AI search optimization

AI search optimization is the work of making a company findable and accurately described in AI-generated answers, from Google’s AI Overviews and AI Mode to ChatGPT search, Perplexity, Copilot and Gemini. It is the umbrella term; generative engine optimization and answer engine optimization are two approaches inside it.

What it rests on

These systems retrieve from a web index, so the foundations are the same as SEO: pages that can be crawled, rendered and indexed, with clear titles and headings. Google’s own guidance is that there is no separate technique for AI features beyond good content and the standard controls.

What it adds

Three things on top of SEO:

1. A check that AI crawlers and user-fetch agents (OAI-SearchBot, PerplexityBot, Claude-SearchBot and the like) can reach the pages.
2. An entity layer, so systems know which company a page is about and describe it correctly.
3. Content written so a passage can be lifted and cited on its own.

How it is measured

No engine publishes a site-level citation report that covers every surface, so we sample a fixed prompt set, run each prompt several times and record the mention rate, citation rate and accuracy of the description, with the spread shown.