# Answer engine optimization > Answer engine optimization and generative engine optimization: get your business cited in ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini and AI Overviews. Free first call. URL: https://gradual.pro/en/services/generative-engine-optimization Updated: 2026-09-29 Get ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini and Google’s AI answers to cite your business when people ask about what you sell. - GEO aims to get AI assistants to cite your company inside their answers. - We work on four fronts: technical site, structured data, citable content and brand mentions. - Monthly service with a visibility report across the main AI assistants. - You can measure your starting point for free with our AI visibility checker. ## What is answer engine optimization and how does it differ from SEO? Answer engine optimization is the work of getting a language model to recommend your brand or cite your site when it answers. Classic SEO chases positions in a list of links; AEO chases a place inside the answer. You will also see it called generative engine optimization (GEO) or LLM SEO. The full definition is in [what GEO is](/en/glossary/geo). Both share a base: a fast, well-structured site with useful content is still the starting point. What changes is the content format, the weight of mentions on other sites and how you measure results. ## How do ChatGPT and Perplexity decide which companies to recommend? Assistants combine what they learned in training with live searches. When they search, they read a handful of pages and pull specific sentences from them. If your page answers the question clearly in its first lines, it has a better chance of being the cited source. For what the model already knows, mentions of your brand on sites it considers reliable carry weight: industry directories, media, comparisons, forums and reviews. A company nobody discusses outside its own site has a hard time, however good its pages are. ## What do we do to get your company into AI answers? The monthly service combines technical work on your site with content and off-site presence: - **Technical audit**: we check that the OpenAI, Perplexity and Google crawlers can read your site and that robots.txt does not block them. - **llms.txt**: we publish an index of your key pages for language models. See [llms.txt](/en/glossary/llms-txt). - **Structured data**: Schema.org markup for organization, services, products, FAQs and authors. - **Citable content**: we rewrite pages to answer first, with concrete data, tables and real FAQs. - **Brand mentions**: presence in directories, comparisons and industry media, always with accurate information. - **Measurement**: each month we track a set of questions across the main assistants and record whether you appear and how. ## How do you measure visibility in AI search? There is no official equivalent of Search Console for ChatGPT yet. So we agree with you on 30 to 100 questions your ideal customer would ask, and we run them every month in ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini and Google. We record whether your brand appears, in what position, with what description and which sources the assistant cites. For a first snapshot with no commitment, use the [AI visibility checker](/en/tools/ai-visibility-checker). If the technical base does not hold up, it sometimes makes sense to rebuild the site with our [AI web design](/en/services/web-design) service. ## Process 1. **Starting point**: We measure your current visibility in AI assistants and on Google. 2. **Target questions**: We choose the queries that bring customers to your business. 3. **Technical base**: Crawling, llms.txt, structured data and site performance. 4. **Content and mentions**: Pages that answer, and presence on sources the models read. 5. **Monthly report**: What changed, which answers you appear in and what we do next month. - target questions tracked every month: 30-100 - typical time to see stable changes in answers: 3-6 months - assistants reviewed: ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini and Google: 4 Indicative ranges. AI assistants change their answers often, and no provider can guarantee specific appearances. ### Classic SEO vs GEO (answer engine optimization) | | Classic SEO | GEO / AEO | | --- | --- | --- | | Goal | A position in Google's list | A mention or citation in the answer | | Where it appears | Google and Bing | ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, AI Overviews | | Content format | Pages optimized by keyword | Direct answers, data and citable tables | | External signals | Links | Links and brand mentions | | Measurement | Rankings and clicks | Presence and citation in answers | Tools: Google Search Console, Bing Webmaster Tools, Schema.org, llms.txt, ChatGPT, Perplexity, Google Gemini, Ahrefs ## FAQ ### How much do answer engine optimization services cost? Our GEO service is a monthly retainer with a technical audit, content, mentions and a monthly visibility report, with a fixed price agreed before we start. It depends on the size of your site and the number of topics and markets. If your site needs rebuilding to be fast and readable, web design is a separate project. [Tell us about your case](/en/contact). ### What is the difference between AEO, GEO and LLM SEO? They describe largely the same work under different names. AEO targets answer engines such as Google AI Overviews and Perplexity, GEO targets generative models, and LLM SEO refers to ranking in language model outputs. We treat them as one discipline and one monthly service. ### Can you pay to appear in ChatGPT? No, ChatGPT does not currently sell positions in its organic answers. You appear when the model finds clear, reliable information about your company, on your site and on other sources. ### Does GEO replace SEO? It complements it. Assistants with search use indexes such as Google's or Bing's to find pages, so without solid technical SEO, GEO does not work. We work on both at once. ### What is an llms.txt file and does it help? It is a text file at the root of your site that summarizes your most important pages for language models. It is a recent proposal, not an official standard, and not every assistant reads it, but it costs little to publish and organizes your key content. ### How long does it take to show up in AI answers? Technical and content changes can show up within weeks in assistants with live search, such as Perplexity. Changing what a model knows about your brand usually takes several months.