What is Answer Engine Optimization (AEO)?

Answer Engine Optimization (AEO) is the practice of structuring your digital presence so AI systems like ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude, and Perplexity can accurately understand, verify, and cite your business when users ask questions. Unlike traditional SEO, which focuses on ranking in search results, AEO ensures AI engines have the structured data, entity clarity, and extractable content they need to recommend you by name in conversational answers. AEO builds on SEO fundamentals but adds three critical layers: machine-readable structured data (JSON-LD schema), entity consistency across platforms, and content formatted for AI retrieval and citation.

AI SEO, or Answer Engine Optimization (AEO), is the practice of optimizing your digital presence so AI search engines like ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude, and Perplexity can understand, verify, and cite your business when users ask questions. Unlike traditional SEO, which focuses on ranking in Google search results, AI SEO ensures AI engines have the structured data, entity clarity, and extractable content they need to recommend you by name in conversational answers.

What does an AEO agency do?

An AEO agency helps businesses optimize their digital presence for AI citation. This includes implementing structured data markup (JSON-LD schema), building AI-readable content files (llms.txt and llms-full.txt), ensuring entity consistency across directories and citations, and monitoring how AI platforms cite or ignore your business over time.

How is AEO different from SEO?

SEO helps you rank in search. AEO helps AI systems cite or recommend you in answers. In practice, AEO starts with solid SEO, then adds structured data, entity clarity, and content formatted for retrieval.

How long does it take to see results?

It depends on your baseline, market, competition, and prompt volatility. We do not promise a fixed timeline because AI visibility can change without notice.

Which AI platforms do you optimize for?

We focus on ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Microsoft Copilot, and Perplexity. Each platform behaves differently, so the work needs to hold up across multiple systems.

Do you only serve NYC businesses?

No. We are based in New York City and do deep NYC local work, but engagements are delivered remotely and we work with teams nationwide.

The instant AEO check is free. If you want the full AI Visibility Report and execution plan, submit your details and we will send a scoped quote by email.

AI NYC Blog

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Canonry - The ultimate AEO monitoring tool, open source.

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We Open-Sourced Our AEO Audit Engine

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