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.

Public Toolkit

@ainyc/aeo-audit

A public audit engine for the technical side of Answer Engine Optimization.

A public CLI and JavaScript library that audits 13 factors we believe correlate with AI citation readiness. AEO is an emerging field, and this tool represents our best working model, not a guaranteed formula.

What Is Public Today

Distribution

GitHub repository: AINYC/aeo-audit
npm package: @ainyc/aeo-audit
License: MIT

Documentation

README with CLI and API examples
Public changelog and roadmap
Contribution guide for collaborators

How To Use It

CLI

npx @ainyc/aeo-audit https://example.com

npx @ainyc/aeo-audit https://example.com --format json

JavaScript API

import { runAeoAudit } from '@ainyc/aeo-audit'

const report = await runAeoAudit('https://example.com', { includeGeo: false })

13-Factor Scope

Structured Data (JSON-LD)

12%

Presence of LocalBusiness, FAQPage, Service, and HowTo schemas.

Content Depth

10%

Word count, heading hierarchy, paragraph structure, and list usage.

AI-Readable Content

10%

llms.txt, llms-full.txt, robots.txt, and sitemap.xml availability.

E-E-A-T Signals

Author meta, trust pages, credentials, and review-oriented trust signals.

FAQ Content

FAQPage schema, question headings, and direct-answer formatting.

Citations & Authority

External references, authoritative links, and sameAs-style corroboration.

Schema Completeness

Property depth and richness across the structured data stack.

Entity Consistency

Naming consistency across schema, title tags, and on-page identity.

Content Freshness

dateModified, Last-Modified, sitemap dates, and current copyright signals.

Content Extractability

How easy the content is for answer engines to parse and cite.

Definition Blocks

Direct definitions, step lists, and HowTo-style explanation blocks.

Named Entities

Brand mentions, founder references, and proper-noun density.

AI Crawler Access

robots.txt rules for GPTBot, ClaudeBot, PerplexityBot, and peers.

Project Links

GitHub

Source code, issues, and project history.

Open repository

npm

Install and run the package through npx or your own Node workflow.

Open npm package

Project docs

See how the project is evolving without mistaking roadmap items for shipped features.

Changelog Roadmap Contributing

What's Next

Planned improvements on the roadmap — these are directions we're exploring, not shipped features.

npm release and CI integration for broader developer adoption
site audit and baseline diff workflows
policy-pack checks for engine-specific crawler rules
trend tracking and export formats for recurring monitoring

From Our Blog

We Open-Sourced Our AEO Audit Engine

Why AI NYC published @ainyc/aeo-audit, what the 13-factor model measures, and what teams can learn from it.

Read the article

Try the audit, then let us handle the rest.

Use the open-source package to see how your site scores, then work with AI NYC to turn those insights into a full optimization strategy.

Read the full story Run the free audit