AEO & AI search basics.
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AEO is the practice of optimising your brand so it gets recommended by AI assistants like ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, and Claude when people ask questions in your category. It covers everything from how your website is technically structured to the authority signals AI models use to decide which brands are credible and worth citing.
SEO optimises for search engines like Google, with keyword rankings, backlinks, and page authority. GEO (Generative Engine Optimisation) is the technical layer of making your website machine-readable and citable by AI engines: schema markup, llms.txt, structured content. AEO is the broader strategy. It includes GEO, but also covers positioning, authority signals, and content strategy specifically aimed at getting your brand into AI-generated answers. Most brands need all three working together.
63% of B2B buyers now start product research with an AI assistant. More importantly, 65% of AI-generated answers end without a click, the AI gives the recommendation inline and the buyer acts on it. If your brand isn't cited in that answer, you've lost the sale before your website was ever visited. Google rankings don't protect you here, the signals AI engines use to decide what to recommend are fundamentally different.
AI models form their understanding of a brand from multiple sources: how your website is structured (schema, content architecture, FAQs), what the broader internet says about you (reviews, citations, press mentions, directory listings), and how clearly your brand is associated with specific topics and use cases. It's not random, it's a combination of technical legibility and external authority. Brands that score well on both get cited consistently.
Partly. Domain authority and quality content do carry some signal across both channels. But strong Google rankings don't automatically translate to AI citations. AI engines prioritise structured data, FAQ-format content, entity clarity, and external authority signals that traditional SEO doesn't specifically optimise for. We regularly work with brands that rank page one on Google and are still invisible in AI-generated answers.
AEO has several layers. First, technical readability: schema markup, llms.txt, structured FAQs, and content formatted so AI can parse and cite it. Second, authority signals: building the reviews, citations, press mentions, and directory presence that AI models use to validate credibility. Third, positioning strategy: understanding what AI currently says about your brand and engineering the right narrative. Finally, content strategy: creating blogs and articles that address the prompts your buyers are asking AI, so your content becomes the source AI pulls from.
AEO is especially powerful for service businesses. Buyers searching for agencies, consultants, advisors, or professional services are among the fastest-growing segments using AI for vendor research. The methodology is identical: structured positioning, authority signals, and content that answers the questions your buyers ask AI before they ever reach out. In many ways, service businesses benefit more, because a single recommendation from an AI assistant can directly drive a qualified enquiry.
About Magnent.
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Magnent is an AI-first brand discovery company. We help brands get cited, recommended, and chosen by AI assistants through a combination of technical implementation, authority building, positioning strategy, and content creation. We're not a dashboard or a tool. We're a team that executes the work end to end, so you can focus on running your business.
Magnent was co-founded by Pooja Agarwal (BITS Pilani), a brand strategist and growth operator who leads client strategy, and Anuradha Sivakumar, an AI and product specialist with an MBA from Oxford's Saïd Business School and prior experience at Standard Chartered, who leads the technical methodology. Both founders bring experience from having seen the AEO gap firsthand across their networks before building Magnent to solve it.
Magnent is a managed service. We don't give you a report and leave you to implement it. Our team handles the audit, the strategy, the technical implementation, the content creation, and the ongoing optimisation. You share your context, goals, and angles, and we do the rest.
We work with B2B startups and founders who want to be found everywhere their buyers and investors are looking, growth-stage marketing teams who are established on Google but missing from AI answers, and enterprise brands whose AI representation is outdated or inaccurate. The common thread: any brand whose buyers use AI to research vendors, products, or services before making a decision.
Because it's the gap no one was solving. Traditional SEO agencies were built for Google. When AI assistants became the first stop for B2B research, the playbooks didn't transfer, the signals are different, the content format is different, and the measurement is different. Magnent was built from day one to solve this specific problem, with a methodology designed around how AI engines actually work.
Our services.
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We run your brand across 30+ targeted prompts on ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, and Claude, the kinds of questions your buyers are actually asking. You receive a citation score out of 100, platform-by-platform breakdown, sentiment analysis, competitive gaps, and a prioritised list of what to fix first. No cost, no commitment required.
Technical AI Readability is the work of making your website legible to AI crawlers and models. It includes implementing schema markup (FAQ, Organization, Product, HowTo schemas), creating an llms.txt file that tells AI engines exactly who you are and what you do, structuring FAQ pages in a format AI pulls from, and making content suggestions for your existing pages. Without this foundation, even excellent content often gets overlooked by AI.
AI engines don't just read your website, they read what the rest of the internet says about you. Authority Signal Amplification is the service of building and surfacing those external signals: citation-worthy mentions on trusted sites, a structured approach to collecting and publishing reviews, presence in directories and listings AI engines index, earned press and media coverage, and visibility in the forums and communities where buyers research. Together, these signals tell AI your brand is credible.
We start by auditing what AI currently says about your brand, the good, the bad, and the inaccurate. Then we deep-dive into your product or service to understand what genuinely differentiates you. We map how your competitors are positioned in AI answers, identify gaps where you have authority others don't, and mine your existing client feedback to find the language buyers already use to describe you. From that, we build a strategy: double down on what's working, modify what isn't, and define what AI should say about you going forward.
The prompts your buyers type into ChatGPT are the new search queries. We map those prompts to your category, build a content strategy around the angles you own, and produce the blogs and articles that earn citations. Content is written using your context, voice, and expertise, shaped into answer-first articles structured for AI comprehension. We then publish across your website and external media that AI engines index, widening the surface area for citations.
It covers both the brand page and the founder profile, because buyers, investors, and partners research both before taking a meeting. For the brand, we work on positioning, content pillars, and consistent voice. For founders, we work on the profile headline and about section, content strategy, and post writing. We focus on content that builds genuine category authority, not vanity metrics, the kind that also creates citable signals AI engines pick up from LinkedIn.
You can start anywhere. Most clients begin with Citation Analysis to establish a baseline, then layer in Technical AI Readability and Authority Signal Amplification, the two highest-impact services for moving your citation score quickly. Positioning Strategy tends to come after you have data on what AI currently says about you. Content Strategy and LinkedIn Branding are typically added as the engagement deepens. We will recommend the right starting point based on your audit results.
Results & measurement.
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Quick wins from schema implementation and llms.txt can appear within a few weeks, these are changes AI crawlers pick up relatively fast. Measurable improvement in citation rates across platforms typically takes 60 to 90 days. The compounding effect of authority building, where citations build on citations, usually becomes pronounced at the 6-month mark. Clients typically see 3 to 5x lift by then.
We run a consistent set of buyer prompts at the start of the engagement and at regular intervals throughout. This gives you a comparable citation score out of 100 for each AI platform, over time. You can see which platforms improved, which specific prompts your brand now appears in, and how the sentiment around your brand is changing. We present this in monthly reports alongside a breakdown of what drove the movement.
It depends on your category and how competitive it is. For most B2B brands starting out, scores in the 20 to 40 range are common, AI simply doesn't have enough structured information about them to cite confidently. A score above 70 typically indicates consistent citation across most major platforms for your core buyer prompts. Our 30+ client engagements average a 4.2x lift, bringing most clients from that 20 to 40 range into the 70 to 90 range within 6 months.
Yes, this is one of the most common issues we see, particularly for brands that have pivoted, rebranded, or expanded their offering. AI models form views from across the web, so fixing this means updating the sources AI reads: your website structure, your external citations, your positioning in reviews and directories. The Positioning Strategy and Technical AI Readability services address this directly.
This is exactly why ongoing optimisation is built into our service. AI models do update, their training data refreshes, their citation patterns shift, and new platforms emerge. We monitor your citation score continuously, track model updates that affect your category, and iterate on the strategy accordingly. The structural work (schema, llms.txt, content architecture) remains durable; the positioning and content layers need active maintenance.
Working with us.
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We start with a discovery session to understand your product, clients, goals, and what you want AI to say about you. From there, your involvement is mainly front-loaded: sharing context, reviewing strategy recommendations, and approving content directions. Once that's done, we execute, technical implementation, content creation, authority building, and monitoring, and report back monthly. You don't get assigned homework. You get results.
The most time-intensive phase is the first two to three weeks. We'll need your input on product positioning, target buyer profiles, and the content angles you want to own. After that, expect a monthly review call and occasional back-and-forth on content drafts. We're built for busy teams: the model is designed so Magnent carries the execution weight.
Yes. For Content Strategy & Creation, we start by understanding your POV, the angles you care about, and the expertise you want to be known for. Blogs and articles are produced using your context and framing, you're not getting generic AI-generated content. Drafts go through your review before publishing. For LinkedIn, we work the same way: your ideas, shaped into content that builds authority without sounding like it came from someone who's never worked in your field.
We don't do lock-in contracts. The free audit is genuinely free with no obligation. Ongoing engagements are structured around the work to be done, and we'd rather earn continued trust month to month than hold clients to terms. That said, AEO compounds over time, the brands that see the most dramatic results are the ones who invest consistently over 6 to 12 months.
Start with the free AI visibility audit, it takes one form submission and 24 hours. We'll run your brand across 30+ prompts on ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, and Claude, and share back a citation score with the most important things to fix. From there, you'll have a clear picture of where you stand and what it would take to move the needle. No pressure, no pitch deck, just your data.
Still have questions?
Book the free audit. It's the fastest way to get answers specific to your brand.