AI search optimization — what it is and how it differs from SEO

Not long ago a customer typed “plastic surgeon Krakow” into Google and scrolled through a list. Today they increasingly ask ChatGPT: “which clinic do you recommend and how much does it cost?” — or read the AI summary above Google’s results without clicking any of them. Hence the new line in agency offers: AI search optimization. Here is what it actually means, how it differs from classic SEO, what our own measurements from October 2026 show, and what can realistically be done — and what nobody can honestly promise.

AI search optimization, GEO, AEO — what it actually is

Several names cover one job: making sure AI assistants and Google’s AI summaries know the facts about your company, cite your website and recommend you for the questions you want to answer.

• AI search optimization / “AI SEO” — the trade name, by analogy with search engine optimization. Misleading in one respect: there are no “positions” in AI (more on that below).
• GEO (generative engine optimization) — optimization for generative engines: ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, Claude and AI Overviews. The term was popularized by a 2023 research paper and is now the most widely used one.
• AEO (answer engine optimization) — the same direction, with the emphasis on “answer engines”: a question in, one answer out, no list of results.
• AI visibility — the name we use ourselves, because it describes the outcome rather than the method: you are either in the answer or you are not.

The queries that bring people to our website show that customers call it other things too: “visibility in ChatGPT”, “AI visibility audit” (often with a city name) or simply “which agencies help you show up in ChatGPT?”. The name does not matter. What matters is what is done under it and how it is measured.

AI assistants have no ranking

That is the most important difference. Google shows a list of ten results and you compete for a place on it. ChatGPT, Gemini and Perplexity show no list — they assemble one answer from several sources they find or remember. There is no “third position in ChatGPT”. There is either presence in the answer or its absence, plus a list of companies the assistant named instead of you.

So the word “optimization” is loose here. It is more honest to talk about visibility: whether you are among the cited sources, whether the assistant knows your facts, and whether it recommends you for the questions you want to answer. A report that shows “position 2 in ChatGPT” presents one random answer as a result.

Where AI gets its answers

Modern assistants combine two things: knowledge built into the model and live web search at answer time. When you ask about a specific company, price or city, the assistant usually reaches for the web — and that is where your influence begins.

• Google AI Overviews and AI Mode build a summary from pages in Google’s index. Cited sources are shown below the answer. If your website does not answer the question directly, a competitor’s page that does will be cited. How both modes work in detail is covered in a separate article: Google AI Overviews and AI Mode.
• ChatGPT with web search also cites page addresses. In our measurements for service businesses the sources are often not only company websites but also industry directories, review sites and “best of…” articles — intermediaries.
• Google Business Profile, reviews and external profiles matter to assistants as much as the website. If your website says 25 years in business and a directory says 30, the assistant will pick one version — not necessarily the true one.

The practical conclusion: AI assembles the picture of your company from many places at once. Working on AI visibility means putting all of those places in order, not just the website.

What our measurements show (October 2026)

Every week we check 31 queries from our own industry on the Polish market — from “how much does a website cost”, through “website maintenance” and “ERP integration for an online store”, to “ChatGPT optimization” — and note whether an AI Overview appears above Google’s results. Three observations from the measurements of 5 and 12 October 2026:

1. AI Overviews are now the norm for informational questions. On 12 October an AI summary appeared above 23 of 31 queries, a week earlier above 24 of 30. It shows up on almost every question about prices, maintenance, audits and integrations — and on all five tracked queries about AI search optimization, including “ChatGPT optimization” and “how much does AI search optimization cost”.
2. Local queries are still AI-free. On “web development Krakow”, “web design Krakow” or “digital agency Krakow” (in Polish) there was no AI summary in either measurement. If your customer is looking for a service in a specific city, the classic result list and Google Business Profile still do the work.
3. Page one no longer means traffic. Our English article on AI search optimization pricing was shown in Google 1,053 times in the last 90 days, at positions 6–16, and clicked zero times. The Polish version: 265 impressions at positions 5–9 and one click, with an AI Overview above the query “how much does AI search optimization cost” in both measurements. Whoever is not cited in the summary gets impressions without visits — and that is the simplest answer to the question why bother with AI search optimization at all.

Source: Google Search Console for 12 July – 9 October 2026 and our own weekly measurement of Google results for Poland. These are our numbers, not industry estimates — narrow, but verifiable.

SEO vs AI search optimization — what changes and what does not

The conclusion: these are not two services but one job with two measurements. A website that is not indexed and does not answer questions has no chance in Google, in AI Overviews or in ChatGPT. Google’s own documentation says there are no separate requirements for AI Overviews — the same rules apply as for regular results. That is why we run it as one service: SEO and AI search optimization.

Three layers of work

When we do this for clients we split the topic into three layers — and it is worth thinking about it the same way on your own:

1. Google: AI Overviews and AI Mode. For every important query: does an AI summary appear, whom does it cite, are you among the sources. This is the layer closest to classic SEO — indexing, content quality and clear answers still count.
2. Assistants: ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity. A set of questions written the way a person asks them: “which company…”, “how much does…”, “can you recommend someone in…”. Asked repeatedly, because answers change.
3. The fact base. Website, Google Business Profile, directories, reviews, structured data, the llms.txt file. This is where we most often find mismatches — and where they are easiest to fix.

ChatGPT optimization — what it looks like in practice

ChatGPT has two modes that look the same from the outside. General questions are answered from the model’s “memory” — and you have no day-to-day influence on that. Questions about specific companies, prices and cities send it to the web: it searches for pages, reads them and cites the addresses below the answer. That is where the work begins.

• ChatGPT’s crawler must be allowed in. ChatGPT search uses its own crawler (OAI-SearchBot). If your robots.txt blocks all bots “just in case”, your website will not be a source. Checking takes a minute.
• ChatGPT likes to cite intermediaries. In our measurements for service businesses the sources are often industry directories, review portals and “best of…” articles rather than company websites. Being present in those places — with correct facts — is often more effective than another subpage.
• The question decides the answer. “Can you recommend someone in Krakow?” and “which agency in Krakow builds WooCommerce stores?” produce different lists. That is why we measure a set of 15–25 questions, not one.
• There is no “position in ChatGPT”. An honest result reads: “the company appeared in 4 out of 9 answers, always with source X”. Anything else is an impression from a single chat.

How to check it yourself before paying anyone: ask ChatGPT the same question your customer would ask, three times, in separate new chats. Write down who was recommended and which sources appear below the answer. If your company is missing and the sources are directories and rankings — you know where to start.

How to measure without fooling yourself

The cardinal sin of “AI visibility” reports is drawing conclusions from a single query. Assistants’ answers change from day to day; the same company can be recommended in the morning and skipped in the afternoon. A few rules we follow — and that you should demand from anyone offering such measurement:

• A fixed question set. Fifteen to twenty-five questions, written once and asked the same way in every measurement. Only that gives an honest “before” and “after”.
• Repeated runs. Every question at least three times per engine. We report the result as “x out of N”, for example “the company appeared in 4 out of 9 answers”.
• No forced names. “Can you recommend someone in Krakow?” — not “list five specific companies”. If the assistant recommends nobody, that is a result too.
• Cited sources. Not only “are we there” but “how does AI know” — because that tells you where to work.
• No numbers without a source. If someone writes “X thousand questions a week in ChatGPT about your industry”, ask where it comes from. Usually they do not know.

What you can do yourself — five steps

1. Answer on your website the questions people ask AI. Starting price, scope, delivery time, location, “who it is for”. If a customer asks “how much does…” and your site only says “individual quote”, the competitor with a price list will be cited.
2. Align the facts. Name, address, phone, years in business, ratings, opening hours — the same on the website, in Google Business Profile and in every directory you are listed in. Mismatches are the most common finding in our measurements.
3. Take care of Google Business Profile and reviews. For local questions it is often a more important source than the website — and on local queries, as our measurements show, AI Overviews are still rare.
4. Add structured data and llms.txt. Structured data (organization, services, FAQ) helps machines understand the site; llms.txt is a simple file describing the company for language models — cheap and harmless, though no substitute for the points above.
5. Clean up the index. Theme demo pages, old language versions, duplicates — for AI that is noise blurring the picture of the company. At one law firm we measured, more than a hundred such pages were still in the index.

What cannot be promised

Nobody controls assistants’ answers — not us, not any agency. Anyone promising “guaranteed presence in ChatGPT” is selling something that does not exist. Two things can be promised: measurement that can be repeated and work on everything AI builds the picture of your company from. We usually see the first differences in the “after” measurement after four to eight weeks — which is why we treat this as continuous work, not a one-off action.

Frequently asked questions

Does AI search optimization replace SEO?

No. AI Overviews build the answer from pages in Google’s index, and ChatGPT with search cites pages it can find and read. A website that is not indexed or has no concrete answers does not exist for either of them. SEO is the foundation; AI visibility work adds measurement in assistants and fact consistency beyond the website.

How much does AI search optimization cost?

With us the starting measurement is free and ongoing work starts at PLN 1,800 net per month (≈ €410) — the amounts are public on our pricing page. Across the market the spread is wide, because very different things are sold under the same name: from a one-off report to continuous work on content and facts. How to compare offers and what to ask is covered in AI search optimization pricing.

How quickly do you see results?

We usually see the first differences in the “after” measurement four to eight weeks after the changes go live. Assistants’ answers change from day to day, so a single measurement proves nothing — what counts is the trend across several consecutive measurements.

Is adding an llms.txt file enough?

No. llms.txt is a cheap and harmless description of the company for language models, but there is no confirmation that the major assistants use it when answering. We add it as a supplement — not instead of structured data, consistent facts and concrete answers on the website.

Do AI Overviews take traffic away from the website?

From our data: yes, on informational questions. An article at positions 5–9 received 265 impressions and one click in 90 days. So the goal is not “being on page one” but being cited in the summary — or targeting questions with no AI summary above them; in our measurement those are mostly local queries.

Can I check what AI says about my company without an agency?

Yes. Ask ChatGPT and Gemini the question your customer would ask, three times in new chats, and write down who was recommended and which sources appear below the answer. Also check whether an AI Overview appears on your key queries in Google and whom it cites. That is enough to know whether there is a problem. An honest “before” and “after” needs a fixed question set and a repeatable measurement.

Where to start

By checking where you stand. We run a free AI visibility audit: 8–10 questions your customers ask, put to ChatGPT three times each, plus Google AI Overviews for your key queries and a list of whom AI recommends instead of you. Within 3 business days you get a PDF with results and priorities — no website access, no obligations. Only on that basis does a conversation about next steps make sense — and the prices of ongoing work are on our pricing page.