AI Search Optimisation · AEO / GEO
Your next customer is asking an AI who to use. You’re not in the answer.
More of “who’s good for X” now happens inside ChatGPT, Gemini and Google’s AI Overviews — and there’s no analytics tab showing you the business you lost because you weren’t mentioned. I’m Jamie McKaye. I work on getting you into those answers. And I’ll be straight with you about a category that is mostly sold dishonestly: what’s real, what isn’t, and what no one can promise.
The search you can’t see is the one costing you
Here’s what’s changed. A growing share of buying decisions now begins with a question put to an AI assistant — “best accountant in Leeds”, “which CRM should a small agency use”, “who does data cabling for offices in London”. The assistant answers with a shortlist. If you’re on it, you’re in the running. If you’re not, you were never even considered.
And unlike a Google ranking, you cannot see this happening. There is no report that shows the deals you lost because an AI recommended someone else. The first time most businesses notice is when a competitor starts winning work they can’t explain.
This is a real shift, and it’s worth taking seriously. It is also surrounded by more nonsense than any topic in marketing right now — which is the other problem this page exists to deal with.
Being invisible in AI search is a genuine risk. Most of what’s sold to fix it is not a genuine solution. Both things are true.
What this work actually is — and isn’t
Stripped of the hype, getting recommended by AI comes down to three things. None of them is a secret, and none of them can be guaranteed.
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01
Be the kind of source AI systems trust
Foundations
AI systems are grounded in the same web search has always run on. They favour sources that are technically sound, clearly structured, genuinely authoritative and easy to extract a clean answer from. Most of this is excellent SEO, done properly. Anyone selling AEO as an entirely separate discipline with a separate playbook is selling you something — Google has said as much in writing.
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02
Be present where the answer is assembled
Presence & mentions
AI assistants build answers from what’s said about you across the web, not just on your own site — reviews, mentions, listings, third-party coverage. Being genuinely talked about, in the right places, is what puts you in the consideration set. This is closer to digital PR and reputation than to traditional SEO.
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03
Know what’s actually happening
Measurement, honestly
You can’t rank-track a probabilistic system the way you track Google, and anyone showing you a tidy “AI ranking” dashboard is mostly showing you noise. What you can do is measure visibility share, monitor how AI describes you, and watch referral behaviour. I’ll show you what’s real and ignore what isn’t.
Notice what’s missing from that list: any promise of a guaranteed citation. That’s not modesty. It’s how these systems work — and a consultant who pretends otherwise is the one to walk away from.
I’d rather lose the work than oversell this
Most of what is marketed as AEO or GEO right now is theatre. Guaranteed citations. Schema that “ensures” you get included. Rank-tracking dashboards for systems that don’t rank. The category is roughly where SEO was in 2005 — loud, confident, and largely unaccountable.
I write about this almost every day, and I’m often the one calling it out. That’s the reason to work with me on it. I’ve spent 19 years in search, I build and run four AI products of my own, and I understand these systems well enough to know what they can and can’t be made to do. So I won’t sell you a guarantee that isn’t real.
What I will do is the genuine work: get your foundations right, get you present where AI assembles its answers, and measure it honestly. That’s less exciting than a guaranteed result. It’s also the only version that works.
- 19 years in search
- 4 AI products built and running
- Daily published analysis of AI search
What working together actually looks like
No guaranteed-citation package, because that product doesn’t honestly exist. Every engagement is built around work that genuinely moves AI visibility — and honest measurement of whether it did.
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01
AI visibility audit
Where you actually stand.
A real assessment: how AI assistants currently describe your business, where you appear and where competitors appear instead, and what’s genuinely holding you back. A fixed-scope piece of work with a clear deliverable — and an honest read, not a fear-sell.
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02
Foundations & presence
The work that moves the needle.
Getting the technical and content foundations right so AI systems can trust and extract from you, and building genuine presence where they assemble answers. This overlaps with core SEO and with digital PR — because that’s what actually works, whatever the category is called.
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03
Ongoing monitoring
Because this is moving fast.
AI search is changing monthly. This is continuous tracking of how you’re represented, what’s shifting across the platforms, and what to do about it — with a senior brain who’s genuinely across it, not a dashboard that reports noise.
What honest measurement looks like
Real measurement, within the limits of what these systems allow. Not a fake “AI ranking” — that’s noise sold as a metric.
Visibility share across 8 buying-intent queries
Queries where competitors appear, you don’t
6 of 8
How AI currently describes you
“A regional firm; less well-known than the others on the shortlist.”
Honest measurement. No fake “AI rankings.” Examples illustrative.
The work, and what it changed
A consultant’s case studies should show the result, not the activity. AI search is new enough that long-run case studies are still maturing — mine included. I’d rather show you a genuine result than pad this out.
Who this is for — and who it isn’t
This page is unusually blunt about a hyped category, so it’s worth being equally blunt about fit.
A good fit
- Businesses that have noticed competitors turning up in AI answers — and want to understand why.
- Companies whose customers genuinely research via AI assistants before buying.
- Teams who want an honest assessment of AI visibility, not a fear-driven sales pitch.
- Anyone already investing in SEO who wants the AI-search surface covered properly too.
Probably not a fit
- Anyone wanting a guaranteed citation in ChatGPT or AI Overviews — it cannot be honestly promised.
- Businesses chasing AI visibility while their basic SEO foundations are broken — fix those first; that’s the SEO service.
- Anyone who wants a tidy “AI rankings” dashboard more than they want real results.
- Businesses whose customers simply aren’t using AI to find this kind of service yet — for some sectors, honestly, that’s still the case.
I write about this — most days
This is the subject I cover most, and I’m usually the one pushing back on the hype. If you want to know how I think before you get in touch:
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FAQ
Reasonable questions
Can you guarantee I’ll be cited in ChatGPT or AI Overviews?
No. Nobody can, and anyone who says otherwise either doesn’t understand these systems or is hoping you don’t. They’re probabilistic — the same query can return different sources on different days. What I can do is genuinely improve your odds and be honest about the rest.
Isn’t AEO/GEO just SEO with a new name?
Largely, yes — and Google has said so in writing. The foundations are the same: be technically sound, authoritative and extractable. What’s genuinely new is narrow — how answers get assembled, where presence comes from, how you measure it. I’ll do the new part properly without pretending the whole thing is a new discipline.
Do I need this if I’m already doing SEO?
Often it’s the same work seen from a different angle, and good SEO already moves AI visibility. But there’s a specific layer — presence, mentions, AI-answer monitoring — that standard SEO doesn’t cover. Many businesses are best served by both; I’ll tell you honestly which you actually need.
How do you measure whether it’s working?
Honestly, and within the limits of what these systems allow. Visibility share, how AI describes your business, competitive presence, referral behaviour. Not a fake “AI ranking” number — that’s noise sold as a metric.
Is it too early to bother with this?
For some sectors, genuinely yes — and I’ll say so rather than take the work. For most, no: the businesses establishing presence now are the ones AI systems will lean on as this matures. But the honest answer depends on whether your customers are actually using AI to find what you do.
Do you only work with Surrey businesses?
No. I’m Surrey-based but this work has no geographic constraint at all — I work with businesses across the UK.
If you suspect AI is quietly recommending your competitors —
— let’s find out, honestly. No guaranteed-citation pitch. A straight assessment of where you stand in AI search and what’s genuinely worth doing about it.