An AEO agency works to get your company named when buyers ask ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, Claude or Google’s AI Overviews. Most of that work is SEO. Hire the one that can show you dated changes it made to a client’s site, and that reports mentions as a share of many asks on each engine.
What does an AEO agency do?
It gets a software company into the answers buyers read. That takes three things, in order. The engines have to find and read your pages (indexed). Your pages have to show up for the searches behind the question (found). Then other sites and your own pages have to give the engines a reason to name you (mentioned). How ChatGPT decides who to name covers the mechanics.
Is AEO different from SEO?
Less than the pitch decks say. Google calls optimizing for generative AI search “still SEO”. What changes is the scorecard. You’re named in the answer or you aren’t, on engines that don’t agree with each other, and the answer can change the next time someone asks.
What should you ask an AEO agency before you hire one?
Seven questions. For each one, here’s what a good answer sounds like, and the answer that should end the call.
1. What went live on a client’s site last week, and who checked it first?
A plan does nothing until it’s on your site. Whoever you hire should make the changes themselves, not add them to your developers’ backlog.
- Good answerDated changes on named pages: a comparison page on Tuesday, three page titles rewritten on Thursday, each one checked before it went live. That’s how we work: across our clients, 1.1 changes went live a day on average from October 11 to November 9, 2026.
- Red flagA strategy deck, an audit or a list of recommendations.
2. How do you count a mention?
We asked 15 buyer questions 6 times each on ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Perplexity and Google AI Mode, 450 answers in all. Of the brands an engine named for a question, more than 1 in 3 showed up in only 1 of the 6 asks. About 1 in 5 showed up in all 6.
It swings by engine too. Of the brands Google AI Mode named, 1% showed up all 6 times. On Perplexity it was 52%. One answer is one draw, and AI visibility is the share you get over many.
- Good answerA share of answers for each engine, from the same question asked many times, with the number of asks: “named in 9 of 30 ChatGPT answers”.
- Red flagOne screenshot, or an “AI ranking”. Rand Fishkin, who tested this at SparkToro, said any tool that gives a “ranking position in AI” is full of baloney.
3. Do you count questions that name us separately?
A question with your name in it (“Is ExampleCo good for agencies?”) will name you. Your name is in the question. A question without it (“What’s the best invoicing tool for agencies?”) is where new buyers find you, and it’s much harder to win.
- Good answerA report that keeps the two apart, like the example above, and counts only the questions without your name as new reach.
- Red flag“ChatGPT now describes you correctly” as the headline win. It’s worth fixing, and it’s the easy half.
4. What will you fix first?
An engine can’t name a site it can’t read.
- Good answerChecking that your pages are indexed in Google and Bing and that AI crawlers aren’t blocked. Then the pages buyers’ questions need: comparisons, pricing, the use cases you sell to.
- Red flagStarting with a special file or markup “for AI”. Google says you don’t need new files or markup to show up in its AI features.
5. What won’t you promise?
Nobody controls what an engine says. Google says no one can guarantee a #1 ranking on Google, and an AI answer moves more than a ranking does.
- Good answerNo guaranteed mention and no date. What they’ll ship, and how you’ll see it.
- Red flag“Top 3 in ChatGPT in 90 days.”
6. What does a month cost, and what does it buy?
One AEO agency puts managed programs at $3,000 to $10,000 a month. Ours is $2,000 a month for the full plan: up to 12 in-depth articles and 50+ fixes to existing pages a month, plus comparison pages, free tools and AI answer tracking. Hiring that out to an SEO agency would cost about $25,000 a month (here’s the math).
- Good answerA monthly count: pages written, pages fixed, comparisons published and the questions the report tracks.
- Red flagOne buyer on Reddit, quoted $3,000 to $5,000 a month, described an agency “just handing over a checklist”.
7. What do we keep if we leave?
You’ll stop working with every agency at some point. Ask now, while they want your business.
- Good answerEverything that shipped stays on your site and your Search Console stays yours. You get the question list and the counts, so the next team can pick up the trend.
- Red flagPages hosted on their platform, or tracking that ends with the contract.
How do you check an AEO agency’s results?
Take the screenshot or score they show you, and ask that exact question 6 times on that engine in a logged-out window. If they’re named in 1 of the 6, that’s what the screenshot was worth. To measure a whole set of questions, use the method in our AI visibility guide.