AEO: Get AI Answers to Mention You

How AI assistants decide which businesses and websites to mention, what we saw when we asked six of them the same question, and the steps that help.

The short version: Answer engine optimization (AEO) means making it easy for AI assistants like ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini and Perplexity to find your business and mention it in their answers. They search the web, read a few pages and summarize them, so most of the work is ordinary good practice: let their search bots in, put clear facts near the top of each page, use the same business name everywhere, publish things only you can say, and get mentioned on other sites. Google says special AI files like llms.txt don’t help in its search, and Bing treats tricks aimed at chatbots as spam.

Why it matters now

45%

Of US consumers used ChatGPT or other AI tools for local business recommendations, up from 6% a year earlier

BrightLocal, 2026

4 in 10

US adults use AI chatbots to search for information

Pew Research Center, 2026

62%

Of the links cited in Google’s AI Overviews came from pages outside Google’s top 10 results for that search

Ahrefs, 2026

Table of Contents

What is answer engine optimization?

When someone asks an AI assistant a question, it often gives one answer and names a few businesses or websites. Answer engine optimization is the work of becoming one of those names. You may also see it called generative engine optimization (GEO) or AI search optimization. The terms overlap, and our short definitions explain AEO and GEO.

It matters most for small businesses and anyone who sells a service. A customer who once searched “plumber near me” and scanned ten links may now ask ChatGPT for three names and call the first one.

We asked six AI assistants the same question

On November 2, 2026, we typed one question into ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Perplexity, Grok and Meta’s Muse: “What is the best free AI for writing emails in 2026? Recommend 3, and list the websites you got this from.” Each ran on its free or fastest setting. Gemini and Perplexity were signed out, and the other four ran in temporary, incognito, private or side chats. We picked a topic we write about so we could see whether our own guide showed up.

Same question, six source lists. Screenshots from our test on November 2, 2026. Image: Beginners in AI test, November 2, 2026.

Every assistant searched the web before answering, and each listed the pages it read. No two lists matched. Across the six answers we counted 20 different websites, and the only one cited three times was a review on eesel.ai (by Claude, Grok and Muse). Most sources were comparison articles with titles like “best free AI email writers in 2026.” Perplexity was the exception, leaning on the makers’ own help and pricing pages.

The picks agreed more than the sources did. Five of the six recommended ChatGPT. Claude was the odd one out and put itself first. Some facts were stale: Gemini said ChatGPT’s free tier runs on GPT-4o, a model OpenAI has since replaced. So if the pages about your business are out of date, the AI’s answer will be too.

As for our own site, Claude cited our guide to the best AI for email writing as its first source. The other five didn’t mention us.

For a business owner, that means there is no single list to get onto. Each assistant runs its own search, so being named comes from showing up in many places that those searches reach.

How do AI assistants decide who to mention?

Most of the time, they search the web, pick a few pages, and summarize what those pages say. Which search they use depends on the assistant:

Gemini and Google’s AI Overviews draw on Google’s search index, the huge catalog of web pages Google has already collected (Google, Google).
Microsoft Copilot is built on Bing’s search (Bing).
ChatGPT sends out its own crawler, a program that visits and reads web pages, called OAI-SearchBot, and also uses partners, including Microsoft’s Bing-based Web IQ (OpenAI, Microsoft).
Claude uses its own search crawler, Claude-SearchBot (Anthropic).
Perplexity says it runs its own index (Perplexity), built with its crawler, PerplexityBot (Perplexity).

Getting your pages found is one part. What other websites say about you matters too. University of Toronto researchers found that AI search engines favor “earned” sources, such as reviews and news articles, over a brand’s own website (arXiv, 2025). Ahrefs found that how often a brand is mentioned around the web tracks with its visibility in AI Overviews far more closely than its number of backlinks (links from other websites to yours). Across 75,000 brands, mentions scored 0.66 on a 0-to-1 scale of how closely two things move together; backlinks scored 0.22 (Ahrefs). In a second study, mentions in YouTube videos showed the strongest link of all (Ahrefs). Ahrefs measured which things rise and fall together, which doesn’t prove that one causes the other.

What happened when AI stopped citing us

Our own experienceIn spring 2026 we published far too many posts in a short time. By July, Bing’s AI Performance report showed Copilot citing only a handful of our pages, all on one topic. We changed course: no more than five new posts a week, something first-hand in every one (our own tests and screenshots, like the panel above), no more changing the dates on old posts to look fresh, and steady work on getting other sites to link to us. In late July our citations started climbing again. Within three weeks Copilot was citing hundreds of our pages again, and daily citations passed our spring peak.

Two cautions. We can’t prove which change did it, because Bing also changes its own systems. And a citation isn’t a visit. Bing’s report counts how often you’re cited and doesn’t track clicks (Bing). None of these changes was aimed at AI specifically. They are the same steps listed below.

Seven steps that help

Let the search bots in. Check your site’s robots.txt file, a short text file that tells bots which pages they may visit (your web host or developer can help). To appear in answers, allow OAI-SearchBot for ChatGPT, Claude-SearchBot and Claude-User for Claude, PerplexityBot for Perplexity, plus Googlebot and Bingbot (OpenAI, Anthropic, Perplexity). Blocking GPTBot or ClaudeBot only opts you out of AI training, not out of answers. On Bing, a NOARCHIVE tag (a line of code telling search engines not to keep a copy of a page) keeps that page out of Copilot answers entirely, so ask whoever built your site whether you use one (Bing).
Put the answer near the top. Bing’s guidelines ask for key information early on the page and facts stated plainly so the reader doesn’t have to guess (Bing). Your opening lines should say what you do, where, for whom and roughly what it costs.
Use one name, everywhere. The same business name, address and phone number on your website, Google Business Profile, social pages and directories. Bing asks for “clear and consistent naming” of organizations, products and places (Bing).
Give each page one job. One service or one question per page, which Bing also recommends. A page called “Emergency furnace repair in Columbus” is easier to match to a question than a page called “Services.”
Publish what only you can say. Google’s guide says unique, useful content, such as first-hand experience, is likely to matter more for AI search than any other tip on its list (Google). That could be real prices, photos of your work, a case study with numbers, answers to the questions your customers ask on the phone.
Get talked about elsewhere. Reviews, local news coverage, industry directories, podcasts, a partner’s blog, a YouTube video about your work. Google warns that chasing fake mentions isn’t as helpful as it might seem (Google), so aim for real ones.
If you’re local, fill in your Google Business Profile. Google says Business Profiles help local businesses show up in AI responses as well as regular search results (Google). Keep the hours, services and photos current, and ask happy customers for reviews.

New to using AI in your business at all? Start with our AI for small business guide.

Want help putting this into practice?

Join the free Beginners in AI community on Skool. You get a 14-day starter path with one small AI task a day, plus a place to ask questions when you get stuck. No experience needed.

Join the free community →Free to join

Which AEO tips can you ignore?

Plenty of AEO advice online is guesswork. In May 2026 Google published a guide to its AI search features that says optimizing for them is “still SEO” and lists things you can ignore for Google Search (Google):

llms.txt and other “AI files.” Google says its search ignores them, so they neither help nor hurt there.
Chopping pages into tiny chunks. Google says its systems don’t need this.
Writing in a special style for AI. Write for your customers instead.
A page for every variation of a question. Mass-producing near-identical pages can break Google’s spam rules.
Special schema markup for AI. Schema markup (also called structured data) is hidden code that labels facts like prices and opening hours for search engines. Google says you don’t need an AI-specific version, but the standard kind still helps regular search results.

Research points the same way. A 2025 study of “conversational SEO” tricks found most made little difference, while ordinary SEO did much better (C-SEO Bench, arXiv). You may see a claim that adding statistics and quotes lifts AI visibility by up to 40%. That figure came from a 2023 lab experiment mostly run on the authors’ own benchmark with source pages they supplied, not from watching how assistants cite real websites (GEO paper, arXiv). Bing goes further and treats wording engineered to trigger AI citations, and content written to manipulate chatbots (known as prompt injection), as spam (Bing).

Do’s and don’ts for your website

If you run a website for your business, here is the checklist version, with a few points the steps above didn’t cover. Keep it handy when you or a developer update the site.

Do	Don’t
Let in the bots that AI search tools use to read your site. Your developer will know them as OAI-SearchBot, Claude-SearchBot, Claude-User, PerplexityBot, Googlebot and Bingbot.	Block them by accident in your robots.txt file (the file that tells bots what they may read), or add a “noarchive” tag, which keeps a page out of Copilot answers.
Say what you do, where, for whom and roughly what it costs in the first lines of each page.	Bury the key facts under a long welcome message, or only inside images and PDFs.
Keep your business name, address, phone and hours the same on every site that lists you.	Leave old hours, prices or addresses sitting on directories and forgotten pages.
Give each service, product or common question its own page.	Churn out near-identical pages that only swap the town name or keyword.
Show proof: real photos, prices, case studies and reviews from real customers.	Buy, write or swap fake reviews. A 2024 FTC rule bans buying or selling them.
Write for your customers in plain words.	Stuff in keywords, or add text written to manipulate chatbots.
Read and fact-check every page an AI tool drafts before it goes live.	Let AI publish pages in bulk with no one checking them.

Where these come from: Bing’s guidelines cover crawlers, NOARCHIVE, plain facts, consistent names, one topic per page, and warn against content written to manipulate chatbots (Bing). Google’s guide warns against mass-produced variation pages and says chasing fake mentions isn’t as helpful as it might seem (Google). The FTC’s rule on reviews took effect in October 2024 (Federal Register).

Prompts for an AI that helps with your site

Many owners now use ChatGPT, Claude or Gemini to write and fix their website. These prompts keep the AI in the Do column above. Replace the parts in brackets with your own details, and check what comes back before you publish it.

Prompt: check a page like a new customer

Here is the text of a page from my website: [paste the page]. Read it as a customer who has never heard of us. In four short bullet points, tell me what we do, where, who it’s for and what it costs. Then list any of those facts that are missing, unclear or buried below the first paragraph.

Prompt: rewrite the opening

Rewrite the first paragraph of this page so it says plainly what we do, where, who it’s for and our price range, in under 60 words. Use only facts from the text I gave you; if the price or area isn’t there, write [CHECK] instead of guessing. Page: [paste the page]

Prompt: turn real questions into an FAQ

Here are questions customers have asked us by phone, email and in reviews: [paste the questions]. Turn them into a short FAQ with direct answers, using only the information I give you here: [paste your facts]. Don’t invent prices, hours, guarantees or claims. If my facts don’t answer a question, mark it [CHECK].

Prompt: find mismatched business details

Here is how my business name, address, phone number and hours appear on my website, my Google Business Profile and [other directories]: [paste each one]. List every difference, even small ones like “St.” versus “Street” or a different phone number.

Prompt: explain my robots.txt file

Here is my website’s robots.txt file (from yoursite.com/robots.txt): [paste it]. In plain English, tell me whether it blocks OAI-SearchBot, Claude-SearchBot, Claude-User, PerplexityBot, Googlebot or Bingbot, and what each block would mean for showing up in AI answers. Don’t suggest changes yet.

Prompt: ground rules before an AI writes for your site

You’re helping me write pages for my business website. Ground rules: write for customers, not search engines. No hidden text, no keyword lists and no instructions aimed at AI chatbots. Don’t create pages that only swap the town name. Never invent reviews, prices or facts; if you’re not sure of something, ask me or mark it [CHECK].

How do you check whether AI mentions you?

Ask them. Once a month, run the same few questions in the assistants your customers use, ideally in a private or signed-out chat so your own history doesn’t color the answer. Write down who gets named and which websites are cited. Those websites are where you want to be mentioned.

Prompt 1: who gets recommended in your area

What are the best [type of business] in [your town or city]? Recommend 5, and list the websites you got this from.

Prompt 2: what AI knows about you

What do you know about [your business name] in [your town or city]? Tell me where each fact came from, and say so if you are not sure.

Prompt 3: how you compare

I’m choosing between [your business] and [a competitor]. Which would you pick, and which websites did you use?

If an assistant gets a fact about you wrong, find the page it cited and fix the information at the source, whether that’s your own site, a directory listing or an old article.

Free tools show some of this too:

Bing Webmaster Tools, AI Performance: how often Copilot and Bing’s AI answers cite your pages, and the search phrases the AI used to find them (Bing).
Google Search Console, generative AI report: how often links to your site appeared in AI Overviews and AI Mode; it counts showings, and doesn’t count clicks (Google). It’s also where you can check your site hasn’t been excluded from AI features.
Your website analytics: visits from ChatGPT usually carry a label, utm_source=chatgpt.com, that your analytics shows as the source (OpenAI). Visits from other assistants usually appear under the assistant’s web address, such as perplexity.ai, in your list of sites that sent you visitors.

Common questions

Is AEO different from SEO?

Mostly no. Google calls optimizing for its AI features “still SEO,” and Bing says Copilot finds and ranks pages the same way Bing search does. AEO puts extra weight on clear facts near the top of the page and on mentions from other websites. Our AI SEO guide covers using AI to help write and rank content.

Do I need an llms.txt file?

Not for Google: it says Google Search ignores these files. It won’t hurt to have one, but your time is better spent on the seven steps above.

Should I block AI bots?

Only the training bots, if you want to. Blocking GPTBot or ClaudeBot keeps your pages out of future training. Blocking the search bots, such as OAI-SearchBot, Claude-SearchBot or PerplexityBot, can keep you out of their answers or make you show up less.

How long does AEO take?

Weeks to months. Assistants can only cite pages their search has found, and mentions on other sites build slowly. Checking once a month is enough.

Can I pay to appear in ChatGPT’s answers?

No. ChatGPT now shows ads on its Free and Go plans, but OpenAI says ads are labeled, kept separate from the answer and don’t influence it. In September it also began testing sponsored chats you can open from an ad, which we covered in our daily newsletter. Beware of anyone selling guaranteed AI rankings: Bing says even following its guidelines “does not guarantee” citations.

Made for regular people, by a real person

A free daily newsletter for people who use AI at work and in their business: what changed, what it means for you, and what to try next. Written and edited by a human.

Free forever. Unsubscribe anytime.

AI Pioneers: Who Built AI

Best AI for Every Task (2026)

Kino AI: The Video Editor for Agents