- How will an AEO agency measure your visibility in AI answers?
- Which AI assistants do they check, and how often?
- What will they change on your site, and what happens off it?
- Who writes the content, and how is reporting handled when answers vary?
- What should an AEO agency refuse to promise?
- Good and worrying answers side by side
- Agency, independent consultant or in-house: which suits you?
- Where I fit if you're choosing AEO help
- Frequently asked questions
Ask an AEO or GEO agency how they measure AI visibility, which assistants they check and how often, what they'll change on your site and off it, who writes the content, and what they won't promise. Good answers are specific, plain and honest about how much AI answers vary. I'm Lilach Bullock, an AI consultant with 21 years in marketing, and I'm one option if you'd rather work with an independent consultant.
Last checked: October 2026.
Hiring someone to help you show up in AI answers feels a bit like hiring an SEO agency did fifteen years ago: lots of confident pitches, new jargon, and very little you can check for yourself. The good news is you don't need to be technical to tell a thoughtful AEO agency from one that's selling smoke. You need the right questions, and you need to know what a sensible answer sounds like.
Below are the questions I'd ask, grouped by topic, with notes on what to listen for. Take them into your first call, ask every agency the same ones, and compare the answers side by side afterwards. If you're still fuzzy on the terms, start with how AEO differs from traditional SEO and come back.
How will an AEO agency measure your visibility in AI answers?
Measurement is where weak agencies fall apart, so start here. AI assistants don't publish rankings, and the same question can get a different answer each time it's asked. Anyone who reports on AI visibility has to make choices about what they track, and you want to hear those choices out loud.
- Which questions will you track for us, and how do you choose them? Listen for questions your buyers would type, not just your brand name.
- How many times do you run each question, and do you record the full answer or just a yes or no?
- What counts as a win: being named, being linked, being cited as a source, or being recommended first?
- Can I see a sample report before I sign anything?
A good agency will show you the actual questions and the raw answers, not just a single score. If the whole report is one number with no way to see where it came from, you won't be able to judge whether anything changed.
Which AI assistants do they check, and how often?
ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, Claude and Google AI Overviews all work differently. Some search the web live, some lean on what they learned in training, and some do both depending on the question. An agency that only checks one of them is giving you a partial picture.
- Ask which assistants they check by default and which ones you can add.
- Ask whether they check with web search switched on, switched off, or both.
- Ask how often they re-run the checks: weekly, monthly, or only at the start and end.
- Ask whether they check from your buyers' country, because answers can shift by location.
What will they change on your site, and what happens off it?
Answer engine work splits into two halves. On your own site, it's things like clearer answer-first pages, consistent naming of your business, structured data and making sure AI crawlers can reach your pages. Off your site, it's the places AI assistants read about you: reviews, listings, directories, articles and mentions from sources they trust.
- Which pages will you change, and will you show me each change before it goes live?
- Will you need access to my website, and what level of access?
- What will you do off my site, and where exactly will my business be mentioned?
- Will anything be published under my name without my sign-off?
The last question matters more than it looks. You want to approve anything that speaks for your business, and you want to know that mentions are earned on real sites, not stuffed into low-quality pages that could embarrass you later. The red flags when hiring AI help are worth reading alongside this list.
Who writes the content, and how is reporting handled when answers vary?
Most AEO work involves writing: new pages, rewritten introductions, FAQ sections and clearer service descriptions. Ask who writes it and how they'll learn your business. If the answer is a tool that generates pages at volume, think hard. Thin, repetitive pages rarely help and can dilute what makes you worth citing.
- Who writes the content: a named person, a team, or software?
- How will they capture your voice, your expertise and the questions your customers ask?
- How do they report a month where AI answers simply shifted for no clear reason?
- Will they tell you when something didn't work, and what they'll change next?
That third question is a good test of honesty. AI answers wobble. A thoughtful agency will explain the wobble rather than claim credit for every good week and blame the algorithm for every bad one.
What should an AEO agency refuse to promise?
This is my favourite question to ask, because the answer tells you so much. Nobody controls what ChatGPT or Gemini says. A trustworthy agency will happily tell you what they won't promise: a set position in an answer, a guaranteed mention by a certain date, or a special relationship with an AI company. If they promise any of those, walk away.
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Good and worrying answers side by side
Here's a quick way to compare agencies after your calls. You won't hear these exact words, but you'll recognise the shape of them.
| Question | A good answer sounds like | A worrying answer |
|---|---|---|
| How do you measure AI visibility? | We track a fixed set of buyer questions across several assistants and show you every answer. | We use our own score. You don't need to see the detail. |
| Which assistants do you check? | ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini and Google AI Overviews, with and without web search. | We focus on ChatGPT because that's the one that matters. |
| What will you change on my site? | Here are the pages we'd start with, and you'll approve each change. | We'll handle everything, you won't need to look at it. |
| Who writes the content? | A named writer who interviews you first. | Our system produces pages at scale. |
| What won't you promise? | We can't promise a position or a date. We can promise the work and honest reporting. | You'll be recommended within a few weeks, guaranteed. |
Agency, independent consultant or in-house: which suits you?
An agency can bring a wider team, more hands for writing and a set process, which helps if you've got a lot of pages or several brands. An independent consultant tends to suit smaller businesses that want one person who knows their business well and can explain each decision. Doing it in-house works when someone on your team has the time and curiosity to learn it, ideally with a little outside guidance to start.
Whichever route you pick, the questions above still apply. A good answer is a good answer whoever gives it. If you want a wider plan before you hire anyone, a clear GEO strategy for your business is a sensible starting point.
Where I fit if you're choosing AEO help
I'm an independent AI consultant rather than an agency, with 21 years in marketing behind me. I'm a good fit if you're a small business owner or marketing lead who wants one person to look at how AI assistants describe you, explain what's going on in plain English and help fix the pages that matter. I'm not the right fit if you need a large team producing content at volume across many brands; a bigger agency will suit you better. You can read how I work with businesses on AI search if that sounds like you.
Frequently asked questions
What does an AEO agency do?
An AEO agency helps your business appear in answers from AI assistants such as ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini and Google AI Overviews. The work usually covers clearer answer-first pages, structured data, crawler access and earning mentions on sites that AI tools read.
What's the difference between an AEO agency and a GEO agency?
In practice very little. AEO stands for answer engine optimisation and GEO for generative engine optimisation. Both describe work aimed at AI-generated answers, so judge the agency on its process and honesty rather than the label.
Can an AEO agency guarantee my business will appear in ChatGPT?
No. Nobody outside the AI company controls what an assistant says, and answers vary from one run to the next. Treat any guaranteed placement as a warning sign.
How long before AEO work shows results?
It varies. Changes to your own pages can be picked up within a few weeks by assistants that search the web, while mentions elsewhere take longer to build. Ask any agency to explain what they'd expect to see first and when they'll re-check.
Should I hire an AEO agency or do it myself?
If you have time and someone curious on your team, you can make a good start yourself with clear answer-first pages and consistent business details. Outside help makes more sense when you've got many pages, little time or a crowded field.
