A new job title, and a lot of fog around it
Two years ago, nobody had “AEO consultant” on a business card. Today the title appears in proposals landing on marketing directors’ desks across Germany, the UK and the US, often next to a monthly fee and very little else.
The demand is real. Buyers increasingly ask ChatGPT, Perplexity or Gemini for a shortlist before they ever open Google. A company that does not show up in those answers loses enquiries it never knew existed.
The problem is on the supply side. Many AEO offers describe the goal in great detail and the actual work in vague terms. A careful review of 47 AI search offer pages by Matrixe Zone found that almost every vendor promises tracking across AI engines, while very few name concrete deliverables, publish a price, or say how long the work will take.
So what should an AEO consultant actually do, and what should you insist on before signing? Here is our view, written from the agency side of the table.
What an AEO consultant actually does
Good AEO work is less mysterious than the marketing around it. It falls into four areas, and each one should end in something you can open, check and keep.
| Area | What the work involves | What you should receive |
| Technical access | Making sure AI crawlers can reach and read your pages, and that key facts are machine-readable | robots.txt review, structured data (schema.org) implementation, an llms.txt file where it makes sense |
| Entity and brand clarity | Aligning how your company, products and people are described across your site and the wider web | An entity record: one source of truth for names, offerings, locations and key facts |
| Content built for answers | Rewriting or creating pages that answer real buyer questions clearly enough to be quoted | Content briefs per page, a prioritised list of prompts and topics to cover |
| Measurement | Tracking whether, where and how AI engines mention and cite you | A list of tracked prompts and engines, a dashboard, and an export of the raw data |
If a proposal only lists “audit”, “strategy” and “ongoing support”, you are buying categories of activity, not results you can verify. Ask for the table above, filled in with names of files and formats.
AEO vs. SEO: less different than the sales pitch suggests
Here is an uncomfortable truth for our industry. Much of what AEO vendors list as deliverables is classic SEO. In the Matrixe Zone review, structured data was by far the most common item named, mentioned by 29 of 47 vendors. That is a good practice, but SEO teams have been doing it for over a decade.
This is not a bad thing. AI engines rely heavily on search indexes and well-structured websites, so solid technical SEO remains the foundation. An AEO consultant who tells you to forget SEO is selling you something.
The real differences sit in three places:
- What gets measured. SEO tracks keywords, rankings and clicks. AEO tracks prompts, mentions, citations and share of voice inside generated answers, where there is often no click at all.
- Where the work happens. Search rankings depend mostly on your own site and its links. AI answers lean heavily on what others say about you: reviews, industry directories, trade press, forums and comparison pages.
- How content is written. Answer engines lift passages, not pages. Content that states facts plainly, compares options honestly and answers one question per section is far easier to quote.
AEO, GEO, LLMO, AI SEO: one job, too many names
If you have compared three proposals and felt they described different services, you may be right, or you may simply be reading three different labels for the same work.
The market has not agreed on a name. Matrixe Zone counted eleven terms for the discipline across the pages it reviewed, with the average vendor using about three of them at once. AEO (Answer Engine Optimization), GEO (Generative Engine Optimization), LLMO (Large Language Model Optimization), AI SEO and “AI visibility” are the most common. Some acronyms even change meaning from one vendor to the next: AIO can stand for the discipline or for Google’s AI Overviews.
Our advice is simple. Ignore the label. Judge a proposal by two things only: what it will deliver, and how it will measure progress. At Matrixe Zone we use SEO, AEO and GEO as three related layers of one search strategy, and any proposal you receive should spell out what each term covers in practice.
Seven questions to ask before you sign
Use these in your next vendor meeting. A strong consultant will answer each one without hesitation. Vague answers tell you as much as good ones.
- What exactly will I receive? Ask for named files and formats, not activity labels. If the list stops at structured data and a dashboard, push for more.
- What goes beyond standard SEO? Schema markup is the minimum. Ask how they will improve your presence on third-party sources and how they will shape content for AI answers.
- Which AI engines will you track, and how often? “All the major AIs” is not an answer. Expect named engines such as ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, Claude, Copilot and Google AI Overviews, plus a measurement rhythm.
- Which prompts will you track? The prompts should reflect how your buyers actually ask, in their language and market. A German Mittelstand buyer phrases questions very differently from a US startup founder.
- Can I export the raw data? A dashboard you cannot export locks your history inside the vendor’s tool. Insist on a CSV export or API access.
- What does it cost, in writing, before the first call? Few vendors publish prices, but every vendor can give you a written range for an audit and for monthly work.
- How long will it take, and what happens at the end? “No minimum term” sounds flexible, but it also means nobody has committed to a timeline. Ask for an expected duration, milestones, and what you keep if you stop.
Frequently asked questions
What does an AEO consultant do?
An AEO consultant helps your brand appear and get cited in answers from AI tools such as ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini and Claude. The work covers technical access for AI crawlers, consistent brand and entity information, content written to be quoted, and ongoing tracking of AI mentions.
How much does an AEO audit cost?
There is no standard price yet, and few providers publish one. In the offers that do, one-off audits typically run from the low thousands of euros, monthly support from around one thousand euros upwards, and tracking software from a few dozen dollars a month. Always ask for a written range covering scope and deliverables.
Is AEO different from SEO?
Partly. The technical foundation is largely shared, and strong SEO still helps AI visibility. The differences lie in measurement (citations and prompts instead of rankings and clicks), in the weight of third-party mentions, and in how content is structured for quoting.
How long does AEO take to show results?
It depends on your starting point, your market and how much content and reputation work is needed. Technical fixes can take effect within weeks, while building third-party presence usually takes several months. A serious consultant will give you an expected range and milestones, not just a monthly fee.
Can I do AEO in-house?
Yes, if your team already handles technical SEO and content well. The parts that tend to need outside help are prompt research, multi-engine tracking and building presence on third-party sources.
Does AEO matter for B2B and Mittelstand companies?
Very much so. B2B buyers increasingly use AI tools to build supplier shortlists. Specialised manufacturers and service providers with strong expertise but little online visibility have a lot to gain from being named in those answers.
The bottom line
AEO is a real discipline with real commercial value. But the market selling it is young, crowded and loose with its promises. The best protection is to judge the work rather than the label: named deliverables, named engines, data you can take with you, a price in writing and a clear timeline.
At Matrixe Zone, AEO work is delivered by senior specialists who have spent years in SEO and paid search, for clients across DACH, the UK and the US. If you want to see where your brand stands in ChatGPT, Perplexity, Claude and Gemini today, and what it would take to get cited, talk to our team.
