An AI SEO agency works to get your business named and cited when buyers ask ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude or Perplexity for a recommendation. The work starts with classic SEO, because AI assistants retrieve pages from search indexes, then adds two jobs: making your pages easy to quote, and building your presence on the third-party sites the assistants trust.
Our guide to generative engine optimisation covers the fundamentals and the playbook. This post adds two things it does not: what four AI assistants recommended when we tested them, gaps included, and how to judge an AI SEO agency before you sign.
In the 90 days to 22 September 2026, AI assistants, overwhelmingly ChatGPT, sent our site about two sessions for every three from Google organic search. That ratio reflects our audience, not a benchmark, and it is one reason every SEO and content programme we run includes AI visibility.
What an AI SEO agency does, and how it differs from traditional SEO
An AI SEO agency, also called an LLM SEO agency or a GEO agency, works to make AI assistants mention, describe and cite a business when they answer questions in its market. A traditional SEO agency chases positions in a list of results. An AI SEO agency chases inclusion in one composed answer, where you are either named or absent.
That widens the scope: much of what decides an AI recommendation sits off your website, and a position in a rank report says nothing about whether an assistant recommends you. Agencies that use AI tools to do SEO faster are a different category, closer to an AI marketing agency.
The foundation does not change. Google's AI features documentation says a page must be indexed and eligible for a snippet in Google Search to appear as a supporting link in AI Overviews or AI Mode, and that SEO best practices remain relevant. Google also describes Gemini Apps grounding answers in content from the Google Search index. Bing Webmaster Tools now reports how often your pages are cited in Copilot and Bing's AI-generated summaries. An agency vague about crawling and indexing is skipping the part that decides whether you get retrieved.
What we found when we asked four AI assistants to recommend a Malta agency
In our first-party test of 32 answers from ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini and Perplexity, broad "best agency in Malta" questions were decided by directories and none of the four named Soluxe Agency, while three of them named and cited us for specific questions where we publish detailed pages. Malta is our home market and the subject of our guide to choosing a digital marketing agency in Malta.
We ran the test on 23 September 2026, sending eight buyer-style prompts to four AI assistants with live web search switched on, through DataForSEO's LLM Responses API: ChatGPT (GPT-5.5, searching from Malta), Claude (Sonnet 5), Gemini (3.5 Flash) and Perplexity (Sonar). For each answer we logged whether it named Soluxe Agency and which websites it cited. Treat the results as a snapshot, not a ranking: it was one day and a small sample, and AI answers vary between runs and between users.
- Broad "best agency" prompts were decided by directories. For "What is the best digital marketing agency in Malta?" none of the four assistants named us. ChatGPT said its picks were based on current directory rankings and cited Clutch's Malta digital marketing list; one of its background searches was "site:clutch.co/mt/agencies/digital-marketing". Perplexity cited clutch.co, themanifest.com, designrush.com, sortlist.com and thebestmalta.com. Claude cited designrush.com, themanifest.com, sortlist.com and thebestmalta.com.
- The SEO question followed suit. For "What is the best SEO agency in Malta?" clutch.co was cited by ChatGPT, Claude and Perplexity, and Gemini's sources included themanifest.com, clutch.co and designrush.com. None of them named us. What that means for local businesses is in our guide to SEO in Malta.
- One directory led. Across all 32 answers, clutch.co was the most cited third-party website (8 answers), ahead of designrush.com (5), thebestmalta.com (4) and sortlist.com (4).
- Specific prompts rewarded specific pages. Perplexity named and cited us for AI automation in Malta, and Gemini also used our site as a source for that answer. Claude named and cited us for iGaming and fintech marketing in Malta, and ChatGPT did the same for fractional CMO support in Malta. Claude and Perplexity used our site as a source for the Malta agency pricing question.
- The GEO question went elsewhere. For GEO agencies in Europe, none of the four named us. The answers leaned on agency sites and industry listicles.
- Brand answers were accurate, with a wrinkle. All four described Soluxe Agency accurately from our own website, but Perplexity also pulled in several unrelated companies that share the word "Soluxe" in their names.
We publish the gaps on purpose. We practise AI SEO, yet on the broadest questions in our own market, and on GEO itself, the assistants did not name us. Shortlist answers lean on sources a business does not control, so most of the fix sits there, not in another blog post.
What the test means: AI visibility has two halves
AI visibility has two halves: citable pages on your own site, and a verified presence on the third-party sources AI assistants read. For shortlist questions such as "best hotel in Valletta" or "top SEO agency in Malta", assistants build the list from directories, review platforms and listicles, so a business missing from those sources is usually missing from the answer, however good its own site is. For specific, detailed questions, a well-structured page on your own site can be cited directly.
So sort your buyers' questions before you spend anything: shortlist questions are mostly won off-site, detail questions (costs, comparisons, who handles a specific need) on your own pages. For online stores, detail questions are often product questions, which our guide to hiring an ecommerce SEO agency covers.
The six workstreams of a good AI SEO agency
A good AI SEO agency runs six workstreams: an AI visibility baseline, crawler and index access, entity clean-up, page rewrites, a third-party presence plan and measurement.
An AI visibility baseline
An AI visibility baseline measures how often assistants name or cite you across a fixed set of real buyer prompts, run with web search on, and which sources they cite instead. Because answers vary, the agency reruns the same set on a schedule and reads the results as a trend.
Crawler and index access
Each AI platform runs separate crawlers for search, training and user-requested visits, and blocking the wrong one removes you from answers. For ChatGPT SEO, OpenAI's crawler documentation says sites that opt out of OAI-SearchBot will not be shown in ChatGPT search answers, while GPTBot covers training and ChatGPT-User handles user-triggered visits. Anthropic's crawler guidance separates ClaudeBot (training) from Claude-SearchBot and Claude-User, and Perplexity's crawler documentation separates PerplexityBot (search) from Perplexity-User. Google-Extended governs both training and grounding in Gemini Apps, so opting out of one opts you out of both, though Google Search is unaffected. The agency should test robots.txt, firewall and CDN rules against each crawler, confirm Google and Bing indexing, and set up IndexNow, which Microsoft says keeps information fresh across search and AI experiences.
Entity and schema clean-up
An AI assistant has to know which business you are before it can recommend you, and our brand test showed the risk: Perplexity mixed in unrelated companies with "Soluxe" in their names. The fix is one name and description everywhere, with Organization schema and sameAs links tying your site, Google Business Profile, LinkedIn and directory profiles to one entity.
Key pages rewritten into quotable answers
Specific buyer questions are won by the page that answers them best. The agency maps each detail prompt to one page and rewrites it so the answer, figure or definition sits near the top, backed by checkable specifics, including real prices where buyers ask about cost. Our guide to hiring a content marketing agency covers the production side.
A third-party presence plan
Shortlist questions are mostly won off-site, so the plan works on the sources your baseline shows assistants citing, through complete directory profiles, a steady flow of genuine client reviews, outreach to comparison-article authors, useful participation in buyer communities and digital PR. Ask who owns each piece, because review requests need your input too.
Measurement that shows movement
AI SEO reporting should track four signals: the share of prompts in which you are named or cited, the sources cited in your place, AI assistant sessions in a dedicated GA4 channel, and branded search demand. Search Console folds clicks from Google's AI features into its overall Web search data, while Bing Webmaster Tools reports Copilot citations directly.
How to choose an AI SEO agency
Choose an AI SEO agency on the evidence it shows you before you sign, starting with its method and a real baseline:
- Show me your prompt tracking method and a baseline. Which prompts and assistants, how often, and how do you handle answers that change between runs?
- How do you separate search, training and user-fetch crawlers? A strong answer names them and raises the Google-Extended trade-off unprompted.
- What off-site work is included, and who does it? Directory profiles, reviews, comparison outreach and digital PR need named owners.
- How do you report? Expect prompt-level visibility, cited sources, AI referral sessions, branded search and leads.
- What will not move in 90 days? An honest agency names the slow results up front, starting with shortlist inclusion.
- What does your own baseline look like? An agency that practises this can show where it is visible and where it is not. Ours is in this post.
Walk away if you hear any of these:
- Guaranteed ChatGPT rankings. People ask how to rank in ChatGPT, but there is no fixed ranking: answers vary between runs and users, and no agency controls them.
- "Secret" prompt hacks. Hidden instructions aimed at AI models are manipulation, and getting caught destroys trust.
- AI-generated content farms. Hundreds of thin pages give assistants nothing worth quoting.
- Fake reviews. Review platforms prohibit them, and they corrupt the signal assistants rely on.
- llms.txt sold as magic. It is a proposed format with uneven adoption, and Google says no special AI text files are needed for its AI features.
Our guide on how to choose a marketing agency covers the questions to ask any agency.
How long AI SEO takes, and what it costs
With an AI SEO agency, on-site changes can show up in AI answers within weeks of the updated pages being crawled, while off-site presence builds over months. Reviews accumulate one client at a time, editors update comparison articles on their own schedules, and answers drawn from a model's training data change only when a new model version ships.
Our SEO and content engagements, which include AI search optimisation, start from EUR 3,000 per month, with scope set by markets, languages, pages to rewrite and off-site workload. Be wary of AI visibility sold as a standalone add-on: without crawlable, indexed, useful pages there is nothing to retrieve. If you are weighing a specialist against a full team, our comparison of an SEO consultant vs an SEO agency sets out the trade-offs.
Frequently Asked Questions
What does an AI SEO agency do?
An AI SEO agency works to get a business named and cited when AI assistants such as ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude and Perplexity answer buyer questions. It tracks visibility across fixed prompts, fixes crawler access, cleans up entity data, rewrites key pages into quotable answers and builds presence on the directories assistants consult. Classic SEO remains its foundation.
How do I get my business recommended by ChatGPT?
To get a business recommended by ChatGPT, let OpenAI's OAI-SearchBot crawl your site, publish detailed pages that answer specific buyer questions, and build a verified presence on the directories and review platforms ChatGPT cites. In our September 2026 test, ChatGPT said its best-agency picks came from directory rankings, yet it named and cited us for fractional CMO support in Malta.
Is AI SEO different from traditional SEO?
AI SEO builds on traditional SEO rather than replacing it. Traditional SEO targets positions in a list of results; AI SEO targets inclusion in one generated answer. Both depend on crawling and indexing, because assistants retrieve pages from search indexes. AI SEO adds prompt tracking, quotable pages, consistent entity data and work on the third-party sites that shape shortlists.
How long does it take to show up in AI search?
Showing up in AI search usually takes weeks for on-site changes and months for off-site presence. Assistants with live web search can cite an updated page once it is recrawled, and OpenAI says its systems adjust to a robots.txt change in about 24 hours. Shortlist answers built from directories, reviews and comparison articles move more slowly.
Can an agency guarantee ChatGPT recommendations?
No agency can guarantee ChatGPT recommendations. Answers vary between runs and users, ChatGPT decides which sources to trust, and no agency controls it or the directories it reads. A credible AI SEO agency commits to the work instead: crawler access, stronger pages, third-party presence and measurement against fixed prompts. Treat guaranteed placement as a red flag.
Start with a baseline, not a promise
The fastest way to judge any AI SEO agency, including us, is a baseline: the questions your buyers ask, what the assistants say today and which sources they trust. To see where your business stands, book a discovery call and we will show you how we would build your prompt set and what should move first.
