AEO/GEO & AI Search
Answer engine optimization & Generative engine optimization
Whatever you call it, your brand’s visibility hinges on acting now.
Sonar is proud to offer best-in-class GEO services as an extension of our commitment to excellence in traditional search engine optimization. Our approach is grounded in over two years of research into the fundamentals of how LLMs access and retrieve information. Understanding which data sets come into play, when is the key to assessing visibility and laying the groundwork for future success. We don’t just optimize for today’s AI search landscape, we prepare you for tomorrow’s innovations in the ever-evolving landscape of modern search.
What’s included
AEO audits & ongoing support
01
Baselining
Getting a clean read on AI visibility is far from simple. We’ve painstakingly developed our own internal prompting model generates the most deterministic responses from the most commonly used LLMs. This removes individual user memory-based biases and shows a pure view of the model’s understanding of your business.
02
Visibility
Different LLMs produce responses in different ways, but they all piggy back on legacy search technology to some extent. Your approach to AI search should start with SEO, taking both the Google and Bing indexes into account. Barriers to accessibility and the overall quality of your site experience are important factors, too.
03
Structured Data
AI loves shortcuts. That’s in part due to the current limitations on computation power and data transmission. Evidence suggests that there are some existing and a few emerging forms of data markups that LLMs sample to determine what your site is about in the most efficient way possible. We’ll audit, edit and/or add yours.
04
Unstructured Data
Traditional search used just a few specific rules to assess relevance. AI uses… everything. But it leans heavily on the consistency, accuracy, quality and density of information about your business online. Industry link aggregators, reviews and mentions on social media are key drivers of AI citations.
Get started
Bridge the divide between traditional media and digital tactics.
Omni-channel campaigns from Sonar reach your audiences where and when you need to most.
Reach out using the form on the right, or give us a call at 207-747-5536
How we work
Search Optimization 2.0
Fundamentals First
AEO starts and ends with SEO. Without basic search visibility, you’re invisible to AI.
Content Framework
Context is everything with AI-friendly content. Is your site ready?
Innovation, Always
Sonar clients get a nimble approach to a fast-evolving marketing discipline.
Related work
Results from this kind of work
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Polartec
Read the case study: PolartecSee how Polartec improved visibility among product developers and decision makers through a targeted B2B digital strategy focused on high-value audiences.
What clients say
In their words
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I’ve been working with Sonar Digital for 3 years now and have seen impressive results in SEO and paid search performance. Most recently, I launched a new website, and the Sonar team worked in coordination with my web dev and design team to help ensure a seamless launch, with no loss of organic rank. Sonar’s team goes beyond the basics with SEO, and develops tailored, hyper-technical optimization strategies. They have helped my small business dominate in local SEO and boost lead volume. At the end of our most recent engagement, they produced a clear and prioritized action plan to build and maintain technical SEO and GEO dominance. Something I especially appreciate is the flexibility in their approach. They can create a strategic project list for a tech-savvy client like myself, or, if I don’t have the bandwidth to DIY, they can get in the weeds and do the grunt work as well. Highly recommend the Sonar team!
Residential Cleaning Company
Questions
Frequently Asked Questions
What’s the difference between GEO, AEO and AI search?
Not much. GEO (generative engine optimization), AEO (answer engine optimization), LLM optimization and AI search optimization are all names for the same thing: making sure your business shows up when people ask ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, Claude or Google’s AI results a question. The field is new enough that nobody has settled on a name yet. We use GEO and AEO interchangeably. What matters is whether these tools mention you, and whether what they say is accurate.
How do AI tools decide what to say about my business?
They draw on two sources. The first is training data, the huge body of text a model learned from, which stops at a certain point in time. The second is retrieval, where the tool searches the live web for current information. Unless you’re roughly Fortune 500 size, the models probably weren’t trained on much about you, so they depend on retrieval. And because searching the web costs computing power, many tools only do it when they have to. For most businesses, that makes being easy to find and easy to read on the web the most important factor.
Is AEO/GEO just SEO with a new name?
It starts with SEO, but it doesn’t end there. AI tools lean on the same web indexes search engines built: ChatGPT retrieves through Bing, Gemini through Google, Claude through Brave, and Perplexity through its own index. So the basics still decide whether you’re found: a site that loads fast, works on mobile, isn’t buried behind pop-ups, and says plainly what you do in its title tags, meta descriptions, headings and copy. Where it goes further is making sure the information AI retrieves about you is complete and accurate.
Does my business need to be doing this now?
It depends on who you sell to. OpenAI’s own figures from March 2026 show people 18 to 34 sending about two thirds of all ChatGPT messages, while people 55 and older send around 6%. If your buyers are older, there’s no need to panic. Older users are adopting quickly, though, and today’s 30-somethings are tomorrow’s decision makers. We think about it the way we always have with SEO: it’s like planting trees, and the best time to start was yesterday.
What happens if AI doesn’t have good information about my business?
It will either skip you or fill in the blanks on its own. When information is thin or vague, AI tools can lean on inference, guesswork, secondhand mentions or outright hallucination. The goal is to become what’s called a “stable entity”: a business with enough clear, consistent information online that AI recognizes it as a real, trustworthy thing rather than just a string of words. That comes from clear site content, consistent details across the web, and closing the gaps before AI closes them for you.
Get started today
And get on your way to better results and a clear way forward.
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