Accessible sources
Pages that AI crawlers are allowed to fetch, that are indexed, and that load their content without depending on scripts.
AI search / AEO / GEO
AI search optimization for IT and software firms.
When a buyer asks ChatGPT, Perplexity or Google's AI Overviews about your kind of provider, the answer should describe your firm accurately, and have a fair chance of including it.
Definition
AI search optimization, also called GEO (generative engine optimization) or AEO (answer engine optimization), is the work of making a firm's public information accessible, consistent and verifiable so AI systems can describe it correctly and consider it when answering relevant questions. It improves how eligible the firm is to appear in those answers and how accurately it is described, and both are tracked on a fixed prompt set.
The problem it solves
These are scenarios worth diagnosing, not established failures for every firm: AI systems may omit the firm from answers where it clearly belongs, describe an offering it no longer sells, or confuse it with another company. Where that happens, competitors with less expertise often get named instead because their information is easier to retrieve and confirm.
01 How AI answers get built
What AI engines need before they can describe a firm.
Engines differ, but most AI search answers are assembled from sources the system can retrieve at the time of the question: accessible sources, a consistent identity, useful answers, independent confirmation, verifiable evidence, and current information. That makes the practical levers fairly clear.
A clear, consistent identity
The same company name, description, services and people on the site, structured data, profiles and listings.
Answers worth using
Content that states plainly what a service is, who it is for and how it works, in a form that can be quoted.
Independent confirmation
Credible third-party sources that mention the firm: partner listings, directories, talks, publications.
Verifiable evidence
Named authors, dated case evidence and claims that other sources can support.
Current information
Outdated pages and listings retired or corrected, so old offerings stop resurfacing.
02 Scope
What the AI search work includes.
Six activities, covering source review, entity clarity, answer usefulness, evidence, crawler access and fixed-prompt monitoring.
- Source review — an audit of the specific pages, profiles and directories AI engines and search results currently rely on when describing the firm
- Entity clarity — one consistent name, description and service list enforced across the site, structured data (schema markup), and third-party profiles and listings
- Answer usefulness — definitions, scope and direct answers rewritten on the pages that matter, in a form that can be quoted accurately
- Evidence — named expertise, dated proof and claims another source can independently support, not stated to be true
- Crawler access — robots rules, JavaScript rendering and indexing checks specifically for AI crawlers, which do not always behave like Googlebot
- Monitoring — a fixed set of branded, provider-discovery and information prompts, re-run on the same wording and recorded by engine, region, date, mention and cited URL
What the work controls, and how it is tracked
AI answers shift with prompt wording, engine, location and date. The work concentrates on what is controllable: making the firm easy to retrieve, consistent across the sources those answers draw on, and hard to misdescribe. A fixed prompt set is then tracked across engines and regions with dates attached, so every change in how the firm is described is visible and attributable.
Why it is not sold separately from SEO
AI search depends on indexed, well-structured pages, which is SEO work. Selling SEO, AEO and GEO as three products would mean charging three times for overlapping effort. Kryston scopes them together and separates only the work that is genuinely different.
03 Questions
Common questions
What is AI search optimization?
AI search optimization is the work of making a company's public information accessible, consistent and verifiable enough that AI systems such as ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, Copilot and Google AI Overviews can describe it accurately and consider it when answering relevant questions. It is also called generative engine optimization (GEO) or answer engine optimization (AEO).
Why isn't our IT firm mentioned in ChatGPT answers?
Common causes are service pages AI crawlers cannot access or index, vague descriptions of what the firm does, inconsistent information across the site, profiles and directories, and few independent sources that mention the firm. The first step is testing specific prompts to see what is actually happening.
Why does an AI tool describe our firm incorrectly?
AI answers can draw on outdated pages, old listings or third-party descriptions. Correcting and consolidating those sources and making the current offer unambiguous on the firm's own site is the practical fix. Changes are picked up over time, not instantly.
How is progress in AI search measured?
Against a fixed prompt set. Kryston records how ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini and Google AI Overviews describe the firm, with the prompt wording, engine, region and date, and reports movement against the opening baseline. Answers vary by prompt and time, so the prompt set stays constant and the comparison is like for like.
Do GEO and AEO need separate services from SEO?
They share a foundation with SEO: accessible, indexed, clearly structured pages. The additional work is identity consistency, source review, answer-ready content and prompt monitoring. Scoping that as one service, rather than three separately sold acronyms, generally means the shared foundational work is done once rather than billed under each label; it does not by itself guarantee a lower total price or a specific result, since scope still depends on what the firm actually needs.
Find out how AI engines describe your firm today.
The search visibility review includes an AI answer baseline on a documented prompt set.
- A baseline across ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, AI Overviews and Google
- Where competitors are named and you are not
- A prioritized plan and a walkthrough call
Prefer email? contact@kryston.net