A tool measures whether AI engines name you, an agency produces content, and a consultant decides what to do and in whose voice. In my own vendor-category data, 50.2% of 217 cited sources were vendor pages and 29.5% were listicles, and my 50-question study found LinkedIn cited in 44% of answers. A founder usually needs the plan and the third-party presence first, and a tool second.
Generative engine optimization, or GEO, is the work of getting a company named and cited in answers from ChatGPT, Perplexity, Google AI Mode and similar engines. A B2B founder who wants that work has three kinds of purchase to choose from: an agency, a consultant, or software that tracks AI answers. They solve different problems, and buying the wrong one is the common mistake.
This page uses my own data from the Who AI recommends dataset, my 50-question citation study and my AI visibility case study, plus published studies named in the Sources. It quotes no provider prices. I sell a related service, which I disclose near the end, so read the evidence first and the recommendation second.
#How do the three options differ?
The three options differ by what they hand back: a tool hands back a report, an agency hands back content, and a consultant hands back a plan and sometimes the work in the founder's voice. None of them controls what a third-party site writes about you, and that is where much of the citation evidence points.
These are my working definitions for this page. Providers blur the lines, and a single firm may sell all three.
| Tool | Agency | Consultant | |
|---|---|---|---|
| What you get | A dashboard or report of whether and where engines name you | Content, pages and placements produced by a team | A diagnosis, a plan and a prioritised list, with or without execution |
| Best at | Repeat measurement of the same questions | Volume and consistent production | Choosing what matters and why, and the founder's voice |
| Cannot do | Write, publish or place anything | Know your buyer and product as well as you do, unless briefed well | Scale production alone without a team behind them |
| Who does the work | You | A team, often not the person you met | One named person |
| Main risk | Paying to watch a number nobody acts on | Content at volume that does not match what engines cite | Advice that never ships |
| Measured by | Share of questions where you are named | Pieces delivered and, ideally, citations | Decisions made and conversations traced |
I have not tested any named AI visibility tool, so this page makes no claim about individual products. The tool column describes the category as it is usually sold.
#What does the evidence say moves AI mentions?
The strongest published predictor of AI brand visibility in the studies I reviewed is branded mentions across the web, at 0.664 for ChatGPT in Ahrefs' 75,000-brand study, against 0.266 for Domain Rating. Google says no special markup or AI text files are needed. Both point away from site-only fixes.
Three findings shape the decision.
Mentions on other sites correlate most. Ahrefs analysed 75,000 brands and found branded web mentions correlated 0.664 with ChatGPT brand visibility, 0.709 with Google AI Mode and 0.656 with AI Overviews. Domain Rating, a measure of a site's own link strength, correlated 0.266 with ChatGPT. Ahrefs describes these as correlations and not proof of cause.
Google's documentation does not promise a technical fix. Google's Search Central page on AI features says a page must be indexed and eligible to show a snippet, and that no additional requirements, special schema.org markup or AI text files are needed. OpenAI and Perplexity document crawler controls, and say changes to robots.txt take about a day to apply. Crawl access is necessary. The documentation does not say it is sufficient.
Being named has commercial value, but clicks are rare. G2 surveyed 1,076 software buyers in March 2026: 51% start in an AI chatbot more often than in Google, and 69% chose a different vendor after a chatbot recommended one. Pew Research Center measured clicks on a result at 8% of visits with an AI summary against 15% without, and 1% of visits clicked a link inside the summary. Mentions matter more than traffic here, which affects what you ask a provider to report.
#What does my own data show AI engines cite?
Across 22 captured runs in 12 B2B software categories on 24 October 2026, 217 sources were cited: 109 vendor pages (50.2%), 64 listicles (29.5%), 15 YouTube, 14 publisher, 8 G2 or Capterra, 5 Reddit and 2 LinkedIn. Half of what engines cited was not a vendor's own page.
The Who AI recommends dataset asks Google AI Mode and Perplexity for "best X for startups 2026" in 12 categories. Google AI Mode was captured in all 12 and Perplexity in 10, which makes 22 captured runs. I counted from the public JSON on 5 November 2026.
| Cited source type | Count | Share of 217 |
|---|---|---|
| Vendor page | 109 | 50.2% |
| Listicle | 64 | 29.5% |
| YouTube | 15 | 6.9% |
| Publisher | 14 | 6.5% |
| G2 or Capterra | 8 | 3.7% |
| 5 | 2.3% | |
| 2 | 0.9% |
Two more counts from the same data:
- 129 of the 217 cited URLs (59.4%) have "best", "top", "vs", "alternatives" or "comparison" in the path, and 39 (18.0%) include 2026 in the URL. Engines favour list-style pages that look current.
- The vendor's own site was cited alongside the vendor's name in 26 of 139 vendor placements (18.7%): 10 of 72 in Google AI Mode and 16 of 67 in Perplexity. Most of the time, a named vendor did not get its own page cited.
The question type matters. These are "best X" shopping questions. My separate 50-question run on 17 October 2026 used wider B2B buying questions in Google AI Mode and recorded 357 citations. Agency and software vendor sites supplied 77.3% of them, and YouTube was cited in 48% of answers, LinkedIn in 44% and Reddit in 30%. At least one of the three appeared in 82% of answers. The two datasets differ in question wording and engine mix, so I do not combine them into one figure.
#What does this mean for each option?
If the cited pages are mostly vendor pages and listicles, plus LinkedIn, Reddit and YouTube for buying questions, the work is split: some on your own site, and much of it on pages and platforms you do not own. A tool can show the split. An agency or consultant has to do something about it.
A tool fits when you already know what to do and have people to do it, and you need a repeatable measure. It also fits when you want evidence for a board. It does not fit when nobody owns the fixes, because a number that nobody acts on does not change what engines say.
An agency fits when the plan is clear and production is the constraint: many pages, regular placements, a content calendar. Ask who writes the work. A B2B founder's story, numbers and opinions are the raw material AI answers quote, and they have to come from the founder.
A consultant fits when you do not yet know where the gap is: which questions matter, who is named instead of you, which pages are cited, and whether the answer is your site, a listicle, a Reddit thread or a LinkedIn post. A consultant who stops at the plan hands the work back to you, so ask who executes.
A combination is normal. Many buyers start with a diagnosis, then pick the execution route, then add measurement. If you have no baseline, start with that: the free AI visibility check is one way to get it, and the AI search readiness checker tests whether crawlers can read your site.
#Which one should I pick in my situation?
Pick by bottleneck. No baseline: start with a diagnosis. Baseline but no capacity: an agency or a done-for-you consultant. Capacity but no measure: a tool. Series B or later with several executives to cover: expect a combination.
- You have never checked whether AI names you. Get a baseline first. It costs little, and it tells you whether the problem is absence, a competitor listicle or a thin site.
- You know you are absent and have no marketing lead. You need an owner for the plan and the founder's voice. That is a consultant or a done-for-you operator, not a dashboard. See founder-led GTM.
- You have a clear plan and a team that can write. You need measurement, and a tool may be enough.
- Your buyers ask on Reddit. Reddit was cited in 30% of answers in my 50-question run, so a provider needs rules-aware community work, not site changes only. See Reddit marketing for B2B founders.
- You need volume across many pages. An agency with named writers and a founder interview process is the fit.
- You are Series B or later and want the CEO and executives covered. Expect a combination of production, placements and measurement under one owner.
For the founder-led program that combines these jobs, see founder-led AI visibility.
#How do I judge any GEO provider?
Ask for the questions tracked, the pages cited instead of you, who writes, which platforms are covered, how a conversation is traced to content, and scope and fees in writing. A provider who cannot show these is selling activity, not results.
- Which buyer questions will you track, and will I see the raw answers?
- Can you show which pages are cited instead of me, by engine?
- Who writes the content, and does it come from my own stories and numbers?
- Do you work on LinkedIn, Reddit, YouTube and third-party listicles, or only my site?
- Do you promise rankings or citations? Engines vary and the studies above show large differences between them, so a guarantee is a warning sign.
- How do you trace a conversation back to a post, page or engine?
- Is the logged-in versus logged-out difference handled? Personalized sessions change answers; my own Perplexity runs all referred to my own product for that reason.
- Are scope, term and fees in a written proposal before I commit?
#What is my conflict of interest?
I run Wise Mango, Inc. and Klype AI, and I sell founder-led AI visibility work: LinkedIn and Reddit in the founder's voice, citation-ready pages and monthly tracking, done for you. That sits between a consultant and an agency, so I benefit if you read this and choose it. I have tried to keep the page to evidence I can show, and I mark my interpretation as such. I have not tested any named tool, I quote no provider prices, and I report my own site's poor result: on 17 October 2026 Google AI Mode named me in 1 of 12 buyer queries and cited shrutikaushik.com in none (case study).
#What are the limits of this page?
- My datasets are small: 22 captured runs in 12 categories, and 50 questions in one engine, one day and one location (India).
- Perplexity and ChatGPT were used from logged-in accounts, which personalizes answers. Google AI Mode also personalizes.
- Source types are my classification by domain owner.
- Studies from analytics firms are sampled prompt panels, and survey figures are stated behaviour.
- I did not test any provider or tool, so the table describes categories as they are usually sold.
- The advice in the decision section is my judgment, not a finding.
Want a baseline before you decide? Run the free AI visibility check, or book a 30-minute call.
#Methodology
- Vendor-category data. From the public file /data/ai-recommends-2026-10.json, captured 24 October 2026 in Google AI Mode and Perplexity for "best X for startups 2026" in 12 categories. I counted cited sources by type, list-style URLs (path contains best, top, vs, alternativ or compar), URLs containing 2026, and vendor placements with the own-site flag, on 5 November 2026. Totals: 22 captured runs, 217 cited sources, 139 vendor placements.
- 50-question study. Described in full in the linked study: 50 B2B buyer questions run once each in Google AI Mode on 17 October 2026, every cited domain recorded. Figures are those published there.
- Case study figures. The 1 of 12 and 0 of 12 figures are from the case study of 17 October 2026.
- Published studies. Figures for Ahrefs, G2 and Pew were taken from the cited pages and the compiled table on the case study page. Ahrefs figures are correlations. Documentation claims were read from the vendor pages named in the Sources.
- Definitions. The tool, agency and consultant definitions are mine and are not an industry standard.
- Prices. Not collected or quoted.
#Sources
- Shruti Kaushik, "Who AI recommends: B2B SaaS vendors named by Google AI Mode and Perplexity," captured 24 Oct 2026. https://shrutikaushik.com/ai-recommends
- Shruti Kaushik, dataset ai-recommends-2026-10.json. https://shrutikaushik.com/data/ai-recommends-2026-10.json
- Shruti Kaushik, "Who Does AI Cite When B2B Buyers Ask? 50 Questions in Google AI Mode," 17 Oct 2026. https://shrutikaushik.com/writing/who-ai-cites-b2b-buyer-questions-2026
- Shruti Kaushik, "Can ChatGPT find a founder? A live AI visibility case study," 30 Oct 2026. https://shrutikaushik.com/writing/ai-visibility-case-study-shruti-kaushik
- Ahrefs, "Top Brand Visibility Factors in ChatGPT, AI Mode, and AI Overviews (75k Brands Studied)," 12 Dec 2025. https://ahrefs.com/blog/ai-brand-visibility-correlations
- Google Search Central, "AI features and your website," updated 10 Dec 2025. https://developers.google.com/search/docs/appearance/ai-features
- OpenAI Help Center, "ChatGPT search." https://help.openai.com/en/articles/9237897-chatgpt-search
- Perplexity, crawler documentation. https://docs.perplexity.ai/docs/resources/perplexity-crawlers.md
- G2, "The Answer Economy," 15 Apr 2026. https://company.g2.com/news/g2-research-the-answer-economy
- Pew Research Center, "Google users are less likely to click on links when an AI summary appears in the results," 22 Jul 2025. https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2025/07/22/google-users-are-less-likely-to-click-on-links-when-an-ai-summary-appears-in-the-results