AI SEO that gets your business cited in AI answers
And I can actually measure whether it’s working.
AI SEO, also called answer engine optimisation (AEO), is the work of getting your business mentioned and cited inside AI answers, like Google’s AI Overviews and ChatGPT. As more people get their answer straight from an AI assistant, that answer decides whether you show up at the moment a customer is choosing.
Here’s the shift in plain terms. Your customers used to Google a question and click a few links. Now a lot of them read the AI summary at the top of Google, or ask ChatGPT directly, and act on that answer without clicking anything. If your business isn’t part of that answer, you’re invisible at the exact moment someone’s deciding. Most businesses have no idea whether they show up there, and right now most don’t.
I’m Tamas. This is one of the few areas where I can both do the work to get you cited in AI answers and actually measure whether it’s happening. Let me explain how AI search works, what you can do about it, and how I’d approach it for you.
Your customers are starting to ask AI directly
This isn’t a someday thing. Google’s AI Overviews already reach around 2 billion people a month and appear on a large share of searches. And they change what people do with the results. On searches that show an AI answer, roughly 83% end without a click, against about 60% on searches without one. One field study found AI Overviews cut organic clicks by around 38%, and Ahrefs measured the top result losing over half its clicks when an AI Overview sits above it.
For you that means search is quietly splitting in two. There’s the familiar list of blue links, and there’s the AI answer that sits above it or replaces it. You can be ranking perfectly well on the old list and still be completely absent from the AI answer, because they’re chosen in different ways. That gap is what AI SEO is for.
What is answer engine optimisation?
Answer engine optimisation (AEO), also called generative engine optimisation (GEO) or simply AI search optimisation, is optimising your business to be cited as a source inside AI-generated answers. You’ll hear a few names for it, including AI engine optimisation and LLM optimisation, and they all point at the same goal. Classic SEO aims to rank your page in a list. AEO aims to get your business quoted in the answer the AI gives, across tools like Google AI Overviews, ChatGPT and Perplexity.
It’s the same goal you’ve always had, which is to be the business the customer finds and trusts at the moment they’re looking. The place that moment happens is just moving, and AEO follows it there.
How AI decides who to cite
AI answers don’t simply pick the page that ranks first. They pull together passages from sources the AI trusts and can quote cleanly, then build an answer from them. So getting cited comes down to a few things working together.
Clear, answer-first content. AI engines lift the part of your page that directly answers the question. If your page opens with a clear, self-contained answer, it’s easy to quote. If it buries the answer under waffle, the engine moves on to a competitor that didn’t.
Structure the machine can read. Clean headings, FAQs and structured data (schema) tell the AI exactly what each part of your page says, so it can extract it with confidence.
Authority and mentions across the web. AI engines lean towards businesses that show up consistently and credibly in more than one place, so being referenced around the web, beyond your own site, builds the trust that gets you cited.
Being readable to the AI at all. The AI crawlers have to be allowed to read your site in the first place. If they’re blocked, you’re invisible to that engine no matter how good your content is.
The reassuring part: a well-optimised, well-written, trusted site already does most of this, so it starts with a real head start.
You can actually see whether it’s working
This is the part that’s genuinely different, and it’s the thing I’d point to first.
With most AI SEO, you’re asked to take it on faith. Someone does “AI optimisation” and hands you a theory, because checking whether ChatGPT or Google’s AI actually cites you is hard to do by guessing. I measure it. Using a dedicated AI-visibility tool, I track whether and where your business gets mentioned and cited across the major AI engines, ChatGPT, Perplexity, Google AI Overviews and the rest, and how that changes over time as the work takes effect. I can also see how your visibility compares with your competitors, and which sources the AI leans on for your topics, so the work targets the right places to earn mentions.
Tracked over time, with share of voice against your competitors and the sources the engines pull from. Illustrative only: your real baseline comes from the tracking.
So “is this working?” stops being a shrug. You get a real before-and-after on your AI visibility, the same way you’d expect to see rankings or traffic move with normal SEO. That measurement runs on proper tooling that checks the engines systematically over time, so the picture you get is one you can rely on.
Why SEO, content and AI search work as one
It’s worth being clear about why these three can’t sensibly be split up, because it’s the whole reason one person should run them together.
Classic SEO builds the technical health and authority that make a site trustworthy. Content marketing produces the clear, useful material that AI engines actually quote. AEO structures and earns the citations on top of both. AI search rewards sites that are already well-optimised and well-written. Split this work across separate suppliers and the pieces start to drift out of step. Run it all through one AI-native partner and every piece points the same way.
What’s included in AI search optimisation
Content built for AI answers. Restructuring your key content to be answer-first, with clear FAQs and well-defined topics, so AI engines can extract and cite it easily.
AI visibility tracking. Measuring and reporting whether you’re cited across the major AI engines over time. This is the part most providers can’t do, and it’s the heart of how I work.
Content built to earn mentions. Writing and structuring your content so it has a strong chance of being referenced and cited around the web, which is where AI engines pull their answers from. Dedicated digital PR is its own discipline handled by specialist agencies. What I do is give your content the best possible shot at getting picked up.
Schema and entity markup. Adding the structured data that helps engines parse and trust your site. On a normal CMS this is low-touch: the markup is generated and validated with AI, then added through a plugin or your site’s settings, no deep coding needed. Heavily custom or locked-down sites can need developer help, so I’ll be straight about that if it applies to you.
Which AI engines this covers
I optimise across the engines your customers actually use. There’s a core set of foundations, clear answer-first content, schema, a well-understood brand, and credible mentions across the web, that lifts your chances in all of them at once.
Google AI Overviews
First, because it has by far the widest reach. It’s the AI answer most of your customers see whether they went looking for it or not.
ChatGPT
The assistant most people have actually tried.
Perplexity
Growing fast as an answer engine in its own right.
Gemini, Copilot and Claude
The other major assistants, covered with the same approach.
The engines do weight things differently, though. Google AI Overviews leans on classic authority and structure, ChatGPT favours well-established, widely-referenced brands, and Perplexity rewards fresh, cleanly-structured content. So while there’s no switch that optimises for one engine alone, if a particular engine matters most to your customers, we can lean harder into what it specifically rewards on top of those shared foundations.
A quick, honest note on where this is
AI search is the fastest-moving thing in marketing right now. The exact mechanics shift month to month, and anyone who tells you they’ve got it permanently solved is overselling. I’d rather be straight: I work on this constantly, including on my own business and the sites I run, as the field keeps moving, I keep up as it changes, and I’m honest about what’s settled and what’s still shifting. Being early and hands-on is the advantage here, and it’s why the measurement matters so much, because it keeps the work tied to what’s actually happening in the engines.
If you’d rather learn to do this kind of AI work inside your own team, that’s a different need, and it’s what the AI training and consultancy side is for.
Want to know if AI is citing you yet?
Most businesses have never checked. If you’re curious where you stand, the free marketing audit is the easiest first step, and it now looks at your search and AI-search visibility too.
What people ask about AI search
AI search is when a search tool writes you an answer built by AI. Google’s AI Overviews are the most common example, alongside assistants like ChatGPT and Perplexity that people now ask directly. They’re called answer engines because they give you the answer itself, and you act on it without clicking through ten links.
Ready to show up in AI answers?
If your customers are starting to ask AI and you want to be in those answers, with someone who can actually measure whether it’s working, let’s talk. Thirty minutes, an honest read on where your business stands in AI search and what we’d do about it.