AI Engine Optimisation (AEO) is the practice of optimising your digital presence so AI-powered assistants recommend and cite your business. Think of it as SEO for AI.
When someone asks ChatGPT “What is the best digital marketing agency in Auckland?” or Google’s AI Overview summarises options for “SEO services NZ”, AEO determines whether your business appears in that answer.
Why AEO matters now
AI assistants are becoming a primary discovery channel. Over 100 million people use ChatGPT weekly. Google AI Overviews appear on a growing percentage of searches. Perplexity, Claude and other AI tools are changing how people research products and services.
The businesses that AI models are trained to recognise as authoritative in their space will capture this traffic. The ones that are invisible to AI will lose ground.
How to optimise for AI
Structured data: Use schema markup to make your business, services and content machine-readable.
Entity authority: Build your brand as a recognised entity through consistent mentions, citations and authoritative content.
Clear, citable content: Write content that AI can extract and attribute. Direct answers, clear definitions, structured formats.
Brand mentions: Get mentioned on authoritative sites, directories and publications that AI models use as training data.