Get recommended where your clients are actually asking

They describe the same goal from slightly different angles. Generative engine optimization (GEO) is about being included in answers that AI tools write, like Google AI Overviews, AI Mode, ChatGPT and Perplexity. Answer engine optimization (AEO) is about being the direct answer to a specific question. AI search optimization is the umbrella term I use for both. In practice the work is the same: make your business easy for AI systems to find, understand, trust and recommend.

Less different than many people are selling. Google says there are no special requirements for showing up in AI Overviews or AI Mode beyond the fundamentals of SEO, and ChatGPT search draws partly on Bing. So strong SEO is the foundation. What AI search optimization adds is focus on the signals that decide whether a business gets named in an answer: a consistent entity across the web, original expert content, genuine reviews, earned mentions on trusted sources, crawler access for every major platform, and tracking real buyer prompts instead of only keyword rankings.

It depends on your market, your starting point and how competitive your category is. Technical and entity fixes often show movement in the first one to three months. Earned mentions, reviews and expert content build more slowly, and competitive categories usually take four to six months or more. AI answers also vary from one day and one person to the next, which is why I track a fixed prompt set over time instead of reacting to a single screenshot.

No. No one can honestly guarantee rankings or AI recommendations, and anyone who does is not being straight with you. These systems change constantly and no outside provider controls them. What I can promise is evidence-based work, a clear monthly report on where you show up across platforms for the prompts your buyers actually use, and honest adjustments based on that data.

There is no industry standard yet, so I am transparent about the method. I use three sources: the generative AI performance report in Google Search Console, which shows impressions from Google’s AI features; the AI Performance report in Bing Webmaster Tools, which covers Microsoft Copilot and Bing; and a fixed set of real buyer prompts that I run across Google AI Overviews, ChatGPT, Perplexity, Copilot and other platforms every month to calculate your share of voice against competitors.

No. Google has said it does not use llms.txt, so I do not sell it as a visibility lever. Structured data is still worth doing well because it keeps your business information clean and consistent, but recent studies found no lift in AI citations from schema alone, and Google no longer shows FAQ rich results. I treat schema as technical hygiene and entity clarity, not a shortcut.

You work directly with me, Nikki Norris, not an account manager. I bring 12+ years in digital marketing and SEO, I test strategies on my own brand before I recommend them, and I report AI visibility the same way for every client. For Arux Group, a Pacific Northwest security company based in Vancouver WA, that approach reached an AI share of voice of 80 percent on Grok, 60 percent on Google AI Overviews and 40 percent on ChatGPT by April 2026, against a 30 percent target.