How to hire an AI SEO agency: 12 questions to ask, and the answers to want
AI SEO and GEO agencies appeared overnight. Twelve questions that separate the ones who measure from the ones who sell the trend, with the answers you should want and the red flags to walk away from.
A year ago almost nobody sold "AI SEO." Now every agency does, along with a wave of new ones named after GEO. Some know what they're doing. Many renamed their SEO package.
These are the questions we'd ask before hiring anyone for it, including us. Each comes with the answer you should want and the answer that should end the call.
About measurement
1. "How will you measure whether we show up in AI answers?" Want: a fixed list of buyer questions agreed with you, asked across several assistants, in fresh sessions, more than once for the important ones, logged with every source cited. Walk away: "We'll send screenshots." In our September 2026 study, ChatGPT kept only 4.5% of its cited pages across three runs of the same question. One screenshot is luck.
2. "Which assistants do you track?" Want: at least ChatGPT and Google's AI Overviews, ideally Claude and Perplexity too, and an explanation of why they differ. In our data the chat assistants agreed with each other on companies about twice as often as any of them agreed with Google AI Overviews.
3. "What will your report say it can't tell us?" Want: limits stated plainly: sample size, location, how often answers move. Walk away: a report with no caveats. AI answers are too unstable for that to be honest.
About the work
4. "What will you do that our SEO doesn't already do?" Want: AI crawler access (robots.txt and CDN rules for OAI-SearchBot, Claude-SearchBot, PerplexityBot) and answer tracking. Everything else is SEO work, which is fine, but you shouldn't pay twice for it. GEO vs SEO vs AEO.
5. "What's the first thing you'll check?" Want: crawler access and whether your text is readable without JavaScript. It's the step that works by definition. You can check it yourself before the call.
6. "Who ships the technical fixes?" Want: they do, or they work directly with your developer, with every change visible. Walk away: a PDF of recommendations for you to implement, priced like they're doing the work.
7. "What will you publish, and how many pieces a month?" Want: a number, the types of pages (guides, comparisons, cost pages), and who writes them. What gets cited.
8. "How do you handle claims about our business in content?" Want: you review anything that makes claims about your product or service before it goes live. In regulated fields this isn't optional.
About promises and terms
9. "Can you guarantee we'll be recommended by ChatGPT?" Want: no. Walk away: yes. Nobody controls what an assistant says, and OpenAI says its product results aren't ads.
10. "Do you recommend llms.txt?" Want: "It's harmless but no major AI system has said it uses it." Google's John Mueller said in 2025 that no AI system currently uses it. Walk away: llms.txt as a headline deliverable. Details.
11. "What's the minimum term?" Want: short, or none, with notice. Walk away: 12 months locked in for a channel that changes weekly.
12. "What happens to our accounts and pages if we stop?" Want: you own everything: the site, the pages, the tracking sheet, every account.
How we answer them
Since we're asking you to hold others to this, here are ours:
- Fixed question list, four assistants, three runs each, every citation logged. Method.
- ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity and Google AI Overviews.
- Every report states sample size and what the numbers can't show.
- Crawler access and answer tracking, on top of the SEO.
- Crawler access and rendering, in week one.
- We do, in your site or CMS.
- 12 in-depth pages a month, comparison and alternatives pages included.
- You review anything that makes claims about you.
- No.
- Harmless, not a priority.
- None. If you're not satisfied, tell us and we stop 30 days later.
- You own all of it.
The plan is on our AI search optimization page, priced at $1,000 a month. What that price covers.
Next steps
Copy these twelve questions into your notes before your next agency call. Run the free AI crawler check first so you know the answer to question five before they do.
Frequently asked questions
How do I choose an AI SEO agency?
Ask how they measure your presence in AI answers, what they do that ordinary SEO doesn't, who ships the technical fixes, and what you get each month in countable terms. Walk away from guarantees of ChatGPT placement and from proposals built around llms.txt.
What are red flags when hiring for GEO or AI SEO?
Guaranteed rankings or recommendations in ChatGPT, reports built on single screenshots, llms.txt as a headline deliverable, no plan for AI crawler access, long minimum contracts, and vague monthly deliverables.
Do I need a specialist AI SEO agency?
Usually not a separate one. Most AI visibility work is SEO work. What matters is that whoever you hire also checks AI crawler access and measures the answers with repeated runs.
