The GEO, AEO and AI SEO agency in South Africa that gets you named by ChatGPT and Google AI.
Buyers now ask ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude, Perplexity and Google's AI Mode for recommendations before they click a single link. We make sure the answer includes you, and we prove it prompt by prompt, on eight AI engines.
Shown is a GEO and AEO agency in South Africa: our AI SEO services get businesses named and cited in ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude, Perplexity, Copilot, Grok and Google AI answers, and prove it prompt by prompt. Generative engine optimisation (GEO) and answer engine optimisation (AEO) are the work of getting a business named and cited in AI-generated answers. AI engines build answers from pages, listings, reviews and mentions they can find and trust, so GEO combines SEO, entity work, citations and content written to be quoted. Shown tracks every prompt on eight AI engines and records the searches each engine runs and the sources it cites.
GEO, AEO, AI SEO, LLM SEO: one job, many names
Agencies sell the same work under different labels. Here is what each one means.
- GEO (generative engine optimisation): getting named and cited in AI-generated answers from ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude, Perplexity, Copilot and Grok.
- AEO (answer engine optimisation): being the direct answer in Google's AI Overviews, featured answers and voice assistants.
- AI SEO: SEO done with AI search in mind, and the umbrella name most people use for both.
- LLM SEO or LLMO: optimising for large language models: the same work, named after the technology.
- AI search optimisation and ChatGPT SEO: more names for the same job, the second aimed at one engine. We track eight.
Whichever name a GEO agency or AEO agency uses, the work that moves AI answers is the same: rank for the searches the engines run, get onto the sources they cite, publish pages worth quoting, and measure the answers.
How AI engines decide who to name
We trace AI answers with our own tools. The pattern holds across engines.
Answers start with a web search
Behind most answers, the engine runs its own searches (often several rewrites of your question) and reads what comes back. If you do not rank for those searches, you are rarely in the answer. Our AI answer tracer records them.
Third-party mentions carry the weight
Directories, review sites, comparison lists and publications that mention you count for more than your own claims. We get you onto the sources each engine actually cites.
Direct answers get quoted
Pages that answer the question in a sentence or two, with facts, prices and sources, are the ones engines lift. We rewrite your key pages to be quotable.
Crawlers need plain HTML
Most AI crawlers do not run JavaScript, and some sites block them without knowing (Cloudflare's default settings have done this). We check what each bot actually receives.
What we do, month by month.
- Build a bank of the prompts your buyers ask, such as "best physio in Durban North" or "who installs solar in Centurion".
- Run them on eight engines (ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude, Perplexity, Copilot, Grok, Google AI Overviews and AI Mode), several times each, because answers change from run to run.
- Record the searches each engine runs before it answers, every source it cites and every competitor it names.
- Get you onto the sources those answers cite: directories, review platforms, lists and relevant publications.
- Make your key pages quotable: direct answers, clear facts, prices and sources.
- Keep the door open: robots.txt, Cloudflare bot settings and server-rendered HTML checked for every AI crawler.
- Re-run every prompt weekly or monthly, depending on your plan, and report what changed. Custom prompt banks of any size on request.
- ChatGPTNamed in 71%
- GeminiNamed in 64%
- ClaudeNamed in 58%
- PerplexityCited in 49%
- Google AI ModeNamed in 62%
- Google AI OverviewsCited in 37%
- GrokNamed in 44%
- CopilotNot yet
Illustrative. Your report lists every prompt, every engine, the searches each engine ran and the sources each answer cited.
SEO, GEO and AEO in one table
| Item | SEO | GEO | AEO |
|---|---|---|---|
| Goal | Rank in Google's results | Be named in AI-generated answers | Be the direct answer to a question |
| Where it shows | Google and Bing results, Maps | ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, Copilot, AI Mode | AI Overviews, featured answers, voice assistants |
| What it rewards | Relevance, authority, links, experience | Mentions on trusted sources, clear entities, quotable facts | Short, direct, well-structured answers |
| How we measure it | Positions, clicks, calls | Share of prompts that name or cite you | Answers and snippets won |
Questions buyers ask us
Can you get my business into ChatGPT's answers?
Nobody controls what an AI engine says, and anyone promising a fixed placement is guessing. What we control is what the engines find: your rankings for the searches they run, the third-party sources that mention you, and pages worth quoting. Then we measure the result prompt by prompt, so you can see it working.
How do you measure AI visibility?
We keep a bank of buyer prompts for your market, from 50 to 300 on our plans and any size on request, and run each one several times on eight engines: ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude, Perplexity, Copilot, Grok, Google AI Overviews and AI Mode. Every answer is scored for whether you are named, cited or missing, with the searches the engine ran, the sources it cited and the competitors named instead.
What does a GEO or AEO agency do?
It gets your business named and cited when people ask AI engines for a recommendation: tracking the prompts your buyers ask, finding the searches and sources each engine uses to answer, getting you onto those sources, making your pages quotable, and keeping AI crawlers able to read your site. Then it measures the share of answers that name you.
What is the difference between GEO and AEO?
GEO (generative engine optimisation) aims at AI-generated answers in ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude, Perplexity and Copilot. AEO (answer engine optimisation) aims at direct answers: Google's AI Overviews, featured answers and voice assistants. They overlap heavily, and we run them as one job.
Does GEO replace SEO?
No. It sits on top of it. AI engines lean heavily on search results, listings and reviews, so a business that is invisible on Google is usually invisible in AI answers too.
Should we block AI crawlers?
For most businesses, no. Search and answer bots such as OAI-SearchBot, PerplexityBot and Claude-SearchBot are how AI engines find you. Whether to allow bots that collect training data is a separate choice we will talk through with you.
How long before AI answers change?
Engines that search the live web, such as Perplexity and ChatGPT with search, can reflect changes within weeks of new rankings and mentions. Answers built mostly from a model's training data move more slowly.
Get a free audit.
Send us your website and the searches you want to win. You get a short audit back: where you rank today, where you are missing from Maps and AI answers, and the three fixes worth doing first.
Or write to hello@shown.co.za