Show up when your customers ask AI, not just when they Google.
More of your customers now start with an assistant instead of a search box. They ask ChatGPT, Perplexity, or Google's AI who to hire, and they act on the handful of names that come back. AI search optimization is the work that makes your business one of those names: structured so the engines can read you, describe you correctly, and cite you when someone asks. Nobody can promise a specific citation, and anyone who does is selling you something. What I can do is the work that actually moves it, then measure whether it lands.
What AI search optimization covers
GEO and AEO, defined
Two terms you will see a lot, in plain language. GEO, generative engine optimization, is the work of getting your business cited inside the answers AI assistants write, the ones ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Gemini hand back. AEO, answer engine optimization, is the work of being the direct answer, the result a search engine boxes at the top or reads aloud. They overlap heavily, and the underlying job is one thing: structure what you say so a machine can extract it, attribute it to you, and repeat it correctly.
Entity clarity, so the engines bind the right facts to you
An AI answer is only as good as what the engine believes about you. I get your core facts consistent everywhere a model looks: who you are, what you do, where you work, the same on your site, in your structured data, on your business profile, and across the directories. When those line up, the engine describes you correctly instead of guessing or blending you with someone else.
Answer-ready, citable content
Models quote sentences that stand on their own. I write and restructure your key pages so each answer is a self-contained unit, with no 'as mentioned above' and no burying the point three paragraphs down. That is the difference between content a person skims and content an engine can lift and attribute to you.
Structured data and an llms.txt index
Schema markup tells an engine what your page means, not just what it says, and an llms.txt file hands AI crawlers a clean, readable map of your site. Both are quiet, technical, and exactly the kind of thing that separates a site an assistant can parse from one it skips. I build them in and keep them valid.
Measurement you can actually see
You cannot improve what you do not measure, and most 'AI visibility' is sold as a monthly dashboard you have to read yourself. I run a real check by hand instead: I ask the engines the questions your customers actually ask, record where you show up and where you do not, and hand you the gap list with what to fix first. It is a person who checks, not an export.
Why AI search is its own game
It is not the same as ranking on Google
Classic SEO aims for a blue link on a results page. AI search aims for a sentence inside a written answer, where there may be no list and no second page, just a few names the model decided to trust. The signals overlap, but optimizing to be quoted is a different job from optimizing to be ranked, and I treat it as one.
No one can guarantee a citation, and that is the point
You cannot pay an AI to name you, and you cannot control what it says. The most-used assistants tell people exactly that: be cautious of anyone who guarantees AI placement, and look at the signals instead. Those signals are the work I sell. I make your business the obvious, well-structured, corroborated answer, then I measure whether the engines agree.
I run this on my own site first
This is not theory I read about. I run the same check on my own studio before I sell it to you. Ask ChatGPT, Perplexity, or Google's AI who Clayboicardi Studio is, with web search on, and it describes the business accurately, down to the published pricing, from my own site and my Clutch profile. Perplexity and Google's AI link those sources; the honest gap they flag is reviews, which is the next thing I am building. That is the whole playbook, shown on a business I own before it touches yours.
Proof, not promises
AI search is my newest service, so the proof I lead with is my own: a dated baseline I re-run monthly and improve in public. No invented client wins.
Questions
What are GEO and AEO?
GEO is generative engine optimization: getting your business cited inside the answers AI assistants write, like ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Gemini. AEO is answer engine optimization: being the direct answer a search engine surfaces, like a featured snippet or an AI overview. They overlap heavily, and in practice it is one job, structuring your content and your business facts so a machine can read them, trust them, and repeat them correctly. You do not need to learn the acronyms. They are just the labels for showing up when someone asks an AI instead of typing a search.
Can you guarantee I will show up in ChatGPT?
No, and you should be cautious of anyone who says yes. Nobody controls what an AI assistant says, and the assistants themselves tell people to distrust guaranteed placement and look at the signals instead. What I can do is the work those signals reward: clean structure, consistent business facts, citable content, and corroboration from places the engines trust. Then I measure where you actually show up across the engines and track whether it improves. I sell the work and the measurement, never a promised citation.
How do you measure it?
By hand, the same way I measure my own site. I take the real questions your customers would ask an AI, run them through ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, and Google's AI results with web search on, and record for each one whether you are mentioned, whether you are cited with a link, and what the engine said. You get a dated scorecard, the gap list where competitors show up and you do not, and a fix-first plan. It is a person who actually checks, not a monthly dashboard export. That snapshot is the AI Visibility Baseline below.
Is this different from SEO?
It is a close cousin, not a separate world. Good SEO, fast pages, clean structure, real content, consistent business information, is most of what AI engines reward too, so if your SEO is solid you are already partway there. The difference is the target: SEO aims to rank a link, while AI search aims to be quoted inside an answer, which leans harder on structured data, self-contained passages, entity consistency, and corroboration from sources the engines trust. I do both, and I will tell you honestly when plain SEO is the better spend for your situation.
What it costs
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