AI SEO: SEO for ChatGPT and AI search

What is AI SEO?

AI SEO is optimising a website for search with AI: making sure ChatGPT, Gemini, Google AI Overviews and Claude find your pages, understand them and name, recommend or cite your company in relevant answers. It is not a fixed term, and it is used for two different things:

What is meant	Goal	How success is measured
AI SEO as optimising for AI answers (GEO)	appear in the AI services’ answers	share of answers that name or recommend your company
AI SEO as SEO done with AI tools	rank higher in Google’s results	ranking, impressions, clicks

This article is about the first. The technical term for it is GEO, generative engine optimisation; LLMO and AEO are in use too (What is LLMO?). How GEO and SEO differ is explained in GEO vs SEO.

How do I optimise my website for AI?

In six areas, from the technology to the measurement:

Access for the crawlers: robots.txt allows the AI services’ crawlers. For search in ChatGPT, OpenAI names OAI-SearchBot; for search in Claude, Anthropic names Claude-SearchBot; for Google’s AI answers, Googlebot applies. According to OpenAI, the search crawler is independent of the one for training (GPTBot): if you do not want training, you can block one and allow the other.
Indexed and readable: your important pages are indexed by Google and readable, even without JavaScript. The content is on the page as text, not only in images.
The answer first: every page answers its question in the first sentence. Programs that prepare pages for AI often drop the page header, so the answer belongs in the main text.
Pages for the sub-questions: AI services run further searches of their own for a question, for prices, location or comparisons, say. Each of those sub-questions needs a page or a section with a clear answer.
Consistent facts: name, address, offer and prices are the same on the website and in every listing. Structured data makes them unambiguous for machines; for its AI features Google says it does not require it.
Sources beyond your website: directories, associations, comparison sites and trade media. In a study of 98 German-speaking Swiss SMEs, local.ch, search.ch and comparis.ch were among the sources the AI answers cited most, according to Netzwoche (2026).

An llms.txt can add to this but replaces none of these points; more in What is an llms.txt?.

How do I get found on ChatGPT?

ChatGPT answers a question in one of two ways: from the model’s own knowledge or with a web search. For web search ChatGPT reads current pages, so the same points as above count, above all access for OAI-SearchBot and pages that answer exactly your customers’ questions. What the model knows about you without search comes from its training data and only changes with a new model.

How ChatGPT decides which company to recommend, and what you can do about it, is explained in Getting recommended by ChatGPT. If ChatGPT describes your company wrongly, see Correcting wrong facts.

How do I increase my visibility in ChatGPT?

With a loop of measuring, changing and measuring again:

Measure where you stand: ask your customers’ questions on several days and count how often you are named. One answer is not a result.
Read the sources: which pages does ChatGPT cite for these questions, and which searches does it run itself? That is where you are missing, or where something wrong is written.
Close the gaps: pages of your own for the missing sub-questions, listings in the directories that are cited, corrected details.
Measure again: with the same questions, before and after. A change only counts once it is bigger than the margin of error.

That is how we work on our own brand too. In the live case study «Grow in Public», the AI services named anewera on the same 26 questions in about 6% of answers from 6 to 15 October 2026, and in about 11% from 16 to 20 October. Because the margins of error still overlap after five days, by our own rule this does not count as a proven effect yet.

Which AI SEO tools are there?

Four kinds of tools that complement each other:

Kind	What they do	Examples
Free checks	a first impression: what AI services say about you, or whether your website is ready for AI agents	anewera’s free AI check, the check on agentready.ch
Google Search Console	how often links to your website appeared in AI Overviews and AI Mode, since 31 August 2026	free, from Google
Monitoring of AI answers	asks your questions regularly and counts how often you are named, recommended and cited	anewera’s AI visibility tool and international software
SEO tools with AI features	rankings, keywords and texts for classic search	widely used SEO software

Ask every monitoring tool the same things: how many answers stand behind a figure? Does every figure come with a margin of error? From which location and in which language are the questions asked? Are failed answers counted? Where is the data kept? How to compare tools is covered on the page about the AI visibility tool.

What AI SEO cannot do

Guarantee mentions: answers are generated afresh each time, and the providers keep changing their models.
Work through tricks: repeated keywords, hidden instructions to the AI or fake mentions do not make a page more credible. Google says such mentions are not as helpful as they may seem.
Replace advertising: AI SEO is optimisation, not paid placement.
Prove anything with one answer: only continuous measurement with a margin of error shows whether the work is paying off.

If you would rather not do AI SEO yourself: anewera takes on the measurement and the work as an AI SEO agency for companies across Switzerland.

Frequently asked questions

Is AI SEO the same as GEO?

Mostly, yes. People who say AI SEO usually mean the work of getting AI services to find a company, describe it correctly and name it, which is GEO (generative engine optimisation). Some providers, though, mean classic SEO in which texts and analyses are produced with AI tools. Ask what is meant and how success is measured.

Does AI SEO replace classic SEO?

No. AI services with web search read pages they can find and understand, and according to Google the same basics apply to the AI features of Google Search as to normal search. AI SEO builds on SEO and adds the sources the AI reads and the measurement of the answers.

May I write texts for AI SEO with ChatGPT?

As an aid, yes. What counts is what the text says: in its guide of July 2026 Google recommends content that goes beyond general knowledge. Your own figures, prices, cases and experience are things no tool can invent, and they are what make a page worth reading for people and AI services. Check every detail before it goes live.

What does AI SEO cost?

That depends on the scope: how many questions are measured, on which AI services, and how much work on content and sources is needed. At anewera daily measurement (Analytics) costs from CHF 290 a month, and with the work, outreach and digital PR (Managed) from CHF 980. Publicly listed prices of other Swiss providers are compared in our article on what a GEO agency costs.

How long does AI SEO take to work?

That depends on the AI service. Services with web search often pick up new and changed pages within days or weeks. What a model knows without search only changes with a new model. An effect only counts once the change is bigger than the measurement's margin of error.