What is AI SEO (Answer Engine Optimization)?

AI SEO, also called 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 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. It 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.

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.

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Does AI NYC offer AI consulting services?

Yes. AI NYC provides AI consulting focused on AI search visibility and answer engine optimization. Our AI consulting services help businesses understand how AI systems like ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, and Perplexity discover, evaluate, and recommend businesses, then implement the technical and content strategies to improve those outcomes.

Research

Claude Appends the Current Year to Some Web Searches

Arber X · April 30, 2026 · 2 min read

Quick research note. When Claude runs a web search to answer certain queries, it rewrites the search string to include the current year, even when the user did not type one.

We sampled subqueries across categories and inspected the search strings Claude actually issued. The pattern was consistent enough to act on.

Sample of Claude search queries showing where the year was appended, grouped by category

The pattern

Year gets appended for commercial and "best X" comparison queries:

"best CRM for startups" becomes "best CRM for startups 2026"
"best collaboration tools for remote teams" becomes "best collaboration tools for remote teams 2026"
"best running shoes" becomes "best running shoes 2026"

Year does not get appended for:

Advice and decision queries ("how to choose a therapist", "how to find a specialist doctor")
Local service queries ("best plumber near me", "home cleaning services near me")
Cost estimate queries ("home renovation cost estimate")

Roughly: if the answer is meant to be evergreen advice, no year. If the answer is a list that should be current, the year goes in.

What this means for your content

If you publish a "best X" or comparison page and the page itself only references last year (or no year at all), Claude's actual search has "2026" in it. A page that mentions 2026 in its title, headings, and schema is a better match than one that does not.

For evergreen advice pages, the opposite holds. Stamping "(2026)" on a how-to article does nothing for Claude's search because Claude is not searching with a year on those queries. It can also age the page in users' eyes faster than necessary.

Practical takeaway

For commercial, comparison, and "best X" pages: put the current year in the H1, in section headings, and in dateModified on Article or BlogPosting JSON-LD. Refresh on a real cadence so the date is honest.
For advice, how-to, local service, and cost-estimate pages: leave the year out of the title. Use dateModified for trust, but do not stuff a year into the H1.
Audit your corpus by category. Apply the year treatment where the retrieval layer is actually searching with one, not everywhere.

The retrieval layer is doing more query rewriting than most content strategy assumes. The cheapest signal you can give it is matching the query it is actually running.

FAQ

Does Claude always add the year to web searches?

No. In our sample, Claude added the current year mostly to commercial and 'best X' comparison queries. It did not add a year to how-to, advice, local service, or cost-estimate queries.

Should I put the year in every page title?

No. Year-stamping helps for pages where Claude (and similar retrieval layers) actually search with a year, which is mostly commercial comparison content. For evergreen advice and how-to pages, putting the year in the H1 mostly ages the page in users' eyes without any retrieval benefit.

How often should I refresh year-stamped content?

On a real cadence. If your page says '2026' in the H1, the body, schema, and dateModified should reflect a recent update. A title that claims 'best X 2026' on top of 2024 content is a worse match than a page that does not claim a year at all.

Try it yourself.

Run a free AEO audit to see how your site scores, or explore the tools and pages referenced in this article.

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