How AI assistants build vendor shortlists
For software and B2B services, assistants tend to lean on a consistent set of sources:
- Comparison and "best tools" articles that rank on Google.
- Review platforms like G2 and Capterra.
- Community discussion on Reddit, Hacker News and industry forums.
- Your own documentation, pricing and product pages, if they're clear and crawlable.
- News and analyst coverage.
If those sources name you, describe your category accurately and explain who you're for, you get mentioned. If your positioning is vague or inconsistent across them, the assistant either skips you or describes you wrong.
What we do for San Francisco companies
Prompt tracking
We build a prompt set around how your buyers actually ask: category, problem, comparison and alternative prompts. Then we track your share of mentions and citations across ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Perplexity, Google AI Overviews and AI Mode with PromptRush, our AI citation tracking platform, against your named competitors.
Source work
We identify which pages the assistants cite for your prompts and work to get you onto them, through listicle placements, review profile work, publication coverage and comparison content.
Site work
We make your product easy for machines to understand: clear category language, direct-answer sections, comparison and alternatives pages, crawlable pricing and feature pages, and structured data. The full method sits on our GEO services and AEO services pages.
Accuracy fixes
If assistants describe your product wrong, with outdated pricing or old features or the wrong category, we trace where that comes from and correct the sources.
GEO, AEO and AI SEO: what we actually mean
People search for this service under three names. GEO (generative engine optimization) is about being included in AI-generated answers. AEO (answer engine optimization) is about being the answer to specific questions, including in Google AI Overviews. AI SEO is the umbrella most agencies use. We treat them as one program: find the prompts your buyers in San Francisco use, measure how often each assistant names you, then fix the sources those answers draw from. Our national AI SEO agency page covers the method in full, and our list of the best AEO and GEO agencies and tools shows the alternatives.
Why pair GEO with SEO
Most AI answers pull from pages that already rank in Google. A GEO program without an SEO foundation tends to fade. We run both together so the gains hold. See our San Francisco SEO agency services.
Who this is for in San Francisco
SaaS, fintech, security and AI companies whose buyers ask ChatGPT for a shortlist before they ever search Google. The first step is the same for all of them: a free scan that shows exactly which prompts mention you, which do not, and who gets named instead.
We ran SEO and AI visibility as one program for Renderforest: +34% organic traffic and visibility won on four LLM platforms. For Krisp, a rebuilt page cluster took six #1 US rankings in five months. Both write-ups are on our case studies page. Brands our team has worked with also include Picsart, Sift, Aikido, 5WPR and EasyDMARC.
Free AI visibility report for your product
Enter your domain and we run your category, comparison and alternative prompts across the major assistants, then send you the mentions, the competitors named instead, and the sources behind each answer.
Frequently asked questions
What's the difference between GEO and AEO?
In practice they describe the same work: optimizing for AI-generated answers rather than a list of blue links. Different people use different names.
How do you prove GEO is working?
Share of mentions and citations over a fixed prompt set, compared against competitors month to month, plus referral traffic from AI assistants where analytics can see it.
Can we just add FAQ pages?
They help a little. The bigger levers are third-party sources and clear positioning.
Is GEO the same as SEO?
No, but they share most of the inputs. AI assistants cite pages that already rank well, are clearly structured and are mentioned on third-party sites. GEO adds prompt tracking, entity work and brand-mention building on top of a solid SEO base.
How do you measure AI visibility?
With PromptRush, our own tracking platform. It runs your buyers' prompts across ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, Claude and Google AI Overviews and reports mentions, citations and share of voice against competitors, weekly.
How long does it take?
Once you land on sources the assistants already trust, mentions can change within weeks. Building presence from zero in a crowded category takes a few months.
Related pages
Find out how ChatGPT describes your product. Get a free AI visibility report.
Send us your domain and the vendors you get compared against. We build the prompt set your buyers actually use, run it across the major assistants, and show you where you land and which sources decide it.