Get your brand recommended inside ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini and AI Overviews. Answer engine and generative engine optimisation.
Search all agencies with AIWhat buyers ask most before hiring a AI Search partner — answered in plain terms.
An AI search agency works to get a brand named inside the answers AI assistants give. When a buyer asks ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini or Google’s AI Overviews to recommend a provider, the assistant names a handful of companies; the agency’s job is to make sure yours is one of them. The discipline is usually called answer engine optimisation (AEO) or generative engine optimisation (GEO).
SEO competes for a position in a list of links a person then chooses from. AI search competes to be the answer itself, where there is no list and usually no click. The levers differ too: assistants lean on third-party write-ups, comparisons, directories and structured data far more than on a brand’s own marketing pages, so much of the work happens off your site.
Advisory-only engagements — audit, prompt benchmark and a roadmap you execute — typically run in the low thousands per month. Full-service work that includes producing citable assets and earning placements runs higher, often into low five figures. Project-based audits are common as a first step and a sensible way to test whether the channel matters in your category.
By prompt testing rather than rank tracking. A credible agency defines a set of buyer prompts, runs them across several assistants on a schedule, and records whether you were named, in what position, how you were described, and which sources were cited. The citation column is the useful one, because it tells you exactly which pages to go and influence.
Expect a first meaningful read in one to two quarters. Sources have to be published, indexed and retrieved before an assistant’s answer changes, and that chain is slower than a ranking change. Be sceptical of anyone promising a guaranteed placement inside a specific model’s output — that is not how these systems work.