Be the answer buyers get when they ask AI

An AEO agency, short for answer engine optimization agency, works to get your company quoted when buyers put a question to ChatGPT, Perplexity or Google. 51% of B2B software buyers now start research in an AI chatbot more often than with Google (G2, March 2026). Growigami writes 200 answer pages a month from what your experts know, with every figure checked against its source.

What does AEO stand for, and how does it work?

AEO stands for answer engine optimization. Search Engine Watch wrote about it in February 2018, when voice assistants and featured snippets were turning search engines into “answer engines” that give one reply to a question. Google had shown featured snippets since January 2014, and said they are especially helpful on mobile and in voice search.

The answer engines your buyers use today are Google’s AI Overviews, ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini and Copilot. Each one reads passages that answer the question and writes a reply, often naming its sources beside it. AEO is the work of being one of those sources, with your facts stated the way you would state them.

The reply now does much of the job a results page used to do. In a Pew Research Center study of 900 US adults’ Google searches in March 2025, 18% of searches showed an AI summary. On those pages people clicked a regular result in 8% of visits, against 15% on pages without one. They clicked a link inside the summary in 1%.

Google says its AI features need no special format. The habits that make a page easy for a reader to quote still apply:

• The question is the heading, in the words a buyer types or says.
• The answer comes first, in two or three sentences that still make sense if they are the only part quoted.
• Each claim names its source, and comparisons sit in tables.

Is AEO the same as GEO or AI search optimization?

The terms overlap, and the firms that rank for “AEO agency” disagree on where one ends. Optimist and Omniscient Digital both write that AEO and GEO name the same discipline. Minuttia draws a line: AEO covers AI Overviews and answer boxes, while GEO covers every generative system, down to in-app assistants. Agency AEO lists AEO, GEO and what it calls AISEO as three separate services.

Where each term came from is the clearest way to tell them apart:

Term	Where it comes from	What it aims at	How you see it working
AEO, answer engine optimization	Voice search and featured snippets, as Search Engine Watch described in 2018	Being the quoted answer to one question	Your page or name in the answer box, AI Overview or chatbot reply for that question
GEO, generative engine optimization	A 2023 research paper by Aggarwal and five coauthors, accepted at KDD 2024	Being named and cited in replies an AI writes from many sources	How often answers to your buyers’ questions name you, against named competitors
AI search optimization	A plain label for search products that answer with AI	Google’s AI Overviews and AI Mode, ChatGPT and Perplexity, plus the access their crawlers need	AI referral visits, plus Search Console’s Generative AI performance report

At Growigami one process covers all three, because one page serves each of them. A page that answers a buyer’s question plainly can be quoted by an AI Overview and by ChatGPT, and it can rank on Google as well. Google’s guide to its AI features calls optimizing for them “still SEO”. A page must be indexed and eligible for a snippet, and the site included in generative AI features in Search Console.

For the neighboring terms, our GEO agency page covers recommendation and shortlist answers, and AI search optimization services covers the whole channel. The GEO vs SEO comparison and the AEO glossary entry go deeper on the definitions.

What do the top-ranked AEO agency pages charge?

Seven AEO firms had pages in Google’s US top ten for “aeo agency” at Ahrefs’ check on 16 October 2026, and we read all seven on 4 November 2026. Three are service pages. The other four are lists of the best AEO agencies, each written by an AEO firm that ranks itself first, so the table shows each author’s own entry.

Firm (Google position)	Published price	What the work covers	Approval step	Term stated
Agency AEO, agencyaeo.com (2)	Quoted after a fixed-fee audit, credited to month one	Listings, site fixes, answer pages, mentions, reviews	None stated	Month to month; asks for a quarter
Optimist (3, its own list)	Audits from $2,500; advising from $3,000 a month	Audits, roadmaps and ongoing advising	None stated	None stated for its own work
Marcel Digital (5)	None	Existing pages, schema, AI answer monitoring	None stated	None stated
Minuttia (6, its own list)	A minimum project of $4,000 or more	Search strategy, content, digital PR, reporting	None stated	None stated
Omniscient Digital (7, its own list)	From $120,000 a year	Audit, content, digital PR, citation monitoring	None stated	None stated
AEO Agency, aeoagency.org (8)	None; offers a free audit	Schema, entities, citations, visibility reports	None stated	None stated
OGTool (10, its own list)	Software at $100 to $500 a month on its pricing page; managed plans custom	One AEO blog a week, Reddit posting, daily ChatGPT tracking	None stated	None stated
Growigami	$1,999 a month, or $3,498 with a monthly CRO review	200 answer pages a month and a monthly answer check	A person on your team approves each batch	three months, then 30 days' notice

Position 1 was a Reddit thread, and position 4 a People Also Ask box. Optimist’s guide says most agencies want a 6-month minimum and that AEO engagements typically run 6 to 12 months, though some go month to month. Agency AEO’s pricing page puts the market between a few hundred dollars for a tracking tool and five figures a month from large agencies.

The prices buy different work. Optimist’s advising suits a team that writes its own pages and wants a plan. Our search process writes the pages, 200 a month for $1,999, and adding a monthly CRO review brings it to $3,498 a month. Ask each firm for a sample page before you compare.

What happens in a month of AEO work?

The search process repeats one loop each month:

1. Question list. We put the questions your buyers ask to ChatGPT and Perplexity and log which vendors each reply names.
2. Gaps first. Questions your site has no good answer for go to the top: comparisons, integrations, use cases and plain definitions.
3. Expert call. Your expert talks through the answers on a short call, and AI agents write the pages from what they said.
4. Source check. Every figure on a page is matched to its source before your team reads it.
5. Your approval. A person on your team reviews each batch, and it goes live only once they approve it.
6. Re-check. The same questions go back to the assistants the next month, and you see which replies changed.

Pull sourcesSource · Cold chain trade feeds

Write the storyAgent · One story per item

Done

Check every figureAgainst the source

Passed

Open a pull requestGitHub · dockmere/dockmere-web

Google’s guide, last updated 10 July 2026, says that creating separate content for every variation of how people search, primarily to manipulate rankings or AI answers, violates its scaled content abuse policy. It adds that a high quantity of pages does not make a site higher quality. Each of our pages starts from a question your buyers ask and from what your expert said on the call. The process keeps a list of the pages already live, so each new page covers new ground.

Each page is also built to rank on Google. Google requires a page to be indexed and eligible for a snippet before it can appear in AI Overviews. Here the ranking work and the answer work are one job. The AI search and SEO service page shows what each size of the process includes.

Mentions on other sites come from a separate process. PR and awards writes your press releases and award entries and pitches reporters, from $1,999 a month, and you approve each piece before it goes out.

The CRO review is optional and costs extra: $1,499 a month for a monthly review, or $2,999 a month for weekly ones. Your CRO reviews the whole system with you and tunes it on the numbers, and between reviews you can ask them anything in Slack. Without the review, your team steers and we keep the process running. You can price the process and the review on the offerings page.

Which AEO reporting should you ask for?

Ask for a report you could check yourself. A useful one holds five things:

• One fixed question list, written the way buyers ask, so a change from one month to the next means something.
• The same assistants every month, chosen by where your buyers research.
• The competitor named in each answer, for every question where you are missing.
• Google results for the same pages, since AI Overviews sit on Google Search and Search Console now has a Generative AI performance report.
• Pipeline in your CRM, reviewed by someone who answers for it.

Answers vary between runs and with each model update, so read the trend across months more than any single reply. Our monthly answer check covers the question list, the assistants and the competitor named in each answer. With the optional CRO review, your CRO goes through those numbers and the rest of the system with you.

How do you choose an AEO agency?

Send every firm on your shortlist the same questions, and compare the written answers:

• What is the price, and for how long? Three of the seven top-ranked pages show a figure for their own work, and one states a term.
• How many pages a month, and what is on one? Only OGTool’s page gives a count, one AEO blog a week, so ask each firm for a live example.
• Who approves a page before it goes live? None of the seven mentions an approval step.
• Which questions will you track, on which assistants? Ask to see the list before you sign.
• What do you promise? AEO Agency’s own FAQ says no one can guarantee an appearance in ChatGPT or Gemini. Hold each firm to the work it will deliver and to its report.
• Who answers for pipeline? A count of mentions measures visibility. Ask who reviews the deals in your CRM, and how often.

When is another AEO agency a better fit?

Some buyers are better served elsewhere:

• You have writers and want direction. An advising engagement, such as Optimist’s from $3,000 a month, gives your own team the plan.
• You sell in local markets. Agency AEO’s plan includes listings on Google, Bing, Apple Maps and the directories AI reads, and it prices partly by how many locations you serve.
• You want one contract for the whole organic program, with link building and digital PR next to the content. Omniscient Digital’s full-service engagements start at $120,000 a year.
• You only want tracking. A monitoring tool reports how often assistants name you, and your team does the writing.
• Nobody on your team has time to read pages. In our process a batch goes live only after your approval, so a team that cannot review the work will see it stall.

SquareDash reached page one for 1,455 search terms

SquareDash gives homeowners a roof price from a satellite scan. Its rebuilt site went live on 15 April 2026 with 1,403 pages built around how homeowners search, plus schema markup. Within two weeks, its pages on roof overlay and replacement cost reached Google’s first page.

By September 2026 it ranked in Google’s top ten for 1,455 search terms, against 16 in April. It held a top-three spot for 428 of them. Those are Ahrefs estimates of Google rankings, and neither counts AI answers. For those, the monthly answer check records which replies name you and which name a competitor. In all, we have built more than 3,600 indexed pages for clients.

Talk to sales. Give us read access to your CRM, and within a week we show you the first process we would build and what it would produce.