by Ema Fulga
Ema is an AI Search Content Strategist and GEO (Generative Engine Optimisation) expert. She's also the founder of decipher., an AEO agency that helps brands appear where people are now searching: AI-powered platforms like Perplexity, ChatGPT, Gemini, and others. With a background in copywriting and creative strategy, she’s on a mission to turn messy messaging into clear and structured content that helps brands get mentioned and cited in AI searches.
Connect with Ema.
Last updated: 03.09.2026
TL;DR: An AI search optimisation agency (also called a GEO agency) helps your brand get found, cited, and recommended inside the AI-generated answers your customers are looking for, not just ranked on a traditional results page. It's a distinctly different discipline from SEO, even though the two overlap. Before hiring one, look past the buzzwords to successful factors like whether they have a real methodology, track more than one engine, and can explain why a brand gets cited, not just that they'll try to make it happen.
If I went back to my 10-year-old self and told her that she’ll run an AI search optimisation agency when she grows up, my first question would probably be ‘What’s that?’ The rise of AEO agencies is a sign of the times. A new development we couldn’t have predicted but one that is very useful for brands who want to be known by more people and make more sales. Name me a brand that doesn’t! That’s if you know how to choose the right agency for you. You know, one that will actually get you visible.
Before we get into what to look for, let's actually define the thing you're shopping for.
What is an AI search optimisation agency?
An AI search optimisation agency helps your brand get mentioned, cited, and recommended by AI-powered platforms like ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, and Google's AI Overviews and AI Mode. These are the tools an increasing number of people are using instead of, or before, a traditional search engine.
Now, this discipline is so new, specialists haven't even decided on a name yet, which is why you'll see:
GEO (Generative Engine Optimisation)
AEO (Answer Engine Optimisation)
AI Search Optimisation or AI SEO
We like to use GEO, which includes AEO as well, but many will use AEO as a generic term too.
All of them describe the same underlying job: making sure that when someone asks an AI a question your brand could answer, your brand is part of that answer.
Here's the kicker. This is not the same job as traditional SEO, even though it shares a foundation with it. SEO is largely about ranking a page. AI search optimisation is about being the source an AI trusts enough to quote, and there's a real technical and strategic difference between those two outcomes. What earns a page a top-10 ranking on Google doesn't automatically earn a brand a mention inside a synthesised AI answer, because AI engines weigh things like third-party validation, source structure, and answer justification very differently than a traditional ranking algorithm does.
What an AI search optimisation agency should actually be doing
If an agency is doing this properly, their work should span a few distinct areas, not just one.
Earned media and digital PR. AI engines consistently favour third-party, independently published sources over brand-owned content when building an answer. An agency that isn't actively working to get your brand covered, quoted, or compared favourably by other sites is missing the single biggest lever in this discipline.
Content structured for extraction, not just readability. This means comparison tables, clearly stated value propositions, structured pros and cons, and content that answers the follow-up questions an AI is likely to generate around your topic, not just the question someone typed.
Technical foundations that make your site machine-readable. Clean schema markup, crawlable pages, accurate structured data on products, pricing, and specs. This is the unglamorous plumbing work, and it's easy for an agency to skip because it's slower and less visible than publishing content.
Multi-engine tracking, not a single dashboard number. ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, and Perplexity source and weight information differently from each other, and from Google's AI features. An agency that reports your "AI visibility" as one number, without breaking down which engines you show up in and why, is giving you an incomplete picture at best.
Ongoing measurement, not a one-off audit. AI search results are pretty unstable day-to-day, even for identical prompts. A single snapshot report isn't a strategy, just a screenshot. Real visibility work means repeated tracking over time to separate a real trend from noise.
Red flags to watch out for
What you're being sold | What it might actually mean |
"We use AI to generate optimised content" | This is AI-assisted content production, not AI search optimisation. Using AI tools to write faster doesn't make content more likely to be cited by AI engines. |
"We guarantee placement in AI Overviews / ChatGPT answers" | Nobody can guarantee this. AI-generated answers are non-deterministic and change run to run. No agency controls what an LLM decides to cite. |
"Here's your AI visibility score" (as a single number) | If it's not broken down by engine, prompt type, and source, it's a vanity metric. Different engines behave too differently for one blended score to mean much. |
"We'll get your brand mentioned everywhere" | Broad, undifferentiated mentions rarely move the needle. What matters is being cited in the specific comparison and consideration content that shows up when your actual buyers are deciding. |
"This is basically the same as SEO, just newer" | If an agency treats AI search optimisation as a repackaged SEO service with no distinct methodology for earned media, source structuring, or multi-engine measurement, you're likely paying AI-era prices for pre-AI-era work. |
Questions worth asking before you sign
1. Ask what their process looks like beyond content creation. A real answer should mention earned media or digital PR, technical structuring, and measurement as separate, ongoing workstreams, not just "we'll write some blog posts."
2. Ask which AI engines they track, and how often. ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, and Claude source information differently enough that tracking only one tells you very little about the others. Ask whether they retest over time or just run a single check.
3. Ask them to explain why AI engines cite what they cite. An agency with real expertise should be able to talk fluently about the difference between earned, brand, and social sources, and why AI engines lean so heavily toward the first. If the answer is vague, the strategy behind it probably is too.
4. Ask how they handle categories where you're not the household name. Established brands get an easier ride in AI search than smaller or niche ones. A good agency should have a specific point of view on how to compete for shortlist space when you're not the default answer.
5. Ask what "success" looks like in their reporting, specifically. Push past "increased visibility." Ask for real examples of what a report from them actually contains, and whether it separates genuine movement from the normal day-to-day fluctuation that's inherent to how these platforms work.
What a quick (uninformed) decision costs
The wrong hire costs more than money. Months spent on content that was never structured to be cited, or PR that never targeted the sources AI engines actually trust, is time your competitors are spending building real momentum.
This space is genuinely still forming. Best practices here are less than two years settled, and plenty of agencies are learning. That's not automatically disqualifying, but it's worth knowing their level of expertise so you know exactly what you’re paying for.
A single snapshot will mislead you either way. Whether it's the agency's initial audit or your own gut check on whether it's "working," judging AI visibility off one moment in time, rather than a sustained trend, is a mistake in either direction.
Key takeaways
An AI search optimisation agency (also called GEO or AEO) focuses on getting your brand cited and recommended inside AI-generated answers, a completely different outcome from ranking a page.
Real AI search optimisation spans earned media, extractable content structure, technical foundations, multi-engine tracking, and ongoing measurement, not content production alone.
Be wary of guaranteed placements, single blended "visibility scores," and services that are really just SEO with a new label.
Ask specifically how an agency tracks multiple engines, why they believe AI engines cite what they cite, and how they distinguish real progress from normal fluctuation.
This discipline is still young. That's not a reason to avoid it, but it is a reason to look closely at who you're trusting with it.
Where decipher. fits into this
We built decipher's own methodology around exactly these three questions, structured as Signal → Authority → Momentum.
Signal comes first. Getting your technical and content foundations machine-readable and extractable, clean structure, clear value propositions, the kind of content an AI engine can actually pull a justified answer from. Without signal, nothing downstream has anything to work with.
Authority builds on that. Earning third-party validation, earned media, and credible mentions that AI engines lean on so heavily when deciding what to cite. This is the stage most people skip entirely, because it's slower and harder than publishing on your own blog.
Momentum is what turns the first two into a trend instead of a one-off spike. Ongoing, multi-engine tracking that shows whether your visibility is genuinely compounding over time, not just fluctuating with the normal day-to-day noise inherent to how these platforms work.
It's this order that matters. Chase authority before you have signal, or chase momentum before you have either, and you're optimising for a number that won't hold. We'd rather walk you through exactly where you sit in that sequence than promise a placement nobody can guarantee.
If you're evaluating agencies in this space, take a look at what we do, or let's talk about where your brand actually stands right now.