What an AI SEO agency should actually do for you
Being found when someone asks ChatGPT, Claude or Gemini who to hire is a real problem worth paying to solve. It is also not three separate products, whatever the market is currently charging for.
The short version
You can hold page one on Google and still be invisible when someone asks an AI tool who to hire. That is a real gap and it is worth closing. But it is one job, not three, and anyone selling you GEO, AEO and AI SEO as separate line items is selling you the same work three times.
We fold it into SEO, because that is what it is. Same pricing as any other channel: $1,200 CAD a month for one, $2,000 for two, three month minimum.
Why it gets sold as three things
GEO is generative engine optimisation. AEO is answer engine optimisation. AI SEO is whatever the person saying it wants it to mean. They arrived within about eighteen months of each other and every agency needed a name for the thing clients were suddenly asking about.
Underneath, all three are asking one question: when a model answers a question in your category, does it mention you, and does it get you right?
Three names, one problem. The reason it matters is not pedantry. It is that three names let an agency sell you three retainers for one piece of work, and it makes the whole category sound more mysterious than it is.
What decides whether an AI recommends you
None of this is exotic. It is unglamorous work that most sites have not done.
Being answerable
Models quote passages that answer a question directly. A page that takes four paragraphs to say what you charge will lose to one that says it in the first sentence. This is why we put prices and plain answers on the page.
Being parseable
Structured data tells a machine what your business is, where it operates and what it sells, without making it infer any of that from prose. Missing or contradictory markup is the most common reason a real business reads as thin.
Being corroborated
If everything findable about you was written by you, you look unverified. Independent mentions, a complete Google Business Profile, reviews and local citations are what turn a claim into a fact a model will repeat.
Being consistent
One business name, one address, one phone number, everywhere. Models are unforgiving about conflicting details, and a stale directory listing with an old number can quietly outrank your own site as the source of truth.
We did this to our own site first
In September 2026 we rebuilt myadsteam.com on static HTML and did the work above to it: answers on the page, published pricing, structured data across every page, a consistent entity, and an llms.txt file describing the business in plain language.
We also checked seven Halifax competitors. One had a real llms.txt. None published pricing. Most had no business entity markup at all, and one agency's pages only existed after JavaScript ran, which means a crawler that does not execute it sees a fraction of the content.
We are not claiming a result yet. It has been weeks, not months, and we wrote down the baseline so we can tell you honestly either way. That is the standard we would want from anyone selling this.
When you need a diagnostic instead
Sometimes the problem is not your marketing. It is that AI tools describe your business wrongly, or describe a competitor when asked about you. Finding out exactly what the models currently say, and why, is a different job from SEO.
Carol runs that work through her separate practice. The AI Visibility Check asks ChatGPT, Claude and Gemini who to hire in your category and shows you the actual answers, with a live review rather than a PDF. If the gap needs closing after that, the AI consulting practice handles it.
If what you need is ongoing search and ads work with AI search handled properly inside it, that is us, and you are in the right place.
AI SEO questions we get asked
What is an AI SEO agency?
An agency that works on whether AI tools like ChatGPT, Claude and Gemini mention your business when someone asks for a recommendation in your category. In practice it is the same discipline as SEO, applied to a different set of signals: clear answers on the page, structured data, consistent business details and independent corroboration.
What is the difference between GEO, AEO and AI SEO?
Generative engine optimisation, answer engine optimisation and AI SEO are three labels for one problem: whether an AI tool recommends you correctly. They appeared within about eighteen months of each other because every agency needed a name for it. Anyone selling them as three separate products is selling you the same work three times.
How much does AI SEO cost?
We do not price it separately. It is part of SEO, at $1,200 CAD a month for one channel or $2,000 for two, on a three month minimum. Ad spend is separate and goes to Google or Meta. If someone quotes you a separate GEO or AEO retainer on top of SEO, ask what is in it that SEO is not.
Does AI SEO replace regular SEO?
No, and the two overlap heavily. The work that makes a page easy for Google to rank also makes it easy for a model to quote: clear structure, direct answers, and a site a machine can parse. What is genuinely different is corroboration, because models weigh what other sources say about you more heavily than search does.
How do I find out what AI currently says about my business?
Ask it. Open ChatGPT, Claude or Gemini and ask who the best option is for what you do, in your city. If your name does not come up, or the description is wrong, that is your starting point. For a structured version across all three models with the answers documented, that is the AI Visibility Check at carolroderick.ca.
How long does AI SEO take to work?
Expect months rather than weeks, for the same reason SEO does. Models have to find the changes, and the corroboration side depends on other people mentioning you, which you cannot rush. Anyone promising you a spot in AI answers on a timeline is guessing.
Want to know what AI says about you?
Tell us what you sell and where, and we will tell you what is standing between you and being recommended.