The short answer
AI SEO services help your business get found in AI search, not just Google, so that ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini and Google's AI answers recommend and cite you. The discipline is called GEO (Generative Engine Optimisation), with AEO (Answer Engine Optimisation) for direct-answer results.
It works differently from old-school SEO: AI engines reward clear answers, structured content, factual density and, above all, earned media and brand mentions. We help teams learn and apply it through hands-on GEO training and workshops.
For twenty years, getting found online meant one thing: ranking on Google. Then people started asking ChatGPT instead, and the rules quietly changed underneath everyone. Your business can rank beautifully on Google and be completely invisible to the AI that a growing share of your customers now ask first.
This is a guide to AI SEO, the newer, stranger discipline of being found and recommended by AI. What it is, why it is different, how it works, and how to get your brand into the answers rather than watching a competitor get named instead.
What are AI SEO services, and what is GEO?
AI SEO is the work of getting your business surfaced by AI search tools: ChatGPT, Perplexity, Google's AI answers, Gemini, Copilot. The proper name is GEO, Generative Engine Optimisation, and its cousin AEO, Answer Engine Optimisation, which targets the direct-answer boxes and voice results. Old SEO aimed to win a click on a list of blue links. GEO aims to be the answer the AI gives, with your name in it.
The distinction matters because the behaviour has changed. When someone asks ChatGPT "who runs AI training for teams in the UK", they do not get ten links to sift. They get a short answer naming a few providers. If you are not in that answer, you do not exist for that customer. There is no page two to scroll to. We break the whole thing down in Introduction to GEO and the full 30-step GEO guide.
How is AI SEO different from normal SEO?
They overlap, but the levers are not the same. Here is the honest comparison of the three disciplines you will hear thrown about.
| Discipline | Optimises for | Wins you |
|---|---|---|
| SEO | Google's ranked list of links | A click, if you rank high enough |
| AEO | Featured snippets, voice, direct answers | The one-box answer at the top |
| GEO | AI engines like ChatGPT and Perplexity | Being named and cited in the AI's answer |
Traditional SEO still matters, because AI engines read the web too. But GEO rewards different things: clear, quotable answers near the top of a page, structured content an AI can lift cleanly, named entities, real facts and figures, and, more than anything, what other people say about you across the web. Which brings us to the part most people get wrong.
Why do brand mentions matter more than backlinks now?
Because AI engines lean heavily on what the wider web says about you, not just who links to you. Ahrefs studied 75,000 brands and found brand mentions correlated with AI visibility at 0.664, while backlinks managed just 0.218. In plain terms: being talked about beats being linked to.
Earned media is the engine of it. Muck Rack's study of over 25 million AI citations found that 84% of what AI tools cite comes from earned media, journalism and independent coverage, with paid and advertorial content making up a rounding error. The old game was buying links. The new game is being genuinely worth mentioning, and getting mentioned in the places AI trusts. We cover this in depth in GEO for PR agencies.
Harry's tip. Want to know if AI already knows you exist? Ask it. Type 'who are the best providers of what I do in my area' into ChatGPT and Perplexity and see if you are named. If you are not, that is your starting line, and it is a far more useful metric than your Google ranking these days.
What actually gets your content cited by AI?
Specific, structured, quotable content. The research is unusually clear on this. A Princeton study presented at KDD 2024 found that adding quotations lifted a page's citation share by around 41%, statistics by around 31%, and inline citations by around 28%. AI engines like content they can lift cleanly and trust.
In practice that means a few concrete habits. Answer the question directly, near the top, in a clean paragraph. Use real numbers and name real sources. Structure things as tables and lists an AI can quote without mangling. Be clear about who you are and where you operate. And write with a point of view, because bland, hedged mush gets skipped in favour of content that actually says something. It is, conveniently, the same thing that makes content good for humans.
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Google reviewShould you hire an AI SEO agency or train your team?
Depends where you want the capability to live. A done-for-you agency can move fast, but GEO is now woven so tightly into how you write, publish and get talked about that most businesses are better off building the skill in-house, or at least understanding it well enough not to be sold nonsense. The field is young and, frankly, full of people using "GEO" as a buzzword with nothing behind it.
Our approach is to teach teams to do this properly, through hands-on GEO training, so the capability stays with you. The half-day Introduction to GEO runs three hours for up to eight people, from £1,899 plus VAT online, and we tailor deeper sessions for marketing and PR teams. If you would rather talk it through first, get in touch and we will point you straight, agency or training.
How do you know if AI SEO is working?
Not by the metrics you are used to. Traditional SEO gave you rankings and clicks. AI search is murkier: the engines rarely tell you why they cited you. The signals worth watching are whether AI tools name you when asked about your field, whether your brand mentions and earned coverage are growing, and whether you are appearing in the AI-answer impressions inside Google Search Console's newer reports. It is less tidy than a ranking report, but it is where attention is moving.
The honest headline is this: AI search is early, the rules are still settling, and that is exactly why now is the moment to move. The businesses learning GEO today are building a head start while their competitors are still optimising for a version of search that fewer people use every month.
What does a GEO content strategy look like in practice?
Less mysterious than the acronym suggests. A working GEO strategy comes down to three things done consistently. First, publish content that answers the real questions your customers ask, in clear language, with the answer near the top where an AI can lift it. Second, back it with facts, figures and named sources, because specificity is what gets cited. Third, and hardest, build a reputation worth mentioning: get written about, quoted, reviewed and referenced across the web, because that earned coverage is what AI engines lean on when they decide who to name.
Notice that two of those three are just good content and good PR. GEO is not a dark art bolted onto your marketing. It is your marketing, aimed at a new audience: the machines that increasingly sit between you and your customers. The businesses that treat it that way, rather than chasing tricks, are the ones getting named. Our Introduction to GEO walks through the full method.
What are the most common AI SEO mistakes?
- Optimising only for Google. Ranking well on Google and being invisible to ChatGPT is an increasingly common and expensive place to be.
- Chasing backlinks over mentions. The old link-building playbook matters far less to AI than being genuinely talked about.
- Burying the answer. Making a reader wade through 300 words of preamble is exactly how to get skipped by an AI that wants a clean, quotable answer.
- Hedged, generic writing. Bland content that says nothing gets cited by no one. A clear point of view is an asset, not a risk.
- Measuring nothing. If you are not checking whether AI names you, you cannot know whether any of it is working.
Avoid those five and you are ahead of most of your competitors, who are still optimising for a version of search that shrinks a little every month.
Does GEO replace traditional SEO?
No, and anyone telling you to abandon SEO is overselling. Google is still where most searches happen, and AI engines read the same web your SEO already serves, so good SEO feeds good GEO. The shift is one of emphasis, not replacement: keep doing the SEO that works, and add the GEO habits that get you into the AI answers as well. For now, the smart play is to cover both, because your customers are split across both and will be for a good while yet.
Get your brand into the AI answers
Hands-on GEO and AI SEO training for teams, so ChatGPT and Google's AI recommend you, not your competitor.
Explore GEO Training Get In TouchBeing invisible to AI is the new being on page two of Google. Nobody chooses it, plenty of businesses are sliding into it without noticing, and the fix is not magic. It is clear, quotable content, a reputation worth citing, and a team that understands the new rules. Learn those and you get to be the answer, rather than the also-ran nobody's chatbot has heard of. The window where this is still a head start rather than table stakes is open now, and it will not stay open forever.
AI SEO Services – frequently asked questions
What are AI SEO services?
AI SEO services help your business get found by AI search tools like ChatGPT, Perplexity and Google's AI answers, so that they recommend and cite you. The discipline is called GEO (Generative Engine Optimisation), with AEO for direct-answer results.
What is the difference between SEO, GEO and AEO?
SEO optimises for Google's ranked links, AEO for featured snippets and voice answers, and GEO for AI engines like ChatGPT and Perplexity. GEO aims to be named and cited in the AI's answer rather than winning a click.
How do I get my business recommended by ChatGPT?
Publish clear, quotable answers with real facts and structured content, build genuine brand mentions and earned media, and make sure who you are and where you operate is stated plainly. AI engines cite content they can lift and sources they trust.
Do brand mentions matter more than backlinks for AI search?
For AI visibility, yes. One study of 75,000 brands found brand mentions correlated with AI visibility far more strongly than backlinks. Being talked about across the web now matters more than who links to you.
What content gets cited by AI tools?
Specific, structured content. Research found quotations lifted citation share by around 41%, statistics by around 31% and inline citations by around 28%. Direct answers, real numbers, named sources, tables and lists all help.
Should I hire an AI SEO agency or train my team?
GEO is now woven into how you write, publish and get talked about, so most businesses benefit from building the skill in-house. Hands-on GEO training keeps the capability with your team rather than renting it.
Does The Oxford AI School offer AI SEO training?
Yes. The Oxford AI School runs hands-on GEO and AI SEO training and workshops for teams, including a half-day Introduction to GEO and tailored sessions for marketing and PR teams.
Which Oxford AI School training fits this need?
Hands-on training built around the tools and jobs in this guide.
Harry Lang runs The Oxford AI School, teaching teams and businesses the basics of AI in a fun, easy and practical way. A marketing leader turned AI trainer, he can be reached at Learn@TheOxfordAISchool.com.