Your next buyer may never see a search results page
A growing share of software research now starts with a question to an AI assistant: "What are the best tools for X for a 50-person company?" The assistant answers with a short list, often citing review sites, comparison articles and vendor pages. If your product is not on that list, you may never get the chance to compete.
AI search optimization, sometimes called generative engine optimization or GEO, is the work of influencing those answers. It overlaps heavily with good SEO, but adds new tasks: understanding which sources each assistant draws on, making your own content easy to extract and cite, and building presence on the third-party sites that AI models trust.
What tends to influence AI recommendations
- Third-party comparisons"Best tools" and comparison articles on established sites are cited heavily.
- Review platformsCategory pages and reviews on major software review sites.
- Community discussionThreads where real users compare tools, especially on Reddit and specialist forums.
- Clear vendor pagesPages that state plainly what the product does, who it is for and what it costs.
- Consistent descriptionsThe same positioning across your site, profiles, directories and press.
- Strong search rankingsMany assistants retrieve from search indexes, so pages that rank well get cited more.
What we do
AI visibility tracking
We agree a set of 30 to 50 buyer prompts, from broad category questions to specific use cases and comparisons, and run them across the major assistants each month. We record whether you are mentioned, how you are described, alongside which competitors, and which sources are cited.
Source analysis
We identify the pages, review sites, forums and publications the assistants cite most for your category, and where you are missing or poorly represented.
Citable content
Clear, factual pages on what you do, who it is for, pricing, integrations, security and comparisons, structured with headings, short statements and tables so models can extract them accurately.
Third-party presence
Complete review profiles, inclusion in comparison articles through outreach and PR, genuine participation in community discussions, and coverage in the publications your buyers read.
Accuracy fixes
When assistants describe your product, pricing or limitations wrongly, we trace the likely source and get it corrected or outweighed by better information.
What an AI visibility check shows
Each month you see the same prompts and how answers change, so progress is measurable even though individual answers vary.
- Pattern
- You appear for prompts naming your niche, but not for broader category questions or comparisons with the leader.
- Sources
- Answers cite two review site category pages where your profile has few reviews, and three "best tools" articles that do not include you.
- Plan
- Review generation from active customers, outreach to the three article authors with updated product information, and a clearer comparison page with the leader.
- Measure
- The same 40 prompts monthly, plus AI referral traffic and self-reported attribution.
An honest note on measurement. AI answers vary by prompt, user and day, and the assistants do not publish traffic data the way search engines do. We track visibility across a consistent prompt set and connect it to referral traffic and self-reported attribution, but treat any agency promising guaranteed AI rankings with caution.
Mistakes to avoid
AI search is new, and some of the advice around it is not helpful. These are the mistakes we see most.
- Writing for robots. Stuffing pages with prompts or awkward Q&A blocks. Clear, factual writing for people is what gets cited.
- Ignoring third-party sources. Focusing only on your own site, when most cited sources are reviews, comparisons and community threads.
- Inconsistent positioning. Describing your product differently on your site, review profiles and press, which confuses models.
- Hiding pricing. When pricing is unclear, assistants guess or cite outdated third-party figures.
- Chasing one prompt. Optimising for a single question instead of tracking a representative set over time.
Common questions
Is AI search optimization different from SEO?
It builds on SEO rather than replacing it. Many assistants retrieve from search indexes, so strong rankings help. The additional work is in source analysis, third-party presence and making content easy to cite.
Which assistants do you track?
ChatGPT, Perplexity, Google Gemini, Google AI Overviews and AI Mode, and Microsoft Copilot by default. We add others if your buyers use them.
How quickly can we improve AI visibility?
Changes to your own pages can be picked up by retrieval-based assistants within weeks. Influencing what models say from their training data takes longer and depends on broader coverage of your brand.
Should we block AI crawlers?
If you want to be recommended, usually not. Blocking AI crawlers reduces the chance your own pages are used as sources.
What does it cost?
Typically $3,000 to $7,000 a month on its own, or included with SaaS SEO retainers.
Find out what AI says about you
We will run your category's key buyer questions through the major assistants and show you where you appear, where competitors do, and why.