How do I get my business mentioned in AI answers?

What it is

This is the core AEO question. Google says its AI features need no special optimization beyond SEO best practices (checked 2026-10-17); other answer engines use their own search and retrieval layers.

How it works

1. Fix basics: indexable pages, plain answers to buyer questions, accurate structured data.
2. Make your positioning and key facts identical across your site, profiles and directories.
3. Find which sources answers cite for your category, then earn genuine mentions there. Ross Simmonds suggests running about 20 key prompts across ChatGPT, Claude and Perplexity and logging the domains they cite (view: Simmonds; a method, not a tested result).
4. Re-run the same prompts monthly and record mentions.

Benefits

• Work that also helps classic search and buyers.
• Clear picture of which third parties shape your category.
• Repeatable process instead of one-off hacks.

Limits and risks

• Citation does not prove influence on recommendations (view: Fishkin).
• Answers vary between runs: one study found fewer than 1 in 100 runs gave the same brand list (SparkToro).
• AI answers may lag your updates; Lily Ray reported ChatGPT still citing an old URL more than two weeks after a redirect, while search results updated within a day (view: Lily Ray; one client case).
• Most searches already end without a click. SparkToro’s 2024 study found 58.5% of US Google searches ended with no click. Being named in the answer is an outcome worth measuring. See zero-click search.
• Models are frozen at a cutoff. Christopher Penn points out that a model’s built-in knowledge stops at its training cutoff and that vendors increasingly supply current facts through search and retrieval instead (view: Penn). A new business is more likely to be found through live search and citations first.