Service
AI search optimization: get named when customers ask ChatGPT
Viziblty's AI search optimization, often called AI SEO, gets local businesses named when customers ask ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Perplexity or Google's AI Mode who to hire. We ask those engines the questions your customers ask, record who gets named, fix what keeps you out, and re-test on a schedule. It is part of one program at $2,000 a month, and it starts with a free audit.
What does Viziblty's AI search optimization include?
Viziblty's AI search optimization includes a baseline of what AI engines say about you, the fixes that change it, and scheduled re-tests. Every item below runs inside the monthly program, usually in this order.
- AI visibility baseline: what ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Perplexity and Copilot say today when asked for a business like yours
- Crawler access fixes so GPTBot, ClaudeBot, and PerplexityBot can read your pages
- Entity cleanup: identical business facts across your site, profiles, and key directories
- Schema markup and an llms.txt file written for your business
- Citable content: pages with direct answers, real numbers, and named sources
- Re-testing and trend reporting alongside your monthly SEO reporting
What happened when Viziblty ran this for 100th Meridian?
100th Meridian Window Film went from zero AI citations on July 11, 2026 to #1 of 22 in its market by day 16. It held #1 in every run after that, through August 2.
100th Meridian is a window film installer in the Niagara region of Ontario. It is our first client, and the owner lets us publish the results. We rebuilt the site, launched it on July 11, 2026, and asked the AI engines the same 15 buyer questions every week. The full method, the crawler data and the caveats are in the 100th Meridian case study, and the build decisions are in how we built an AI-cited local business site.
It is one client in one market over 22 days. It shows the method can work, and it does not forecast your result.
| Date | Share of all citations | Rank in market |
|---|---|---|
| July 11, 2026 (launch day, starting condition) | 0% | Not cited |
| July 20, 2026 (day 9) | 8.1% | #4 of 22 |
| July 27, 2026 (day 16) | 14.2% | #1 of 22 |
| August 2, 2026 (day 22) | 16.4% | #1 of 22 |
What does AI search optimization cost?
AI search optimization costs $2,000 a month as part of the Growth Partnership, Viziblty's one program; it is not sold separately. The same fee covers local SEO, content, technical work, website maintenance and monthly reporting from your own accounts.
Month to month adds a one-time $6,000 setup fee. On a 12-month term we cover it. The full terms, and how a website rebuild is quoted when one is needed, are on the pricing page.
How do I start AI search optimization with Viziblty?
Start AI search optimization with the free Visibility Audit, five automated checks you run on your own site in about a minute. It checks AI crawler access, schema, llms.txt, platform and page weight, and it needs no call.
Run the free audit first. If the results show work worth doing, we talk about the program after that. Ottawa businesses can also read the city version, AI search optimization for Ottawa.
What is AI SEO?
AI SEO is the work of getting AI answer engines like ChatGPT, Perplexity, Copilot and Google's AI Overviews to name your business correctly. The industry splits it into AEO and GEO; we run both as one service.
The foundation is ordinary, strong SEO. Google's AI features documentation says there are "no additional requirements to appear in AI Overviews or AI Mode, nor other special optimizations necessary." The terms themselves are explained in our complete AEO guide and in AEO vs SEO vs GEO.
Does AI search actually change how customers find businesses?
AI search changes behaviour: Google users clicked a traditional result on 8% of visits with an AI summary, 15% without (Pew Research Center). Users ended their session on 26% of pages with a summary, against 16% without one.
The same study tracked 68,879 searches by 900 U.S. adults and found users clicked a link inside the AI summary itself on just 1% of visits. When an AI answer appears, most searchers never leave the results page, so the businesses the answer names get the attention.
How do AI assistants choose which businesses to name?
AI assistants name the businesses whose facts are consistent and well evidenced across websites, profiles, directories, reviews and press coverage. Being linked as a source and being named in the answer are different outcomes.
Semrush's Ghost Citations study measured that gap across 3,981 domain appearances from 115 prompts in 14 countries: 62% of AI citations are "ghosts", where the engine links a site but never names the brand. Gemini names brands 83.7% of the time and cites them as sources only 21.4%. So the second half of the work is entity work: identical name, address, phone, and services everywhere, backed by schema and an llms.txt file.
Can anyone guarantee rankings in ChatGPT?
No one can guarantee rankings in ChatGPT, because a single model update can reshuffle which sites it cites. Walk away from anyone who promises it.
Sistrix measured one ChatGPT model switch in May 2026 shifting 47% of the citation distribution in German-language answers within 48 hours. What can be done is to measure your visibility, fix the inputs, and track the trend, which is exactly the loop described above.
Ask the engines about your business: we'll show you the answer.
The free audit checks AI crawler access, schema, and llms.txt on your site in minutes. It's the same first step we run for every client.