GEO & AEO for B2B

Be recommended in AI answers with Lever Digital.

Your buyers are asking ChatGPT, Copilot, Claude and Google's AI Mode which vendor to shortlist, and most of them trust the answer.

Lever Digital helps B2B SaaS, fintech and service brands get cited, recommended and described accurately in those answers. We build from the same search data that runs our clients' paid campaigns, prioritise the AI engines your buyers actually use and measure the result in pipeline, not mentions.

5×
free trials per month · Uplisting
0.8 → 2.3
ROAS in six weeks · Sprintlaw
300%
YoY revenue growth · Spell Payments

Trusted by teams looking to scale

What AEO and GEO actually means.

AEO and GEO describe the same goal from two angles. Answer engine optimisation (AEO) is about being the answer to a specific question. Generative engine optimisation (GEO) is about being included, and recommended, when an AI model writes its own answer from many sources. Most B2B brands need both, and agencies often use the terms interchangeably, so it helps to know what's underneath them.

Demand creation
Self-serve / PLG

YouTube and Display to problem-aware personas. Measured on branded search lift and direct signups.

Sales-led / enterprise

LinkedIn reach at named ICP accounts. Measured on audience demographic quality and engagement.

Demand capture
Self-serve / PLG

Google and Microsoft Search on solution-aware and “best tool for X” terms. Measured on visit-to-trial rate.

Sales-led / enterprise

Google and Microsoft Search on solution-aware and “best tool for X” terms. Measured on qualified leads.

Shortlist
Self-serve / PLG

Competitor and alternative-to terms, pricing page retargeting. Measured on trial starts and cost per activated trial.

Sales-led / enterprise

High-intent and competitor terms, retargeting of integrations and security pages. Measured on demos that reach qualified opportunity stage, not just demos booked.

Expansion
Self-serve / PLG

Customer Match lookalikes and in-product upgrade nudges. Measured on expansion ARR per paid touch.

Sales-led / enterprise

Account-based retargeting for new business units and seats. Measured on net revenue retention influenced by paid.

AI - The Signal That Matters Most

Whatever an agency calls it, ask the same question: which prompts will you track for us, and how will we know the work changed what AI tells our buyers?

We judge AEO and GEO by what it contributes to pipeline, and we build every piece of content to work in both places.

The difference between AEO and GEO
AEOAnswer Engine Optimisation (AEO) covers any AI feedback that lifts a direct answer from your page, including Google's AI Overviews. The work is mostly on your own site: answer-first copy, clear headings, definitions and comparisons that can be quoted word for word, and structured data.
GEOGenerative Engine Optimisation (GEO) deals with the newer problem: models like ChatGPT and Claude don't just quote one page, they combine sources and often mention a brand without linking to it. GEO therefore reaches beyond your site, into the reviews, forums, comparison lists and press coverage AI models read when they form a view of your category.
Know your audience, know the model.

Each AI engine picks its sources differently. Winning in one engine doesn't carry over automatically to the others. Only about 11% of cited domains are shared between ChatGPT and Perplexity, because each engine uses a different search index and favours different kinds of source. Once we know which engines matter most to your buyers, we weight the work towards the sources those engines trust.

These patterns change as models are updated, so we re-test them on your category every month rather than relying on last year's studies. If you'd like the detail behind this, our guide to AI search visibility KPIs explains what we track.

How we plan GEO: intent & funnels, not keyword lists

The AI shortlist has become the new top organic result. Buyers used to trust the first organic listing over the ads above it.

That trust has moved into AI answers. 75% of B2B professionals now fully or mostly trust AI vendor recommendations, and 66% have noticed vendors missing from them. If you're not in the answer, you're often not on the list.

We map your visibility by funnel stage, because the prompts, the sources AI engines use and the content you need are different at each one.

01

Problem - ToFu

Example prompts: "Why is our CAC rising?" "How do other fintechs handle chargebacks?"

What we build: Answer-first guides and original data under named experts
What we build:

02

Category - MoFu

Example prompts: "What tools help with [job]?" "Do we need [category]?"

What we build: Clear category pages and consistent descriptions of what you do

03

Shortlist - BoFu

Example prompts: "Best [category] for mid-size B2B" "Top [category] agencies UK"

What we build: Inclusion in independent lists, review growth, fair comparison pages

Where AEO/GEO overlaps with SEO

Roughly half the work is shared, and the shared half is what makes the rest cheaper. A page that's crawlable, well structured and distinctively expert content ranks better in Google and is easier for an AI model to quote. Google's AI Overviews cite at least one top-10 organic result in around 94% of cases, and ChatGPT's search results line up closely with Bing's. A strong SEO foundation is the starting point.
Shared with SEO
Technical health, crawl access and site speed
Structured data and clear entity information
Expert, well-structured content
Keyword and intent research
Read more in our SEO service →
Specific to AEO/GEO
Allowing AI crawlers in robots.txt
Consistent brand facts across every profile AI models read
Answer-first passages that survive being quoted out of context
Prompt research: the full questions buyers ask AI tools
Why paid search and AEO/GEO work better together

Paid search is the fastest research tool AI visibility has. Your search term reports show, in buyers' own words, the questions and comparisons that lead to a qualified opportunity in your CRM. That's the best possible brief for the prompts we should be winning in AI answers, and it's data most GEO agencies never see.

The benefits run both ways:

‍Prompt research from real demand. We turn converting search terms into the longer, conversational prompts buyers type into ChatGPT or Copilot, so effort goes to the questions closest to revenue.

‍Messaging tested before it's published. Ad copy shows within weeks which claims and proof points make B2B buyers act. The winners go into the pages and third-party content AI models quote.

‍Bing matters twice. ChatGPT and Copilot both lean on Bing's index. Our Microsoft Ads work gives us an early read on Bing behaviour, which most SEO-only teams ignore.

‍Capturing the demand AI creates. An AI recommendation often leads to a branded Google search days later. Paid and organic together make sure you, not a competitor bidding on your name, get that click, and we track the lift in branded search as proof the AI work is landing.

‍Cover while citations build. Where you aren't in the AI answer yet, paid search covers the same intent so you're not invisible during the months GEO takes to compound.

‍One landing page, three jobs. Clear, answer-first pages help Google's AI Max match your ads to the right searches, convert paid traffic and give AI engines something worth citing.Ads are also appearing inside AI assistants themselves.

Read what ChatGPT Ads mean for B2B marketers and our take on whether a PPC agency should also own your AI visibility.

We're a search-first agency, and most of our clients run Google and Microsoft Ads alongside SEO. That gives us something most SEO agencies don't have: months of real query data showing exactly which searches turn into qualified pipeline in your CRM.
‍

What's included in our
B2B AEO/GEO service

AI visibility audit

We run a set of prompts across ChatGPT, Copilot, Claude, Perplexity, Gemini and Google AI Overviews to see whether you appear, how you're described and which competitors are recommended instead. You get a baseline share of voice for each engine.

Engine priorities and prompt map

Using your referral data, customer feedback and paid search terms, we decide which engines to prioritise and build a prompt map from problem-stage questions through to vendor comparisons.

Technical AEO

AI crawler access, structured data, page speed and consistent entity information, so every engine can read your site and agrees on what you do. This builds on our technical SEO work.

Answer-first content

We rewrite and create the pages AI engines quote most: category explainers, comparison and pricing pages, and guides with original data, each written so key passages make sense when lifted on their own.

Off-site GEO

Inclusion in credible third-party lists, review growth on the platforms your category uses, digital PR, and expert presence on channels where your buyers talk.

Monitoring and narrative correction

Monthly tracking of every priority prompt. When an engine describes you inaccurately or leaves you out, we trace the sources behind that answer and fix them.

Get ahead of the competition. Be the answer your clients are looking for.

Speak to our team to see how we've managed to grow enquiries by x4 through AI visibility alone.

Michéal Breslin
Written by
Michéal Breslin, Managing Director of Lever Digital

Michéal has spent 10+ years leading B2B paid acquisition for SaaS, FinTech and marketplace companies, including in-house roles at PayPal and Zettle before founding Lever. He has managed £50M+ in ad spend across Google, Microsoft, LinkedIn and Meta, and writes regularly on SaaS PPC benchmarks, CAC measurement and multi-channel budget allocation.

Lever Digital is a Google Partner and a 2026 UK Paid Media Awards finalist.

Last reviewed
September 2026
by Michéal Breslin

GEO Agency: your questions, answered.

What is the difference between AEO and GEO?
AEO (answer engine optimisation) focuses on being lifted as the direct answer to a question, mostly through how your own pages are written and structured. GEO (generative engine optimisation) focuses on being included and recommended when AI models write answers from many sources, which also depends on reviews, lists and press coverage elsewhere. In practice B2B brands need both.
Is GEO just SEO with a new name?
No, though they share a foundation. Strong SEO makes AI citations more likely, but only around 12% of URLs cited by AI tools also rank in Google's top 10 for the same query. GEO adds work on third-party sources, prompt tracking and how each engine describes your brand.
What's the difference between SEO, AEO and GEO?
SEO earns rankings and clicks in search results. AEO and GEO aim to get your brand cited and recommended inside AI-generated answers. We explain the terms and how they overlap on our AI search visibility page.
Which AI engine should we prioritise?
The one your buyers use. ChatGPT has the widest reach, Copilot dominates inside large Microsoft 365 organisations, Claude is growing fastest in B2B referral traffic and Google AI Overviews reach everyone who starts on Google. We confirm priorities from your own referral and customer data before planning.
How long does GEO take to show results?
Technical fixes and improved pages can change citations within weeks. Off-site work such as list inclusion, reviews and press takes several months, and the pipeline impact builds from there as branded search grows.
Can you guarantee we'll appear in ChatGPT?
No one can guarantee it, because the models and their sources change constantly. What we can do is show you where you stand today, which sources are shaping the answers and how your share of voice moves month by month across multiple AI models.
Do we need paid search to do GEO?
No, but it helps. Paid search data shows which questions lead to revenue, which tells us which prompts to win first. Clients running both usually see results sooner.
How much does AEO/GEO cost?
It depends on the number of engines, prompts and markets in scope. We scope it after the audit so you're paying for the gaps that matter. Get a free proposal for a figure.

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