earning third-party and review-site mentions, and maintaining a YouTube presence — which correlates about 0.74 with AI-Overview visibility, the strongest single signal. Allowing the AI crawlers in robots.txt is the precondition for all of it.
As share-of-voice over time. We baseline how often the engines mention you across your topics, then track the trend. Because AI engines churn 40–59% of their cited sources every month, a single snapshot is noise — only a sustained trend over months separates a real gain from churn.
It ties the other AEO services together and is delivered DIY, done-for-you, or as MCP tools your AI can call. It is billed as usage-based credits, quoted enquiry-based against your scope. There are no fixed package prices and no promises of instant citations.
The free audit queries ChatGPT and Perplexity on your topics to baseline whether you appear — your AEO starting point.
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