How AI assistants choose who to recommend
Large language models do not rank pages the way Google does. When someone asks ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity or Google's AI Overviews "who is the best roofer in Orlando" or "which agency should I hire for franchise SEO", the assistant synthesizes what credible sources say about that category and names the businesses that appear consistently, with clear attributes, in trusted places. If your business is not described clearly, in the right places, in the right words, you are invisible to that customer, no matter how well you rank on Google.
This is the newest and fastest-growing way customers find businesses, and almost nobody is managing it deliberately yet. That is the opportunity.
What the program includes
Prompt research. The questions your buyers actually ask assistants, tracked monthly across ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, Copilot and Google AI Overviews. Not keywords; whole questions, in the language buyers use.
Entity clarity. Your website, profiles and structured data rewritten so machines understand exactly what you do, where, for whom and with what credentials. Consistent naming everywhere. Organization, Person, Service and FAQ schema. An llms.txt file that summarizes your business for AI crawlers, and crawler access confirmed for GPTBot, OAI-SearchBot, ClaudeBot, PerplexityBot and Google-Extended.
Custom listicles and reviews. Editorial comparison pieces and company reviews published on relevant, real publications, placing you inside the answer set for your prompts. Every company named in those pieces is real and verifiable, and every claim about you is one you can back up.
Citation building. Mentions on the sources assistants already trust in your category: industry publications, local news, associations, well-maintained directories.
Monthly visibility report. Which prompts mention you, where you appear, how you are described, which competitors appear alongside you, and what changed since last month.
Why consistency is the whole game
An assistant is less confident about a business that one source calls a "dental office", another a "cosmetic dentistry practice" and its own website a "smile studio". Say exactly what you are, in the same words, on your site, your Google profile, your directory listings, your social profiles and in every article written about you. That single discipline moves more prompts than anything else, and it is where we start.
What we will not do
We will not invent companies, fake reviews, fabricate awards or plant fake comparison sites. AI systems cross-check entities against many sources, and fabricated proof gets discounted quickly, then damages the real signals around it. Everything we publish is verifiable, and every named company in a listicle is real.
How this differs from SEO
SEO earns clicks from ranked pages. AEO earns mentions inside generated answers. The levers overlap (authority, clarity, structured data) but the outputs differ, and the measurement is completely different. Most clients run both, because the content and authority work feed each other. If you already run SEO with us, AEO adds the prompt tracking, the entity rewrite, the editorial placements and the citation program on top.
Measuring it
Every month we run your prompt set against each assistant and log whether you are mentioned, in what position, and with what description. You see the raw answers, not a summary score. You can check any single prompt yourself, any time, with our free AI Visibility Checker.
Who this is for
Businesses in categories where buyers research before they call: legal, medical, financial, B2B services, home services with high ticket sizes, agencies, software, and any local business whose customers have started asking an assistant instead of typing a search. It is also the right program for any brand whose competitors are already showing up in AI answers and who is not.
Programs, timeline and price
There are two ways to work with us, depending on the size of the brand and how many prompts matter to it.
National and e-commerce brands: 30-day Visibility Pilot, $10,000
We take 50 prompts your buyers actually ask, record where your brand stands today across ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini and Google AI Overviews, and work for 30 days to move that number. The target is a 10-point improvement in your brand citation rate across the prompt set. If we miss it, we refund half the pilot fee. The pilot is the proof, and it runs before any longer commitment.
After the pilot: $15,000 to $25,000 per month. Priced by prompt volume and the number of assistants tracked. Three-month initial term, then month to month. The refund applies to the pilot only, never to the monthly retainer.
Local and regional businesses: $5,000 per month
The right program for mid-size and large franchises, resort- and attraction-based businesses, tourism and "things to do" operators, and any local brand whose customers ask an assistant what to do, where to eat or who to call in a specific area. Three-month initial term, then month to month. Entity work and crawler access land in the first month, editorial placements start landing in month two, and prompt mentions typically begin appearing between months two and four, depending on how established the competitors are.
