Pixeline Studios Winnipeg
Home / AI visibility · Updated 12 August 2026

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This page explains what we do without acronym soup: what the two terms actually mean, what the evidence says decides whether a model names you, how the five platforms differ, and what we will not promise.

AEO

What is answer engine optimisation?

AEO is the work of getting your business named inside the answer itself, rather than listed somewhere beneath it. The unit of success is a sentence that contains your name, not a position in a list. In practice that means your information has to exist in the places the answer is assembled from — your profile, your service pages, and the third-party sources that describe you.

GEO

What is generative engine optimisation?

GEO is the wider version of the same idea: shaping the body of material a generative model draws on, so that when it writes an answer your business is part of what it writes from. It covers sources you do not own — directories, review platforms, local press — which is where most of the leverage now sits. The two terms overlap heavily and are often used interchangeably.

Ranking factors · with evidence

How does AI decide who to name?

Mostly by what other sources say about you, not by what your own site says. Each factor below carries the study it comes from, including one that does not work.

0.664

External brand mentions

The strongest single correlation with appearing in an AI Overview. How often your name appears on sites you don't own matters more than anything on your own domain.

Ahrefs · 2026
6.5x

Third-party sources over your own domain

Brands are 6.5 times more likely to be cited through a third-party source than through their own website. This is why a site rebuild alone rarely moves citations.

Airops
~3x

Review platform profiles

A presence on third-party review platforms raises citation likelihood roughly threefold. Models lean on them because they read as independent corroboration.

Citation likelihood study
+28%

Recency of the page

Pages updated within the last two months earn 28% more citations than older content. Refresh cycles are part of the retainer for this reason, not as filler.

Content recency analysis
≈0

LLMs.txt — what doesn't work

Minimal measurable impact on citation rates. Several agencies are currently selling it as a service. We will add the file if you want it, at no charge, but we will not bill for it or claim it does anything.

SE Ranking · April 2026
The five platforms

Do all five AI platforms pick sources the same way?

No, and the gap is large: the same brand can see a 615x difference in citation volume between two platforms. We track all five because winning on one tells you very little about the others.

Platform Where it sources from What moves it for a local business
ChatGPT Live web search plus model knowledge. Carries 87.4% of AI referral traffic, though its share of generative-AI traffic has fallen from roughly 76% to 53% since June 2025. Consistent naming across many independent pages.
Google AI Overviews Google's own index, but only 38% of citations now come from top-10 ranking pages — down from 76% in mid-2025. Google Business Profile completeness, schema, question-led pages.
Gemini Google surfaces with heavier weighting on Maps and Business Profile data. Now past a quarter of generative-AI traffic. Review volume, hours, service-area accuracy.
Claude Web search when the question needs it, with a preference for sources that state facts plainly. Fastest-growing share of the five. Clear, unpadded service pages that answer the question directly.
Perplexity Search-first, citation-heavy, and the most transparent about its sources — which makes it the best early indicator of the others. Directory and review presence; recency of pages.
Limits

What can't we promise?

Three things, stated before you ask. If another agency has told you otherwise, that is the part of their pitch to check.

No guaranteed placement

Nobody can buy or guarantee a mention in an AI answer. There is no ad slot and no submission form. Anyone promising a placement is describing something that does not exist.

No control over model output

Models change without notice, and the same question can return different answers on consecutive days. We influence the inputs. We do not control the output, and we will not bill as though we do.

Results are measured in citation share, not rankings

We agree a set of tracked queries with you at the start and report the share where you are named, across all five platforms. It is a slower, noisier number than a ranking, and it is the one that reflects what customers see.

Ranked isn't cited. Find out which one you are.

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