AI-generated answers. Google itself now uses the term GEO alongside AEO and explains that generative AI search still relies heavily on established SEO fundamentals, including crawlability, helpful content, technical accessibility, and quality.
But there is an important distinction for businesses.
Not every company advertising “AI SEO” is actually a GEO specialist.
Some agencies have added GEO to their traditional SEO services. Others have built dedicated AI-search practices, visibility monitoring systems, content programs, or authority strategies around generative search.
So which companies specialize in this space?
The answer depends on what you actually need.
What Is Generative Engine Optimization?
Traditional SEO primarily focuses on helping webpages appear prominently in search results.
GEO is concerned with a different outcome: being part of the answer generated by an AI system.
For example, imagine someone asks:
“What are the best marketing agencies for a B2B SaaS company in the United States?”
A traditional SEO strategy might target the search phrase “best B2B SaaS marketing agencies.”
A GEO strategy asks additional questions:
Which companies are being recommended by AI?
Which sources does the AI appear to rely on?
Which brands are repeatedly mentioned?
How does the AI describe each company?
Which third-party publications, reviews, communities, and other sources support those descriptions?
What information is missing about the company?
How often does the brand appear across repeated versions of the same buyer question?
This matters because AI search is increasingly capable of synthesizing information from multiple sources.
Google explains that its generative search experiences can use retrieval-augmented generation and “query fan-out,” where related searches are performed to gather additional information before producing an answer.
Google’s AI Mode similarly searches across multiple sources and can break a question into subtopics before generating its response.
That makes GEO considerably broader than simply adding a few keywords to a webpage.
The GEO Market Is Still Developing
One reason it is difficult to identify the “best” GEO agency is that the category is still young.
You will see several names used for essentially overlapping services:
Generative Engine Optimization (GEO)
Answer Engine Optimization (AEO)
AI Search Optimization
AI SEO
LLM SEO
Generative Search Optimization
These terms are not perfectly interchangeable in every company’s methodology, but they generally address the same emerging problem: how do you make a business more visible and accurately represented when people use AI-powered search?
Even industry practitioners disagree about which term is best. Graphite recently published a discussion involving Graphite, AthenaHQ, and Surfer around AEO vs. GEO vs. AI SEO, illustrating that terminology is still evolving.
For a business buyer, the label matters less than the actual methodology.
Instead of asking:
“Do you offer GEO?”
Ask:
“How exactly will you improve my visibility in AI answers, and how will you measure the result?”
That question separates serious providers from agencies simply adding a new acronym to an SEO proposal.
Companies Offering Generative Engine Optimization Services
There are now a number of established SEO, content, and digital-growth companies publicly offering GEO or AI-search services.
The following companies are worth considering when evaluating the market.
1. Directive
is one of the more visible B2B-focused companies discussing and implementing GEO.
Directive describes GEO as a combination of technical, content, and authority work designed to improve how often a brand is mentioned, cited, and accurately represented in AI-generated answers.
Its approach is particularly relevant for B2B companies because it connects AI visibility with the broader buying journey rather than treating AI mentions as an isolated vanity metric.
Directive also publishes a public case study describing GEO work for AxisCare involving technical enhancements, content optimization, and content planning across traditional search and AI platforms.
Best suited for: B2B SaaS and enterprise companies looking for GEO combined with an established SEO and demand-generation program.
2. iPullRank
has also established a strong presence around AI search and what it calls Relevance Engineering.
The company’s AI Search Manual covers conversational search, GEO, technical SEO, authority, content, and measurement.
This is useful for organizations that want to understand the technical side of AI search rather than treating GEO simply as a content-marketing exercise.
iPullRank’s positioning is particularly interesting for large or technically complex websites where information architecture, technical SEO, data, and search behavior all need to be considered together.
Best suited for: Enterprise companies, complex websites, and organizations looking for a technically sophisticated search strategy.
3. Skale
has developed a dedicated GEO service focused on helping brands become discoverable, cited, and trusted in AI search environments including ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Google AI Mode.
Skale’s public GEO material emphasizes several components:
Technical accessibility.
Content readiness.
AI visibility monitoring.
Brand accuracy.
The company also discusses GEO specifically in the context of SaaS, technology, fintech, cybersecurity, and startup companies.
Best suited for: SaaS and technology companies that want GEO integrated with growth-oriented SEO.
4. Animalz
Animalz is a well-known content marketing company that has increasingly been associated with AI-search and content strategy.
Its strength is particularly relevant to businesses where expert content and thought leadership are central to the brand.
That matters because AI visibility is not purely technical.
AI systems need reliable information to work with, and companies with strong original expertise can create content that is useful not only to customers but also to the wider information ecosystem.
Best suited for: B2B companies that need high-quality thought leadership and content authority alongside their AI-search strategy.
5. Siege Media
Siege Media is another established content and SEO company appearing in current GEO agency comparisons.
Its traditional strength has been scalable content marketing, SEO, link acquisition, and digital PR-style content campaigns.
Those capabilities can be valuable in GEO because AI visibility often depends on more than a company’s own website.
A strong content asset that earns legitimate references from authoritative sites can contribute to a broader brand information footprint.
Best suited for: Companies that want content-led SEO, authority building, and AI-search visibility working together.
6. Graphite
is particularly interesting because it approaches the changing search environment through research and experimentation.
Its recent AEO/GEO research demonstrates that the industry itself is still working through terminology, measurement, and methodology.
Graphite’s work is useful for companies that want to understand how AI search is evolving rather than simply buying a fixed package.
Best suited for: Growth-stage and technology companies that value experimentation, research, SEO, and AI-search strategy.
7. Digital Elevator
Digital Elevator is another agency publicly positioning itself around GEO.
Its 2026 GEO agency research describes its own offering as an AI Visibility Report designed to identify and address citation gaps across ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, and Google AI Overviews. cause visibility analysis should come before blindly producing more content.
A business first needs to understand where it is already visible, where competitors are winning, and what information appears to be missing.
Best suited for: Small and mid-sized businesses and in-house marketing teams looking for a more focused AI-visibility engagement.
8. Go Fish Digital
Go Fish Digital has long operated in SEO, digital marketing, reputation management, and data-driven search.
It is also included among current GEO agency comparisons, particularly for data-driven approaches to generative search.
That combination is useful for businesses where online reputation is an important component of AI visibility.
After all, AI systems do not only encounter your carefully written website copy. They can encounter reviews, publications, discussions, profiles, and other information about your company.
Best suited for: Brands that need AI-search optimization combined with reputation and broader digital visibility.
9. Intero Digital
Intero Digital is another established digital marketing provider included in current GEO agency research.
Its broader capabilities span SEO, content, paid media, and digital marketing, which can be useful for businesses that do not want AI visibility treated as an entirely separate marketing function.
For a larger company, this integrated approach can make sense.
The challenge is making sure GEO is not simply a label attached to an existing SEO package.
Before signing a contract, ask for examples of actual AI-search measurement and outcomes.
Best suited for: Larger businesses seeking an integrated SEO and digital marketing program.
10. Omnius
Omnius is another company appearing in current GEO agency comparisons.
It is particularly relevant for businesses interested in AI visibility across different markets and languages.
This matters because generative search is not necessarily a single-market problem.
A multinational company might need to understand how it is represented differently in the United States, United Kingdom, Europe, or other markets.
Best suited for: International brands that need broader AI-search visibility.
Where Does LinkinGrow Fit?
There is another type of provider worth considering: a platform built specifically around AI recommendations and measurable answer presence rather than simply adding GEO to an established SEO service.
That is where LinkinGrow positions itself.
LinkinGrow describes itself as an outcome-based platform for AI Answer Engine Optimization, focused on getting brands named inside AI answers across platforms such as ChatGPT, Google AI answers, Claude, and Perplexity.
Its approach is somewhat different from a conventional SEO retainer.
The platform describes campaigns around a specific buyer question and AI engine, rather than treating “AI visibility” as one broad metric. Its current model also uses repeated sampling because AI answers can vary by run, time, location, and model version.
That is an important distinction.
Suppose a company wants to be recommended for:
“What are the best AI sales coaching platforms for SaaS companies?”
Simply knowing that the company appeared once is not enough.
A more useful measurement approach would ask:
How frequently does it appear?
Which position does it receive?
Which competitors are mentioned?
Does the result change across repeated runs?
Is the company being described accurately?
Does visibility improve over time?
LinkinGrow says its methodology tracks these types of changes through repeated AI-answer sampling and reports an “Answer Presence” rate.
The company also says it uses observation-based, bylined content rather than fabricated reviews or pretend customer experiences.
That distinction is important because businesses should be extremely cautious about GEO strategies that rely on fake reviews, manufactured testimonials, or artificial mentions.
What Should a GEO Agency Actually Do?
The biggest mistake a business can make is hiring an agency simply because its website contains the phrase “GEO.”
A credible provider should be able to explain its actual process.
Technical Accessibility
The first step is making sure search systems can discover and process your website.
Google’s current guidance is very clear that traditional SEO remains foundational to generative AI visibility. Pages need to be crawlable and indexed, and the site’s technical structure still matters.
OpenAI similarly states that public websites can appear in ChatGPT Search and recommends allowing OAI-SearchBot to crawl relevant content.
Technical SEO is therefore not obsolete.
It is part of the foundation.
Content That Answers Real Questions
The second layer is content.
But more content does not automatically mean better GEO.
Google explicitly warns against creating large quantities of pages primarily to manipulate rankings or AI responses. It recommends useful, unique, people-first content instead.
A strong GEO strategy should therefore focus on the questions your customers genuinely ask.
For example:
“What is the best CRM for a 50-person SaaS company?”
“What are the best alternatives to Salesforce?”
“How much does enterprise cybersecurity consulting cost?”
“Which accounting firms specialize in startups?”
“Which AI sales coaching platforms are best for SaaS?”
These are commercially meaningful questions.
They are also the kinds of questions that can influence vendor shortlists.
Third-Party Authority
A company’s website is only one part of its online identity.
AI systems can encounter information about a company through:
Industry publications.
Reviews.
Communities.
Videos.
Expert interviews.
Business directories.
Research reports.
Comparison websites.
News articles.
Professional profiles.
Partner websites.
That means a serious GEO program may involve digital PR, content outreach, reputation management, and authority development.
Recent industry reporting illustrates this broader shift: fashion brands, for example, are increasingly measuring AI visibility and examining the role of editorial and earned-media references in how AI systems represent brands.
The lesson applies beyond fashion.
AI visibility is increasingly a brand-authority problem, not just a website problem.
AI Visibility Should Be Measured, Not Assumed
A GEO agency should also be able to tell you how success is measured.
This is especially important because AI answers are not static rankings.
ChatGPT itself says that its search results are determined using multiple factors designed to provide relevant and reliable information, and that top placement cannot be guaranteed.
Google’s AI Mode can also perform multiple related searches and synthesize information from a range of sources.
Therefore, checking one prompt once is not a meaningful measurement system.
A stronger measurement program can track:
Brand presence: Is the company mentioned?
Citation presence: Is the company’s content or another trusted source cited?
Position: Where does the company appear in a recommendation list?
Frequency: How consistently does it appear?
Accuracy: Is the company described correctly?
Competitor share: Which competing brands appear more often?
Source patterns: Which websites are repeatedly used as supporting evidence?
Business impact: Does AI visibility correlate with branded searches, direct traffic, leads, or revenue?
Google has also introduced dedicated Search Console reporting for visibility in generative AI features such as AI Overviews and AI Mode, making AI-search measurement increasingly concrete for website owners.
Beware of Agencies Promising Guaranteed AI Rankings
This is perhaps the most important warning for businesses.
No agency controls ChatGPT, Google AI, Claude, Gemini, or Perplexity.
An agency can improve the information available to these systems.
It can improve content.
It can improve technical accessibility.
It can build legitimate authority.
It can monitor results.
It can test buyer questions.
But it cannot honestly promise that an AI model will permanently recommend your company.
OpenAI explicitly says there is no way to guarantee top placement in ChatGPT Search.
Google also warns website owners to be skeptical of third-party providers claiming to have access to Google’s internal ranking or AI systems.
So if an agency says:
“We guarantee ChatGPT will rank you #1.”
That should be a red flag.
A more credible provider will talk about probability, visibility, citations, presence, authority, testing, and measurable changes.
GEO vs. SEO: Do You Need Both?
For most businesses, the answer is yes.
GEO should not replace SEO.
Google explicitly states that SEO fundamentals remain relevant because its generative AI features are grounded in its existing Search systems.
Think of it this way.
SEO helps make your information discoverable through search.
GEO adds another layer focused on how that information can be retrieved, understood, synthesized, and represented in AI experiences.
The two strategies overlap heavily.
A technically weak website is unlikely to become stronger simply because someone labels the campaign “GEO.”
Likewise, excellent SEO alone does not necessarily mean your brand will be consistently recommended by AI systems.
The best programs connect both.
How to Choose the Right GEO Company
Before hiring an agency, ask these questions.
1. Which AI platforms do you monitor?
Look for coverage relevant to your customers, potentially including ChatGPT, Google AI experiences, Perplexity, Claude, Gemini, and other important platforms.
2. Do you measure buyer questions?
A good program should focus on commercially meaningful prompts rather than random AI searches.
3. Can you show actual GEO case studies?
Ask for specific examples.
What was the baseline?
What changed?
How was it measured?
Over what period?
4. How do you improve authority?
If the answer is simply “we create AI content,” that is not enough.
Ask about original research, editorial mentions, digital PR, expert content, entity consistency, and third-party sources.
5. How do you measure AI visibility?
You want repeatable methodology, not one screenshot.
6. What happens when an AI answer changes?
The provider should already have a plan for ongoing monitoring.
7. Do you guarantee rankings?
A credible answer should generally be no.
Instead, the provider should explain what it can measure and influence.
Which GEO Company Is Best for a U.S. Business?
There is no single best provider for every company.
A large enterprise with a complicated website may value the technical depth of a company such as iPullRank.
A B2B SaaS company may prefer a provider such as Directive or Skale because of their focus on B2B growth and AI-search visibility.
A company heavily dependent on content may prefer a content-led provider such as Animalz or Siege Media.
A business looking for broader reputation and digital visibility may consider a provider with strong SEO and reputation capabilities.
And a company whose primary objective is getting named in specific AI recommendations and measuring that outcome directly may find a specialized platform such as LinkinGrow particularly relevant.
The important thing is to match the provider to the problem.
The Future of GEO Is Bigger Than “Ranking in ChatGPT”
Generative search is moving quickly.
Today, the conversation often centers around whether ChatGPT or Google AI will mention a particular company.
Tomorrow, AI agents may do more than recommend.
They may compare products.
Check availability.
Evaluate vendors.
Make reservations.
Purchase products.
Complete forms.
Interact with websites.
Google is already discussing emerging agentic experiences and how websites can prepare for systems that interact with web interfaces.
That means the long-term opportunity is larger than simply appearing in an AI paragraph.
Companies need to become machine-understandable and trustworthy brands.
Their products need clear information.
Their pricing and capabilities need to be understandable.
Their expertise needs to be supported by evidence.
Their brand identity needs to be consistent.
Their websites need to be technically accessible.
Their reputation needs to exist beyond their own domain.
And their visibility needs to be measured continuously.
