AEO Agency: Answer Engine Optimization Services That Get You Named by AI
An AEO agency gets your business named when a buyer asks ChatGPT, Google AI Mode, Gemini, or Perplexity who to hire. Leedly does that work for B2B and local service companies doing $500K to $2M and up, and we report the result every month as a number you can check yourself.
I started Leedly after selling my elearning company to private equity in an eight-figure exit. Search was a material part of what the buyer paid for. Before that I served in the US Navy, three deployments. I run this agency the way I ran that company: measure the thing that makes money, ignore the rest.
What an AEO agency actually does
There is a fair question going around right now: are AEO services real, or is it schema markup with a new label? Some of it is exactly that. Real AEO work has four parts, and only one of them lives on your website.
1. Answer-ready pages. Every page that matters opens with a direct answer in the first sentence, then backs it with specifics: prices, turnaround times, service areas, named outcomes. Models quote sentences they can lift cleanly. Vague copy gets skipped.
2. Entity and citation work off your site. This is the part cheap AEO skips. AI assistants build their shortlists from what other sources say about you: your Google Business Profile, the words inside your reviews, industry directories, and “best of” lists in your category. We make those sources agree with each other and fill the gaps. When they agree, the model can say your name with confidence.
3. Technical access. If AI crawlers get blocked or rate-limited, your pages never make it into the answer. We check which crawlers can reach you, fix what is fixable at the host, and add structured data so each block of the page is labeled for what it is.
4. Measurement. Every month we run the questions your buyers actually ask, many times over, across every major assistant. Then we report how often you appear and where you land in the list.
Skip any one of the four and the program stalls. Most agencies selling AEO do part one and send a screenshot.
How we measure AEO
A screenshot of ChatGPT naming you proves nothing. Ask the same question twice and the answer changes. We track four numbers instead. I broke each one down in what “cited by ChatGPT” actually measures.
Here is what they look like on a live account, a medical courier operating in 30 metros across 8 states:
| Buyer question | ChatGPT | Google AI Mode | Gemini |
|---|---|---|---|
| medical courier | 75.5% presence, rank 2.35 | 93.9% presence, rank 1.39 | 75.5% presence, rank 1.62 |
| stat medical courier | 87.8% presence, rank 1.05 | 83.7% presence, rank 2.05 | 70.8% presence, rank 1.76 |
Presence is the share of runs where the business gets named at all. Rank is its average position inside the answer. A 1.05 in ChatGPT on “stat medical courier” means that when they appear, they are named first almost every time.
The fourth number is traffic you can see in analytics. A national property tax appeal firm we work with logged 146 AI referral sessions in July, and ChatGPT cites them as one of only two sources on “best property tax appeal service.”
Proof you can check
A family orthodontic practice in Glen Allen, Virginia is a live example. When we ran the baseline, ChatGPT recommended them first to a parent asking for the best orthodontist for their teenager. The model built that answer from their directory profiles and review scores. That is the off-site work in part two above, doing its job.
For the medical courier, the payoff showed up in revenue. One account that found them through a city page is approaching $3,000 a week in receivables, roughly $150,000 a year. That account then pulled them into two new markets.
What AEO costs
Leedly AEO engagements start at $1,500 a month, flat rate, no long-term contract. That covers:
- A baseline across ChatGPT, Google AI Mode, Gemini, and Perplexity on the questions your buyers ask
- Page rewrites and new pages built to be quoted
- Google Business Profile, review, and directory alignment
- Structured data and AI crawler access checks
- A monthly report with presence rate, rank inside the answer, platform split, and AI referral sessions
AEO sits inside our broader AI SEO agency work. If you want classic rankings and AI answers handled together, it is one engagement.
AEO, GEO, and SEO
Answer engine optimization (AEO) is the practice of making your business the answer an AI assistant gives. SEO gets a page ranked so a person clicks it. Generative engine optimization (GEO) is the umbrella term for the whole AI search program, and some agencies use it interchangeably with AEO. I wrote up the GEO side on our generative engine optimization page. For the full side-by-side, read AEO vs SEO: what changes and where to spend.
In practice they share a foundation. The pages that rank in Google are usually the same pages the assistants quote. We build once and measure both.
How to vet an AEO agency
Whoever you hire, ask these five questions before you sign:
- What was a client’s presence rate before and after? A real answer is a percentage on a named buyer question. A screenshot does not count.
- Which assistants do you track? ChatGPT, Google AI Mode, Gemini, and Perplexity pull from different sources. Tracking one leaves you blind on the other three.
- What do you do off my website? If the answer is only schema and FAQs, you are buying part one of four.
- How do you report AI referral traffic? It should come from your own analytics, not a modeled estimate.
- What does it cost, and what am I locked into? Our answer is $1,500 a month with no long-term contract.
The AI Visibility Agent behind this service
This work is run by Leedly’s AI Visibility Agent, one of six AI marketing agents that share one data layer. A Leedly operator reviews everything it ships.
The job: get you named when buyers ask ChatGPT, Google AI Mode, Gemini, or Perplexity who to hire.
What it does:
- Runs your buyers’ questions across the assistants every month and records how often you’re named and where
- Finds which sources the assistants trust in your category and closes the gaps
- Keeps your facts consistent across your site, profiles, and directories
- Works the questions closest to a purchase first
Works with the other agents: the Content and SEO Agents supply the pages assistants quote. Reviews from the Google Maps Agent add the trust signals assistants look for. When an assistant sends a buyer, the Sales Agent picks it up.
Result: ChatGPT names our medical courier client in 87.8% of answers on “stat medical courier,” at an average position of 1.05.
See all six AI marketing agents →
FAQ
What is an AEO agency?
An AEO agency gets your business named and cited in answers from AI assistants like ChatGPT, Google AI Mode, Gemini, and Perplexity. The work covers your own pages, your profiles and reviews across the web, crawler access, and monthly measurement.
How long does AEO take to show results?
Page and profile fixes can show up in Google AI Mode within weeks, because it leans on Google’s own local and web index. ChatGPT tends to move slower, since it weighs what third-party sites say about you. We set a baseline in month one so you can see the change.
Do I still need SEO if I invest in AEO?
Yes. The assistants draw heavily on pages that already rank. We run both in one engagement.
Can a local business benefit from AEO?
Yes. Google Business Profile data and review text feed AI recommendations directly. I covered that in how to get your business recommended by ChatGPT.
How much do AEO services cost?
Leedly starts at $1,500 a month, flat, with no long-term contract.
See where you stand today
Before you talk to any agency, including us, find out what the assistants say about you right now. The free AI visibility scan runs your buyer questions across ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Google’s AI results. It comes back with your presence, the competitors named in your place, and the first gaps to close.