What is AI search optimisation?

AI search optimisation is the umbrella term for making sure your content gets found, understood and used correctly by AI systems, not just by traditional search engines. It covers a few overlapping disciplines that are often used interchangeably, so it's worth separating them out.

Why AI search optimisation matters now

Search behaviour has shifted in a way that affects almost every business with a website. A growing share of research now happens inside an AI conversation rather than a search results page, someone asks a direct question, gets a synthesised answer, and may never visit any individual website to get it. If your business isn't part of the source material an AI system pulls from, you're not just ranking lower, you're often not part of the answer at all.

This doesn't replace traditional SEO; it sits alongside it. But it does mean the questions worth answering have changed. It's no longer only "what keywords should this page target," but "what would make an AI system, or a human comparing options, trust this page as a source, and would the answer on this page actually hold up if someone asked a follow-up question." Those are research questions as much as they're technical SEO questions, which is where a lot of AI optimisation agencies fall short: they can implement the technical side but have no way of knowing what the follow-up question actually is.

How we're different from a typical SEO agency offering "AI services"

Most SEO agencies have added GEO or AEO to their service list over the past couple of years, usually as an extension of existing technical SEO work: better structured data, clearer headings, more direct answers near the top of the page. That's necessary, but it's not sufficient on its own, because it's still built entirely from keyword and competitor data rather than from any direct evidence of what your customers are actually trying to work out. AI search optimisation isn't a standalone service for us, it's connected to the user and UX research we also do, which tells us what questions your customers genuinely ask and what they need to see before they trust an answer.

What's included in an AI search optimisation engagement

• AI visibility audit — checking whether and how your business currently appears in AI-generated answers, AI Overviews and similar formats, and identifying where you're missing entirely.
• Content and structure review — assessing whether existing pages are written and formatted in a way AI systems can extract and trust, including headings, direct-answer placement and supporting evidence.
• Technical foundations — structured data, schema markup and the underlying signals that help AI systems and traditional search engines alike understand and trust a page.
• Research-informed content strategy — using findings from user research to identify the real questions worth optimising for, rather than working from keyword volume alone.
• Ongoing testing and monitoring — checking how your business appears across AI tools over time, since this is a fast-moving area and what works now may need adjusting within months rather than years.

Who this service is for

This service tends to make the most sense for businesses where a meaningful share of customer research happens before any direct contact: considered purchases, services with a longer decision process, or sectors where being cited as a trustworthy source genuinely affects whether someone gets in touch at all. If your business fits that pattern and you're not currently showing up when your customers ask AI tools about the kind of thing you do, that's usually the clearest sign this is worth investigating.

Frequently asked questions