What AEO is and how to get ChatGPT, Gemini or Claude to recommend your brand

Why AEO matters now

More and more people ask an AI before they buy: “which marketing agency do you recommend in Atlanta?”, “who builds WhatsApp bots for restaurants?” The AI doesn't return ten links. It gives an answer and sometimes cites its sources. If your brand isn't in that answer, it doesn't exist for that customer.

How it differs from SEO

SEO aims to get your page into Google's list of results. AEO aims to make your brand part of the answer. They aren't mutually exclusive: many assistants with web search query engines like Google or Bing to find sources, so a solid SEO foundation is still the starting point.

What changes is the emphasis. For AEO it matters a lot that your content answers clearly and verifiably, that your brand is a well-defined entity, and that other trusted sites talk about you.

What answer engines look at

Each AI has its own system and none publishes the full recipe. Still, some signals keep showing up:

• Direct answers: pages that address the question in the first lines, no detours.
• Concrete, verifiable facts instead of generic promises.
• Consistency: the same name, address, services and description on your website, Google Business Profile, social profiles and directories.
• Third-party mentions: press, industry directories, lists and reviews.
• Technical access: AI crawlers can read your site and the important content lives in the HTML, not hidden away.
• Freshness: information that's reviewed and dated.

Concrete steps for your brand

AEO isn't a trick. It's organizing and publishing well what your business already knows. A sensible plan starts like this:

• Ask ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude and Perplexity about your brand and your category today. Write down what they say and which sources they cite.
• Fix the foundation: a complete Google Business Profile and identical details across all your channels.
• Write pages that answer the questions your customers ask, with a short answer at the top.
• Add structured data (Schema.org) describing your company, services and FAQs.
• Check that your robots.txt doesn't block the AI crawlers you want reading your site.
• Earn mentions on relevant sites: industry directories, local media, associations.
• Repeat the same questions every month and compare.

What doesn't work

Stuffing pages with keywords, mass-publishing generic AI-written text or faking reviews doesn't help and can damage your reputation. There's no magic file either: llms.txt is a useful format for summarizing your site for machines, but on its own it doesn't guarantee citations.

And be wary of anyone who guarantees you'll show up in ChatGPT. Each AI decides its own answers; the honest approach is to work the signals and measure.

How to measure your AI visibility

Classic analytics tools don't show everything that happens inside an AI assistant, so it's worth combining several sources.

• A fixed list of questions your customers ask, checked monthly in ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude and Perplexity: do you show up, what do they say about you, which sources do they cite?
• Visits to your site from chatgpt.com, perplexity.ai, gemini.google.com and other assistants, in Google Analytics.
• Google Search Console and Bing Webmaster Tools, to see which searches show your pages and whether they're indexed.
• Leads who say they found you “by asking an AI”: it's worth asking in the first message.

How we do it at Ikusa Media

We run AEO in phases, based on what your brand already has: an audit of how you appear today in AI and search, the technical base (structured data, llms.txt, entity profiles), answer-first content and consistent profiles, starting with Google Business Profile. Then we review periodically and adjust.

See the details in our AEO and AI search service.