Secure your place as the “Ground Truth.” We ensure your brand is the cited answer across Google AI Overviews, Perplexity, and SearchGPT.
Helping your brand become the “Ground Truth” for AI
Search has moved beyond the blue link. Today, buyers get instant answers through Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG).
If your brand isn’t structured for real-time retrieval, you are invisible to the most motivated buyers.
Answer Engine Optimization (AEO) ensures your brand’s information is selected, synthesized, and cited accurately.
Powered by the HAIF Model, our AEO consulting bridges the gap between your expertise and the AI’s retrieval engine.
What AEO Really Means
AEO is the process of making your website “extractable.” While SEO focuses on humans clicking links, AEO focuses on AI agents “buying” your facts.
We help you:
- Ensure Proper Attribution: Forcing the “Source Link” so AI users can navigate back to your site.
- Architect RAG-Ready Content: Structuring data so AI can “lift” it without losing context.
- Strengthen Entity Credibility: Aligning your site with Knowledge Graphs so AI identifies you as a primary authority.
Where AEO Matters Most
Our AEO consulting focuses on the environments where AI and search intersect:
- Google AI Overviews: Ensuring factual consistency and high-intent citations.
- Search-First AI (Perplexity & SearchGPT): Optimizing for engines that live and die by real-time web retrieval.
- Voice & Ambient Computing: Preparing for the “single-answer” world of Siri, Alexa, and Gemini Live.
These systems rely on your site’s semantic clarity, authority, and structured signals to determine what gets featured.
We ensure those systems can interpret your expertise without distortion or omission.
Our AEO Consulting Process
1. Audit and Assessment
We analyze your website’s schema, structured data, and entity relationships to identify where search-integrated AI systems may fail to interpret your content accurately.
2. Strategic Blueprint
We define your entity optimization, schema enhancements, and topical relevance plan, aligning every improvement with measurable business goals.
3. Implementation Support
We work directly with your dev or marketing teams to integrate structured data, refine content markup, and align messaging for AI-overview readiness.
4. Continuous Refinement
We monitor how Google and Bing AI outputs evolve and adjust your strategy to maintain long-term visibility and trust signals.
Who AEO Consulting Is For
AEO consulting is best suited for brands that already have a solid SEO foundation and want to protect visibility as AI answers expand.
- Brands already ranking well in Google that want to stay visible as AI-generated answers expand
- B2B and SaaS companies seeking consistent attribution across AI-enhanced SERPs
- Marketing teams needing support to align structured data, schema, and content strategy for AI systems
- Agencies looking to integrate AEO strategy into broader digital programs
AEO vs. GEO: The Difference
AEO focuses on search-connected AI (Google, Bing, SGE).
GEO focuses on LLM-native AI systems (ChatGPT, Perplexity, Claude).
- AEO (Retrieval): Optimizing for AI that crawls the web right now to find an answer (Perplexity, SearchGPT, Google AIO).
- GEO (Parametric): Optimizing for the AI’s internal memory, influencing what the model “knows” from its training data (ChatGPT, Claude).
Both AEO and GEO support the same goal: full-spectrum visibility.
AEO focuses on AI systems connected directly to search engines, while GEO addresses AI platforms that operate independently of traditional search.
Why Choose Return On Now
- 25 Years of Pioneer Expertise: Our founder, Tommy Landry, has been a leader in the search industry since 1999. He has navigated every major algorithm shift, from the birth of Google to the rise of RAG, ensuring our strategies are rooted in deep historical context and forward-thinking logic.
- 16 Years of Agency Excellence: Established in 2009, Return On Now provides the institutional stability and proven workflows required to execute complex strategies at scale.
- The HAIF Model Advantage: We employ our proprietary Human + AI Framework to bridge the gap between human expertise and machine discovery. This ensures your brand remains the “Ground Truth” that AI engines demand.
- The Discoverability Stack: We move beyond traditional rankings to dominate the total 2026 ecosystem: SEO, AEO, and GEO. We ensure your brand is the recommended choice in Google AI Overviews, Perplexity, and SearchGPT.
- Technical Architecture Specialists: We specialize in the “invisible” layer of your site (Schema, Entity Mapping, and Machine-Readable Structures), making your brand instantly digestible for AI agents.
We don’t chase trends. We prepare your brand for the future of search visibility.
Engagement Options
Our AEO consulting focuses on clear outcomes: helping your brand become the cited, trusted source in AI-generated answers.
You can engage AEO work as a focused project or as an ongoing program, depending on how competitive and dynamic your visibility needs are.
AEO Foundation Project
In this project scope, we will prepare your website and content for accurate extraction, synthesis, and citation by search-connected AI systems.
This work is focused on making your information reliably retrievable during real-time answer generation.
Once complete, AI systems such as Google AI Overviews, Perplexity, and SearchGPT will be able to reference your content more consistently and with proper understanding.
Typical Investment: AEO Foundation projects start at $1,250.
AEO Authority Project
In this scope, we will strengthen your position as a preferred source when AI systems evaluate multiple credible answers.
This may include expanding answer coverage, reinforcing entity alignment, and improving citation eligibility for competitive queries.
As a result, your brand will surface more often in AI-generated answers during high-intent research and comparison moments.
Typical Investment: AEO Authority projects start from $2,500, depending on scope and competitive intensity.
Ongoing AEO Program (6+ months)
In this engagement, we will continuously manage your visibility within search-connected AI systems as answers, competitors, and retrieval behavior evolve.
This includes monitoring AI answer inclusion, reinforcing citation signals, and adapting content and structure to maintain trusted status over time.
Typical Investment: Ongoing AEO programs start from $4,500 per month and have a six-month minimum commitment.
How AEO Fits Into the Bigger Picture
AEO focuses on AI systems that rely on real-time web retrieval and citation.
For broader AI visibility across LLM-native platforms, AEO works alongside our broader AI-Driven Discoverability services that include GEO optimization as well.
Learn more about our packages and view more details on the AI-Driven Discoverability Services page.
Ready to strengthen your visibility in AI-powered search?
Let’s make sure your brand remains visible and credible as AI transforms how search results appear.
Book an AEO Consultation today, and let’s get started!