Answer Engine Optimisation (AEO) ensures your brand appears when buyers ask ChatGPT, Perplexity, Google AI Overviews, and Gemini the questions your product answers.
Google's AI Overviews, ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Gemini now answer questions directly — often without a single click to your website. If your brand isn't cited in those answers, you don't exist for that buyer at that moment.
AEO is the systematic process of ensuring your brand, content, and expertise appear in AI-generated answers to the questions your ideal customers ask. It's the new top-of-funnel — and most brands haven't started yet.
DigitalTree uses proprietary AI visibility tooling to discover exactly which sources, citations, and references LLMs pull from — then gets your brand placed directly in that content.
We query 5+ AI platforms with your target questions and map every citation source your competitors appear in that you don't.
We identify which content formats, structures, and topics earn AI citations in your category — and build a gap plan.
We get your brand placed in the exact publications and content pieces that LLMs cite when answering buyer questions.
Monthly tracking of AI citation frequency, brand mention volume, and LLM share of voice vs. competitors.
Traditional SEO optimises for search engine ranking pages — getting your blue link into the top 10 results. AEO optimises for AI-generated answers — getting your brand cited as a source in ChatGPT responses, Google AI Overviews, Perplexity answers, and Gemini summaries. The two are complementary: strong SEO authority supports AEO performance, but AEO requires additional work around structured content, entity recognition, and citation-source placement that SEO alone doesn't address.
We track and optimise for Google AI Overviews, ChatGPT (browsing and search), Perplexity, Gemini, Claude, Bing Copilot, and emerging LLM search surfaces. The citation sources that drive visibility are largely consistent across platforms, so work done to appear in one typically improves visibility across all.
We track AI citation frequency (how often your brand appears in responses to target queries), citation source diversity (how many of the publications LLMs cite are ones you appear in), brand mention volume in AI-cited content, and LLM share of voice vs. named competitors. We report on these monthly alongside traditional SEO KPIs.
AEO is significantly more effective when built on a strong domain authority and content foundation. If your SEO is underdeveloped, we'd typically recommend combining AEO with link building and on-page SEO work to build the authority base that AI platforms reference. We'll give you an honest assessment of where to start at audit stage.
We'll run a free AI visibility audit and show you exactly which queries your brand should be cited for — but isn't.
Get Free AI Visibility Audit →