Be the answer AI gives
when buyers research
your category.
AEO is the discipline of getting your brand cited, quoted, and recommended by ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity, and Gemini. Before buyers ever visit your site.
Led by Austin Heaton — 12 years in search, featured in Fast Company, SimilarWeb, and Zapier.
Average AI click growth in 45 days across clients
Average client ROI on AEO program
Gemini session growth for Rise in 12 months
Conversions from ChatGPT alone in the first 60 days
AEO clients
Organic traffic is declining because buyers don’t start with Google anymore.
Buyers use AI-first research
B2B buyers are asking ChatGPT and Perplexity which vendors to consider before they ever search Google or visit a website. If you're not cited in those answers, you're not in the consideration set.
Domain authority doesn't transfer to AI
Your SEO investment built domain authority. AI engines use entity authority — a different system. Strong Google rankings don't guarantee AI citations. Most companies that rank well in search are invisible in AI answers.
AI citations convert at rates traditional SEO can't match
A buyer who finds you through an AI recommendation has already been pre-sold by the model's implicit endorsement. Lumanu saw 101 conversions from ChatGPT alone in 60 days — at higher rates than any other organic channel.
Every Grow plan carries a written guarantee.
AI visibility up at least 25% in 90 days, read in an AI-visibility tracker you own, or we work free until we hit it.
Citation share growth — typical 6-month trajectory
Citation Audit
We map your current citation share across 25 buyer-intent queries on all four major AI engines, measured against your top 3 competitors.
Entity Authority Strategy
We build the structured content and entity signals that AI engines use to recognize and cite your brand — not keyword optimization.
Monthly AI Share-of-Voice Report
Every month you see exactly where you stand, how competitors are moving, and which queries to prioritize next.
Why Catalyst, not your current SEO agency.
Most SEO agencies have retrofitted their old playbooks for AI search. AEO is a different discipline — different inputs, different measurement, different expertise.
Feature
Traditional SEO Agency
Catalyst AEO
Reporting cadence
Quarterly PDF decks
Live dashboards, updated weekly
What they optimize
Domain authority & keyword rankings
Entity authority & AI citation share
What they measure
Traffic, impressions, keyword counts
Pipeline contribution & revenue attribution
AI search expertise
Retrofitted from old SEO playbooks
Purpose-built for generative engines
Execution
Junior account managers
Senior operator — Austin Heaton, 12 yrs in search
Performance guarantee
None
Every Grow plan carries a written guarantee
A full AEO program running every month.
Everything needed to build citation authority and track it — without you managing it.
Audit & Strategy
- — 25-query citation audit across 4 AI engines
- — Competitor citation gap analysis
- — Entity authority assessment
- — Prioritized query capture roadmap
- — Buyer-intent query mapping
Entity Authority Content
- — Structured content built for AI citation
- — Schema markup and entity signals
- — Authoritative source development
- — Competitive citation displacement
- — AI-optimized FAQ and definition pages
Monthly Tracking
- — Citation share by query and engine
- — Competitor movement alerts
- — AI traffic and conversion reporting
- — New query opportunity identification
- — Sentiment analysis in AI answers
Live dashboards, not quarterly PowerPoints.
Every client gets full AI visibility tracking from day one. Citations tied directly to CRM conversions and closed revenue. No vanity metrics — only dollars and deals.
Generative Engines
Citation frequency across ChatGPT, Perplexity, Claude, and Gemini — tracked week over week. See exactly which models are citing you and when.
Prompt Visibility
Average rank and visibility percentage on your tracked buyer-intent queries, with a competitor comparison on every single query.
Citation Share
Your market share of AI citations vs. direct competitors, broken down domain by domain. This is the number we move.
AI Sentiment
How AI models actually describe your brand — categorized as positive, neutral, or negative associations. Updated weekly.
Recent AI Chats
A live feed of exact buyer prompts, which AI models responded, what geography, and which competitors appear alongside you in every answer.
AI Traffic & Conversions
Clicks and conversion events from each AI source tied to your CRM. Pipeline contribution from AI citations, visible every month.
What this looks like in practice.
AEO + GEO · Rise
+860% Gemini session growth. 8,278+ AI sessions. 100+ countries reached.
Rise came to Catalyst with declining organic traffic and no presence in AI search results. We audited their citation share, built entity authority content around their top buyer-intent queries, and tracked citation movement across all four major AI engines monthly.
+860%
Gemini session growth
8,278+
Total AI sessions in 12 months
$8M+
Pipeline influenced
100+
Countries reached
“AI search went from invisible to one of our highest-converting traffic sources. The citation share tracking made it impossible to ignore how fast this moved.”
Rise leadership team
AEO · Lumanu — FinTech / Creator Payments
5,130 ChatGPT referrals. 101 conversions. 60 days.
Lumanu had zero AI search presence. Within 60 days of building entity authority, they were receiving 5,130 referral visits from ChatGPT alone — converting at rates that outpaced every other organic channel.
5,130
ChatGPT referral visits in 60 days
101
Conversions from AI traffic in 60 days
+1,746%
ChatGPT referral growth
Higher
Conversion rate vs. traditional organic
“AI visitors converted at significantly higher rates than traditional organic. Once entity authority kicks in, the pipeline impact compounds quickly.”
Austin Heaton — AEO + GEO Practice Lead
The right fit matters.
Built for you if…
- ✓You're a B2B SaaS marketing leader watching organic traffic decline
- ✓You've invested in SEO and still aren't showing up in AI answers
- ✓Your buyers research your category in ChatGPT or Perplexity before talking to sales
- ✓Competitors are being cited in AI answers and you're not
- ✓You want citations that convert, not just impressions that don't
- ✓You measure success in pipeline, not traffic
Not the right fit if…
- ✕You have no clear category or buyer-intent query set to optimize for
- ✕You need immediate pipeline in 30 days — entity authority builds over months
- ✕Your market doesn't use AI for category research yet
- ✕You want to optimize for brand queries, not buyer-intent queries
Common questions
Not sure if AEO is right for you? Start with the free Citation Audit — it takes 48 hours and answers that question directly.
See how you're showing up in AIAEO (Answer Engine Optimization) is the discipline of getting your brand cited, quoted, and recommended by AI search platforms like ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity, and Gemini. Traditional SEO optimizes for domain authority and keyword rankings. AEO optimizes for entity authority — how well AI models understand and trust your brand as a credible source in your category. Domain authority doesn't transfer to AI citation authority. They're different systems.
Citation share is the percentage of buyer-intent queries in your category where your brand appears in the AI-generated answer. If 25 queries are 'what is the best [your category] software' and AI mentions you in 10 of them, your citation share is 40%. We track this across ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity, and Gemini.
Every Grow plan carries a written guarantee. AI visibility up at least 25% in 90 days, read in an AI-visibility tracker you own, or we work free until we hit it. The baseline is the average of 2 to 3 runs in week one, frozen before any work ships. The clock starts when the site setup is live and pauses whenever we are waiting on you. Free work is the only remedy, never a refund.
Most clients see meaningful citation share improvement within 60–90 days. AI engines re-index content faster than traditional search. Rise saw +860% Gemini session growth within their first program year. Austin's benchmark across clients is +560% average AI click growth in the first 45 days.
Each month we: run a citation audit across 25+ buyer-intent queries on all four AI engines, publish structured entity authority content designed for AI citation, monitor your citation share vs. top 3 competitors, and send a monthly AI share-of-voice report showing movement. We also flag competitor citation gains immediately so you can respond.
Before starting any engagement, we run a full audit of where you currently stand: 25 buyer-intent queries, 4 AI engines, measured against your top 3 competitors. You get a clear picture of your current citation share, where competitors are outranking you in AI answers, and the highest-priority queries to capture first. It takes 48 hours and costs nothing.
Find out where you stand in AI search. Free.
We’ll audit 25 buyer-intent queries across ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity, and Gemini — and show you exactly where you stand vs. your top 3 competitors. 48 hours. No cost.
→ 25 buyer-intent queries audited
→ 4 AI engines: ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity, Gemini
→ Measured against your top 3 competitors
→ Results delivered in 48 hours