AI SEO Agency: Get Cited in AI Overviews, ChatGPT, and Perplexity
An AI SEO agency gets your business cited and recommended by AI search, the way a traditional SEO agency got you ranked in blue links. That means showing up inside Google AI Overviews, ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Gemini when a buyer asks them who to trust, what to buy, and who to hire.
That shift matters because your buyers stopped scrolling ten blue links. They ask an AI a question and act on the answer. If your business is not in that answer, you are invisible to the fastest-growing channel in search.
I run Leedly. Before Leedly I built an eight-figure elearning company, Contractor Training Center that I sold to private equity. I am a US Navy veteran with three deployments. Then I worked as a tech liaison for GE in the Jack Welsh days. I have spent my career building digital infrastructure that compounds into enterprise value, and AI search is the newest layer of that infrastructure. We build it for B2B companies doing $500K to $10M and up.
What an AI SEO agency actually does
Traditional SEO optimized for a ranked list of links. AI search works differently. The engine reads the web, decides which sources it trusts, and writes one answer that cites a handful of them. Our job is to make your business one of those cited sources.
That breaks into four workstreams.
Generative Engine Optimization (GEO)
We structure your site and content so generative engines pull from it. This is the umbrella discipline that holds the rest together. Read the full GEO guide.
Answer Engine Optimization (AEO)
We write content the way models read it: clear claims, direct answers, FAQs, summaries, and data tables a language model can parse and quote. How AEO works.
Entity authority building
AI engines trust brands with a consistent footprint across the web. We build your presence through digital PR, third-party citations, and structured author and organization data so the models recognize you as a real, credible entity.
Technical accessibility
We set up schema markup, clean metadata, and llms.txt so AI crawlers can read, understand, and cite your pages. If the crawler cannot parse you, the model cannot quote you.
Why AI visibility is a valuation asset, not just traffic
Most agencies sell you AI SEO as more leads. Fair. I sell you something bigger.
An inbound engine that the AI layer of the internet already trusts is a durable business asset. It keeps producing pipeline without you in the room. When you raise, sell, or bring on a partner, that engine shows up in the multiple. I have lived both sides of this. I built that infrastructure at CTC, and it was part of what made the company worth multi-millions to a private equity buyer.
When our clients win, we win. The same systems that get you cited in ChatGPT this quarter are the systems that make your business more sellable in three years.
The platforms we optimize for
- Google AI Overviews. The AI answer box above the organic results. How to rank in AI Overviews.
- ChatGPT Search. Hundreds of millions of weekly users asking it what to buy. Get cited in ChatGPT.
- Perplexity. The research engine professionals and buyers lean on. Perplexity SEO guide.
- Gemini and Bing Copilot. Google’s assistant layer and Microsoft’s index behind Copilot.
llms.txt: the file most agencies have not heard of yet
llms.txt is a plain text file you place at the root of your domain. It tells AI crawlers which pages matter and how to read them, the same way robots.txt has guided search crawlers for 30 years. It is early, and that is the point. Almost no one in your market has one.
We deploy a clean llms.txt that points the models at your highest-value pages, your core offers, and your proof. Combined with schema and a strong entity footprint, it makes you one of the easiest businesses in your category for an AI to understand and cite. See where llms.txt fits in the full GEO process.
How we measure AI search results
Most agencies wave their hands when you ask how they measure AI visibility. Here is exactly how we do it.
- Citation tracking. We run a fixed set of buyer prompts across ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, and Google AI Overviews every month and record where your brand is named and linked.
- Share of voice. We measure how often you get cited versus your named competitors for the same prompts, so you see your position in the category, not just a raw count.
- AI referral traffic. We separate visits coming from AI platforms in your analytics, so you see real sessions and conversions, not just mentions.
- Classic rankings. We keep tracking organic positions, because the pages that earn AI citations are usually strong organic pages too.
How to choose an AI SEO agency
The category is new, so the bar is low and the noise is high. Use this checklist before you sign with anyone, including me.
- Can they show a named client cited in AI Overviews, ChatGPT, or Perplexity, with before-and-after evidence?
- Do they have a written measurement methodology, or do they just promise visibility?
- Do they do the technical work themselves: schema, llms.txt, entity data, structured content?
- Do they understand your business model and your buyers, or do they run the same playbook for everyone?
- Is the founder or senior strategist someone who has actually built and grown a business, or only run campaigns?
How we work
- AI visibility audit. We test what AI Overviews, ChatGPT, and Perplexity say about your category and your competitors today, and where you are missing.
- GEO and AEO buildout. We restructure priority pages, add schema, fix technical accessibility, and publish content models can cite.
- Entity and authority. We strengthen your footprint across the web so the engines trust you as a source.
- Measure and compound. We track citations, AI referral traffic, and rankings, then double down on what moves.
Results
See How Leedly Ranked Red Fox Medical Courier for the #1 Recommendation on ChatGPT within 90 days!
See How Leedly Ranked Texas Practice Transitions to the Number One Dental Business Broker in Texas on Google Maps in less than 30 days!
What it costs
Most AI SEO engagements for small to mid-sized businesses run $1,500 to $5,000 per month. Leedly works with B2B companies in the $500K to $10M and up range, and we scope to your goals rather than a fixed package.
Frequently asked questions
What is an AI SEO agency?
An AI SEO agency optimizes your website and content so AI search engines cite and recommend your business. That includes Google AI Overviews, ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Gemini. It combines generative engine optimization, answer engine optimization, entity authority, and technical schema work.
How is AI SEO different from traditional SEO?
Traditional SEO earns you a ranked link a user clicks. AI SEO earns you a citation inside the answer the AI writes, often before any click happens. The skills overlap on technical foundations and content quality. AI SEO adds structured-data depth, entity building, and content formatted for machine reading.
How long does AI SEO take to work?
Early citations can appear within weeks for low-competition queries. Durable visibility across your core commercial terms typically builds over three to six months as entity authority compounds.
Can you guarantee I will show up in ChatGPT or AI Overviews?
No honest agency guarantees a specific AI placement, because the engines control their own output. What we control is making your business the most citable, credible source in your category, which is what the engines reward.
How much does an AI SEO agency cost?
Most engagements run $1,500 to $5,000 per month for small to mid-sized businesses. Leedly scopes to your goals. Let’s work together!
Want the scope rather than the argument? Our AI SEO services page lays out exactly what lands in month one, month three and month six.
Selling to other businesses?
B2B search works differently. Longer cycles, buying committees, and a much smaller pool of buyers, which makes raw traffic a misleading measure. See how our B2B SEO agency work builds pipeline for companies doing $500K to $2M+.
How to choose an AI SEO company
Every agency added “AI” to its homepage in the last eighteen months. Most of them mean they use ChatGPT to write blog posts faster. That is not an AI SEO company, that is a normal agency with a cheaper content process.
Five questions that separate the two. Ask any AI SEO company you are considering:
- Can you show me a client’s current citation rate? Not a screenshot of one ChatGPT answer. A measured percentage across many prompts, tracked over time. If they cannot measure it, they cannot improve it.
- Which engines do you track? ChatGPT, Perplexity, Google AI Overviews, Google AI Mode and Gemini behave differently. An agency tracking one is guessing at the other four.
- What is in your reporting besides traffic? AI referral sessions, share of local voice, and tracked conversions should all appear. Sessions alone tell you nothing about pipeline.
- Who writes the content? If the answer is a model with no operator review, the pages will read like every other page the model wrote, and AI engines cite specific, verifiable sources over generic ones.
- Have you run a business that was not an agency? Uncomfortable question, and the most useful one.
The best AI SEO agency for you is the one that can answer the first question with a number. Most cannot. We publish ours: one client appears in over 90% of Google AI Mode answers for their core service term, and in roughly 9 out of 10 ChatGPT answers for their highest-intent term.
If you would rather see your own numbers before you talk to anyone, the free AI visibility scan shows where you currently stand across all five engines.