Answer engine optimization, measured.
AEO audits for service businesses, on five named AI engines
Find out who AI recommends when customers need what you offer.
Answer engine optimization is the work of improving how the answer engines name and describe your business. It starts with knowing what they say about you today, question by question.
Vector Index AI examines the answers across ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude, Perplexity and Google AI Overviews. You get a written report showing where your business appears, how it's described, and which changes deserve your attention. This work is called answer engine optimization (AEO) or generative engine optimization (GEO). You may also have seen it called AI search optimization, AI search visibility, LLM visibility, or an AI SEO audit. The measurement is what we sell.
Not ready to buy? Ask for a free snapshot for your own business first.
Pay, then fill in one short intake form. Work starts when you submit it, and you can cancel for a full refund until then.
No subscription and no retainer.
from submitting your intake form.
any time before you submit intake.
Being the source of an answer is not the same as being its recommendation.
In one audit, the business's main site was cited 411 times. 239 of those citations came from questions that named the business.
On the questions that describe a buyer's need without naming anyone, the same site was cited 8 times across 292 answers.
An answer engine can build its answer out of your pages and still put someone else's name in the sentence a buyer reads. Both are findings, and they are different findings.
Source. Anonymized finding from a practice audit delivered at no charge in September 2026. 45 questions · ChatGPT, Gemini and Perplexity through their APIs · recorded conditions. The counts are the report's own.
Understand the gaps. Know what to work on next.
Your report turns the findings into practical priorities for your website and business information.
See where your business appears.
Find out which questions bring up your business, where it's absent, and which competitors get named.
Check how AI describes you.
Identify incorrect details, missing information, or confusion with another business.
Get clear recommendations.
Receive prioritized changes with supporting evidence, suggested wording, and instructions you can hand to your web provider.
Each recommendation explains the finding behind it and distinguishes a supported correction from a change worth testing.
Answer engine optimization services, and the one we actually sell
Answer engine optimization services aim to improve how ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude, Perplexity and Google AI Overviews name and describe a business. The work starts by finding out what those engines say today, question by question. That measurement is the service we sell.
The AI Shortlist Blueprint, our $750 audit
One brand, one main site, one market, for $750 paid upfront with no subscription.
- 25 questions, selected by us. Built for your trade and adapted to the facts you confirm at intake. We choose the set independently, so it can't be steered toward questions you already win.
- 500 planned attempts. Each question asked four times on each of four named API engines, ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude and Perplexity, and searched four times on Google for your market, recording the AI Overview when Google shows one.
- A written report. The facts the engines state about you, where you were named or cited and where you weren't, which competitors were named, the limits of the sample, and prioritized changes with the wording or specification you'd need to act on them.
- A 90-day recheck. Five of your original questions, asked again on the same five engines, with a short comparison.
Delivery is five business days from submitting your intake form. Full scope, terms and availability.
Implementation, after the audit
The audit ends with a 30-day roadmap and the wording, which you or your existing web provider can act on. If you'd rather we did it, the AI Answer Sprint makes the changes the audit prescribed for the same brand, site and market in four to six weeks, with a 90-day recheck included: $3,500, or $2,750 if bought within 30 days of your audit's delivery date. It is offered when your audit is delivered, never before. Upkeep after a sprint, Stay the Answer, is $1,500 a month, month to month.
What to ask an answer engine optimization agency before you hire one
- Which engines, by name? ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude, Perplexity and Google AI Overviews are separate products. "AI" is not one channel.
- The API or the app? Answers collected through an API under recorded conditions are not the consumer apps, and a report should say which it measured.
- How many times is each question asked? Answers change between runs. A single run of each question is an anecdote, and failed attempts belong in the report too.
- Mentioned, cited or recommended? A business can be the source an answer is built from and still not be the business the answer recommends. Why the difference matters.
- Who picks the questions? A question set built around searches a business already wins flatters the result.
- What is promised? Nobody controls a model's output. A promise of citations, rankings or a timeline describes something no provider can see.
- Which pages and profiles will change, and who does the work? A scope you can check is worth more than a list of tactics.
When we put 16 buying questions about Cincinnati businesses to ChatGPT, Gemini and Perplexity through their APIs on 24 and 25 August 2026, their answers cited 63, 98 and 181 different domains. Of the 246 domains cited in total, 18 appeared in answers from all three engines.
Some widely repeated advice in this field was produced by instructing a model to invent quotes and sources. What the founding research actually measured.
Other names for the same service
Generative engine optimization (GEO) services, AI search optimization services and LLM SEO services describe the same aim. If you are weighing an AEO agency, a GEO agency or an AI search optimization agency, the label matters less than the scope behind it. An answer engine optimization agency and an AEO agency are the same seller under two names. AEO vs SEO vs GEO.
What an audit should contain · What answer engine optimization is · How we measure · AI SEO Services: What to Get in Writing Before You Pay
Built around how your customers choose.
- You provide the business context. Tell us about your services, customers, and market.
- We build the question set around your market. We write the questions your buyers actually bring to AI about your trade, your services and the firms you come up against, and we select them independently so the set can't be steered toward the ones you already win. Each is asked repeatedly across five named engines, then we read every answer against your site and the sources it cited.
- You receive your findings and priorities. Your written report arrives within five business days of submitting your intake form. You or your web provider carry out the recommended website changes.
After 90 days, we recheck five of the original questions and report what changed.
Pay, then one short intake form. Full refund until you submit it.
What the audit buys
Written for your market and chosen independently, so the set can't be steered toward the ones you already win.
Every question asked repeatedly across five named engines, with the engine, model, settings, date and every failed attempt recorded.
Read closely, along with every source the answers cited, so each finding points at something you can open yourself.
What the engines state about you, where you were named and where you weren't, which competitors hold the answers you want, and prioritized changes with the wording you'd need to act on them.
Your questions answered after delivery, so you are not left alone with the report.
We re-run your questions on the same engines after the work is done and report what actually moved.
What people are saying.
Every review here comes from a business we have actually delivered an audit to. We publish them in the reviewer's own words, and we say plainly what the reviewer was given.
Vector Index AI was extremely helpful because it showed us that while our company does come up in AI searches when we are mentioned specifically (we thought our GEO presence was a lot stronger), once you deviated from a direct search by name and started asking more indirect questions about the services we provide, we were virtually nonexistent. They also provided us with clear insight into gaps in our GEO and how to fix them. I cannot recommend Vector Index AI highly enough.
Questions we get asked about this.
What do answer engine optimization services include?
Two kinds of work: measuring what ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude, Perplexity and Google AI Overviews say about a business, and changing the pages, profiles and facts those answers draw on. We sell the measurement, as a $750 audit that ends with specific changes to make.
How much do AEO services cost?
The free AI Answer Snapshot costs nothing. The AI Answer Check is $149: six questions on five engines and the one change to make first. The AI Shortlist Blueprint, the full audit, is $750, paid upfront, with no subscription, and the $149 counts toward it for 30 days. Implementation is the AI Answer Sprint, $3,500, sold only after your audit is delivered; upkeep after a sprint is $1,500 a month.
Do you guarantee citations or rankings in ChatGPT?
No. Nobody controls a model's output, and answers change between runs and between model versions. We report what the engines said under recorded conditions.
Is an AEO agency different from an SEO agency?
The foundations overlap. Google says there are no additional requirements to appear in AI Overviews or AI Mode. The difference is what gets measured: the answers themselves, engine by engine.
Do you offer GEO services too?
Generative engine optimization describes the same aim as answer engine optimization. The audit covers the same five engines whichever name is used.
How long does an answer engine optimization audit take?
Five business days from submitting your intake form. An AEO audit and an answer engine optimization audit are the same scope. You can take a full refund at any time before you submit it.
Know where your business stands before deciding what to change.
See your website through AI's eyes. Get documented findings and practical recommendations, delivered in writing.
Pay, then one short intake form. Full refund until you submit it.
One payment. Five business days.
Get started