An AI SEO agency that gets you named in the answer.
Buyers now ask ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude, Perplexity and Google’s AI Overviews who to use, and the answer names 3 or 4 businesses. We measure whether you are one of them, find out why not, and fix the pages, data and third-party sources the assistants actually read.
An AI SEO agency gets your business named, and described accurately, when buyers ask ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude, Perplexity or Google’s AI Overviews who to use. AI SEO, GEO and AEO are 3 names for that one job. We start by measuring where you stand, because most agencies in this space sell the fix before anyone has looked.
What an AI SEO agency does
It works on the inputs assistants draw on when they answer a question about your category. Classic SEO aims for a ranked link. AI SEO aims for a mention inside the answer, ideally with a citation back to your site. The two overlap more than the market admits: Google states there are no extra technical requirements to appear in AI Overviews or AI Mode beyond being indexable and eligible for a snippet. Good SEO is the floor. It isn’t the whole job.
| Term | What it means | What success looks like |
|---|---|---|
| Classic SEO | Ranking pages in Google and Bing results | Position, clicks and organic leads |
| AI SEO | The umbrella term for being visible in AI-generated answers | Named and cited when buyers ask about your category |
| GEO | Making your content and entity easy for language models to retrieve, summarise and quote | Mention rate across ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude and Perplexity |
| AEO | Structuring pages so a single passage answers a single question cleanly | Your wording lifted into AI Overviews and answer boxes |
The labels are used loosely across the industry. We report on all 3 together. If you want the method in full, our guide to generative engine optimisation sets it out step by step.
The evidence: known is not the same as quotable
We measure AI visibility every month in The SetpointHQ Index, which tracks 100 UK employer brands across ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini and Perplexity on a published, versioned rubric.
On the 2 November 2026 run, the median score for knowledge-graph presence was 87.8 out of 100. The median score for structured data was 35.0. A gap of 52.8 points. The assistants knew who these organisations were. Most of them had given the assistants nothing clean to quote.
The same pattern turns up outside employer brands. An assistant can recognise your brand as an entity and still never name you, because nothing it can read gives it a clear, corroborated sentence to repeat. The usual causes are pages that bury the answer, no structured data, thin descriptions on the third-party sites assistants trust, and crawlers blocked by a security setting nobody remembers switching on.
We run the Index on our own pipeline, which is also why we can measure a client’s position properly: the same questions, several runs per assistant, on a fixed method. Pro is that measurement for employer brands, retained over 12 months.
What our AI SEO service covers
| Workstream | What we do | Why it matters |
|---|---|---|
| Prompt measurement | Run the questions your buyers ask across 4 assistants and log who gets named, how often and with which source | A baseline you can track, not a screenshot |
| Crawler access | Check robots.txt, firewall and CDN rules for search and AI user agents, including OpenAI’s OAI-SearchBot | A blocked crawler can’t cite you, however good the page |
| Entity and schema | Organization, Service and FAQ markup that agrees with your About page, Companies House record and profiles | Consistent facts are easier for a model to trust and repeat |
| Answer-first pages | Rewrite key pages so each question is answered in one passage, with numbers and definitions | Assistants quote passages, not whole pages |
| Third-party sources | Directories, review sites, best-of lists, trade press and forums that assistants cite for your category | Most recommendations rest on what others say about you |
| Reporting | Mention rate, citation share and the leads that follow, reported monthly against the baseline | Proof the work moved something |
How to choose an AI SEO agency
The market filled up quickly in 2026, and a lot of it is classic SEO with a new label. 5 questions sort it out fast:
- Do they measure before they sell? Ask what your mention rate is today. If they can’t tell you before quoting, they are selling activity.
- How many runs, on how many assistants? AI answers vary between runs. One screenshot from one assistant proves nothing.
- Is the method written down? A versioned method means this month’s number can be compared with last month’s. Without one, every report is a fresh opinion.
- Do they work off your site? Most of what moves AI answers lives on other people’s sites. An agency that only edits your pages is doing half the job.
- Do they promise a placement? Nobody controls what a model says. A guarantee is a reason to walk away.
How we work
3 fixed steps. You can stop after any of them.
- Diagnose. We agree 20 to 40 buyer questions with you, run them across ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude and Perplexity, check Google’s AI Overviews by hand, and audit crawler access, schema and the sources being cited. You get a written read of where you stand and the 5 fixes most likely to move it.
- Build. We make the fixes, or hand them to your team with exact specifications: page rewrites, markup, crawler rules, profile corrections and a list of the third-party sources worth earning a place on.
- Run. We re-run the same questions monthly, report what moved and why, and keep the content and source work going until the mention rate holds without us.
How we measure AI search visibility
AI answers vary from one run to the next, so a single check proves very little. We run each question several times per assistant, record whether you are named, where in the answer and which URL is cited, and track the share over time. That is the same discipline behind The Index, which has scored the same brands every month since 28 June 2026 on a fixed rubric.
We connect visibility to outcomes too. AI referrals show up in GA4 when the assistant links out, and we tag what we can so enquiries trace back to the channel. Where the assistant answers without a link, mention rate and branded search are the leading signals.
Is AI SEO right for your business?
- Likely yes: your buyers research before they contact anyone, your category is crowded with similar-sounding firms, and competitors are already being named when you ask ChatGPT who to use.
- Not yet: your site isn’t indexed properly, or you can’t see where today’s leads come from. Fix that first. Classic SEO and tracking are the foundation AI search sits on.
If you also want a paid position beside the answer, read ChatGPT ads for UK businesses. If you want to try the work yourself first, how to get cited by AI assistants sets out the method.
Common questions
What is AI SEO?
AI SEO is the work of making a business visible in answers from AI assistants such as ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude, Perplexity and Google’s AI Overviews. It covers crawler access, structured data, answer-first content and the third-party sources assistants cite, measured by how often you are named when buyers ask about your category.
What does an AI SEO agency do?
It measures how often AI assistants name your business for the questions your buyers ask, finds out why you are left out, and fixes the causes: crawler access, structured data, pages that bury the answer and the third-party sources assistants rely on. Then it re-measures every month.
Is AI SEO different from GEO and AEO?
Mostly in emphasis. GEO, generative engine optimisation, focuses on being retrieved and quoted by language models. AEO, answer engine optimisation, focuses on structuring a page so one passage answers one question. AI SEO is the umbrella term, and a good agency reports on all 3 together.
Does normal SEO still matter for AI search?
Yes. Google states there are no additional requirements to appear in AI Overviews or AI Mode beyond being indexed and eligible to show a snippet. Assistants that search the web also lean on pages that already rank. Classic SEO is the floor; AI SEO adds the entity, answer and source work on top.
How long does AI SEO take to work?
Crawler and markup fixes can be picked up within weeks. Changes to how often you are named usually take 2 to 3 months, because they depend on pages being recrawled and on third-party sources changing. We set a baseline first so any movement can be measured.
Can you guarantee my business will appear in ChatGPT?
No, and nobody honestly can. Answers vary between runs and models change. What we can do is remove the reasons you are left out, improve the sources assistants rely on, and report your mention rate monthly so you can see whether the work is moving it.
Find out whether AI assistants recommend you.
Tell us your category and the questions your buyers ask. We’ll tell you who gets named today, and what it would take for that to include you.
Sources: The SetpointHQ Index, 2 November 2026 (101 UK employer brands, 4 assistants), methodology; Google Search Central, “AI features and your website”; OpenAI, “Overview of OpenAI crawlers”. Checked 13 October 2026.