Get recommended when AI answers for your market
A growing share of your future customers skip the Google results page. They ask ChatGPT, Perplexity, or Google’s own AI a question (“who’s the best design-build firm near Bethesda?”) and get one answer with a few business names in it.
AI visibility baseline
“Who are the best estate planning attorneys near me?”
One answer. Three names in it.
not named today
Asked across ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Google’s AI results.
An AI answer names three firms. Two of the three name slots are filled by other firms. The third slot, yours, is empty.
Why the rules changed
AI SEO is the work of getting your business named when an AI engine answers a buyer’s question. The industry calls it generative engine optimization (getting AI tools to recommend you). Few businesses in most markets have started this work, so the ones that start early tend to get cited first.
An AI engine writes one answer and names a few businesses in it. There is no list of results to climb.
When ChatGPT or Google’s AI Overviews recommend a firm, they assemble the answer from what they can verify about that firm, and 5 things carry most of the weight.
Answer-shaped content
Engines quote pages that ask a real question and answer it plainly. Prose written to impress gets skipped, however well it reads to a human.
Structured data everywhere
Code that tells a machine exactly who you are, what you do, where, and for how much, validated against Google’s own testing tools.
Entity consistency
Your name, services, address, and claims have to agree everywhere they appear. Engines cross-check your site against your Google Business Profile and business directories like Yelp before they risk citing you.
Review depth
Volume, recency, and wording all count. “Great service” does almost nothing. A review naming the service and the town does a lot.
Being checkably real
Verifiable facts, real photos, named people. The engines are getting good at telling a working firm from a content farm.
The question
Who’s the best design-build firm near Bethesda?
The answer
Three names come up for that.
Your firmanother firmanother firm
Picked from the facts the engine could verify about each firm.
None of this is exotic. Most of it is the same work as strong local SEO: accurate business details, structured data, reviews that name the service, pages that answer real questions. The difference is emphasis, engineering, and starting early enough that the engines learn your name first.
What we put on the record
An engine will not recommend a firm it cannot verify. The 4 workstreams below build the record it can check.
AI visibility baseline
We run your buyers’ real questions through ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Google’s AI, and write down who gets named today. Usually your competitors.
Site engineering for AI citation
Answer-shaped pages, structured data, and cleanup of your business details everywhere they appear. If an engine cannot confirm your claims, it quotes a firm whose claims it can confirm.
Review and proof depth
Reviews that name the service and the town, via review management, plus case studies with the specifics engines quote.
Monitoring and iteration
The engines change monthly. We re-test the same questions on schedule and adjust, so visibility compounds instead of decaying.
What an engine can check about you
Every line is something the work puts on the record. The numeral says which workstream puts it there.
- Questionsthe ones your buyers actually ask, in your market
- Named todaywho the engines recommend right now, by name
- Identityone name, one address, one story, everywhere
- Serviceswhat you do, where, and for how much, in code
- Answersa plain answer on the page for every real question
- Vouched byrecent reviews that name the service and the town
- Named workcase studies with the numbers, names, and places
- Last checkedre-tested on schedule, then adjusted
What an engine cannot check, it treats as absent.
This service pairs naturally with local SEO. The same structured data, reviews, and business details feed both the Google map results and AI answers, so the work compounds when you buy them together.
An honest note about a young field
Anyone promising you “#1 in ChatGPT” is selling something that can’t be promised: these engines don’t publish rankings and their answers shift.
What can be engineered is how likely the engines are to name you: the structure, consistency, proof, and content patterns that recommended businesses share. That’s what we build. We measure it with before-and-after testing on real buyer questions, and we show you the evidence.
We hold this opinion because we practice it. The systems that run our own visibility are the ones we sell: site structure, structured data, the reviews clients leave us, and content. Our own market is the first place we test what works.
Before you ask
The work of getting AI engines (ChatGPT, Perplexity, Google’s AI Overviews) to recommend your business when people ask for what you do. In practice that means answer-shaped content, structured data, consistent business information, review depth, and ongoing testing.
GEO is the industry’s term for this same work: getting your business cited in AI-generated answers instead of ranked in a list of results. GEO, AEO (answer engine optimization), and AI SEO all name the same job.
Yes, and the share keeps growing. AI answers are also taking over the top of Google itself: AI Overviews now sit above the regular results on many searches your buyers make. A business that skips this work is absent from the fastest-growing part of search.
It’s built on the same foundations: good site structure, real proof, helpful content. The emphasis shifts to earning citations in AI answers, with a plain answer on the page for every real question and facts a machine can check. Done together, each makes the other stronger.
No. These engines don’t publish rankings and their answers shift, so a guarantee would be dishonest. What we do: engineer the signals the engines demonstrably favor, measure your presence on real buyer questions before and after, and show you the evidence.
AI engines refresh their view of the web faster than classic Google rankings move, so improvements can show up in cited answers within weeks. Expect the gains to compound over months, the same as SEO. The AI visibility baseline we run first gives us an honest starting line.
Yes. Local recommendation questions (“who’s the best accountant in Rockville?”) are where AI engines lean hardest on reviews and consistent business details. A focused firm can win those signals, and the field is early enough that the businesses that start first tend to get cited most.
Find out who AI recommends in your market today.
We test the real questions buyers ask, show you who gets recommended now, and build the structure, proof, and content patterns that recommended businesses share.