Questions and straight answers

It’s often called AEO (answer engine optimization), GEO or AI search optimization. It’s the work of making your business more likely to be named, accurately described and cited when people ask AI tools like ChatGPT, Gemini or Google’s AI Overviews for recommendations.

SEO aims to rank your pages in the list of links. This work aims to get your business named, described accurately and cited inside the AI answer itself. That matters because one AI answer often names just three to six businesses. The foundations overlap (crawlable pages, clear facts, authority). This adds checking AI answers directly, pages that answer questions up top, and work on the outside sites AI links to. Good SEO is still the base.

Mostly naming. GEO (generative engine optimization) comes from a 2023 research paper; AEO is the term marketers adopted. Both describe improving how AI answer engines represent you. We use the terms interchangeably.

ChatGPT, Gemini, Google AI Mode and Google AI Overviews as standard. Perplexity, Claude, Microsoft Copilot and Grok are attempted on request and only reported when we can capture them reliably.

We send each customer question to each engine as a fresh, logged-out session in the US, twice, and record the full answer text and every cited link. We don’t use your accounts.

Ask it the questions your customers ask, in a logged-out session, several times, and record which businesses it names and which links it cites. Answers vary, so one check isn’t enough. Our check does this for you, with many questions, every major AI tool and repeat runs. Step-by-step: how to track brand mentions in ChatGPT.

These labels are often called schema or structured data. They help AI read your facts consistently, and it’s cheap to do right. Tests so far suggest it moves citations little on its own. Mentions on trusted third-party sites and pages that answer the question directly matter more. We add them for you but don’t oversell them. More in our article on getting cited in Google AI Overviews.

Probably not. llms.txt is a proposed standard, a plain-text summary of your site for AI tools. As of November 2026, no major AI engine has confirmed it uses llms.txt for answers. We include one in the Implementation Pack because it’s cheap, and we label it as unproven.

It overlaps. Crawlable, well-structured, authoritative content helps both. AEO adds tracking of AI answers, answer-first content formats and a focus on the third-party sources AI engines cite.

Agencies publicly quote $1,500–$5,000 for an AI-search audit and $1,500–$8,500+ a month to manage AI search. Self-serve tracking tools cost $29–$500 a month, but leave the work to you (ranges from public pricing pages, Nov 2026). Of the services we compared, we’re the lowest-priced option where a real person does the work, and our prices are posted up front. Small Business: $999 for the check plus the fixes bought together up front, or $450 for the check alone; fixes added later are $950; optional ongoing care $199/month. Standard: $750 audit, $1,500 Implementation Pack ($1,950 together), ongoing care $290 or $590/month. Enterprise: audit from $2,500, fixes from $4,500, ongoing care from $1,250/month. See plans and prices.

No. The $999 price is for the check and fixes bought together up front. Buy the check on its own for $450. Fixes added later are $950.

It depends on whether your customers use AI to find businesses like yours. Many now do. An AI visibility check is the cheapest way to find out: it shows whether you’re named for the questions that matter, and against which competitors, before you commit to ongoing spend.

We start with a quick phone call, and we’re happy to talk again whenever it helps. Most of the back-and-forth runs by email, which keeps prices low.

There is no online checkout. After a quick phone call we send an invoice for the agreed scope, payable by bank wire or ACH. Work starts when payment and intake are complete.

Yes. We make the updates on your website and listings for you. You give us access, or approve each change before it goes live. We never change anything without your OK.

Knownstone is run by Hutcheson Labs. We use AI assistants to collect and analyze data at scale, and a real person reviews every report and makes your fixes. AI-generated analysis may contain errors, and we correct anything you flag.

Yes. Ongoing care is month-to-month and invoiced monthly. Cancel by email before your next billing date and you won’t be billed again.

No. Nobody controls what AI engines say, and answers change from one run to the next. We measure where you stand, fix what can be fixed and track the trend. Anyone promising guaranteed placement is overselling. Here’s what does help: how to get recommended by ChatGPT.

Engines pick up changes on their own schedules. Expect 60 to 90 days before re-measuring makes sense, and treat early movement as directional.

Yes. We publish a real, anonymized sample report of a well-known sales CRM (not a client).