A growing number of SEO agencies now offer "GEO" or "AI SEO" as a service. Some have built real strategies around it. Others have repackaged their existing SEO work with new terminology. A few are selling tactics like llms.txt files, FAQ schema, and Reddit seeding as a complete approach.
The problem is that from the outside, it's hard to tell which is which. The language sounds similar. The pitch decks look the same. And there isn't enough industry data yet for most buyers to know what actually moves the needle.
This article is built to help you find the best AI SEO agencies. I cover the evaluation criteria that actually matter, then profile 9 agencies doing this work across different industries, team sizes, and price points.
How to evaluate the best agencies for AI search optimization
Before looking at any agency's case studies or pricing, there are a few things worth paying attention to. These will help you tell apart agencies that have built a real AI search practice from ones that have added "GEO" to their services page without changing much underneath.
Do they understand the connection between SEO and AI visibility?
LLMs don't generate recommendations from thin air. When someone asks ChatGPT or Perplexity a product-related question, those systems search the web as part of generating their response. The content they find in those searches heavily influences what they end up recommending.
Recent research across hundreds of keywords has shown a strong correlation between Google rankings and AI mentions, which makes sense once you understand how the retrieval process works.
AI search optimization isn't a separate discipline from SEO but a layer on top of it. An agency that pitches you a GEO strategy without a strong organic search foundation is skipping the part that matters most. And an agency doing solid SEO work but ignoring how that content performs across ChatGPT, Perplexity, and AI Overviews is missing where the results are starting to show up.
The agencies that get this right treat the two as connected. They build content that ranks in Google and is structured in a way that LLMs can parse, cite, and recommend.
Do they prioritize bottom-of-funnel content?
Bottom of funnel content has always mattered in SEO, but in AI search it matters even more. When someone asks their favourite LLM a definitional question like "what is customer engagement software," it just answers it. No links. No brand names. No reason for the user to visit your site.
But when someone asks "best field service software for HVAC" or "alternatives to HubSpot for small teams," LLMs list products by name. These are the prompts where showing up translates into pipeline.
If an agency is building your content calendar around high-volume top-of-funnel topics, they're following a playbook that was already questionable for traditional SEO and is even less effective for AI search.
Do they have a real framework or are they selling tactics?
There are a lot of tactics floating around the GEO space right now. Llms.txt files, FAQ schema, rewriting headings as questions, Reddit seeding. Some of these have merit as small optimizations. But when an agency presents them as the core of their strategy, that's a red flag.
A real framework explains the reasoning behind the work. It tells you what gets prioritized and why, and just as importantly, what gets deprioritized. If an agency can walk you through their process from diagnosis to execution and explain what they deliberately skip, that's a good sign. If their pitch is a menu of tactics without a connecting logic, you're buying activity.
Do they do targeted source-level outreach?
Most people in the AI SEO space talk about citations and brand mentions. But there's a meaningful difference between getting cited as a source (your URL appears in a footnote) and getting recommended as a solution (the LLM names your brand in the answer itself).
Ask the agency whether they understand this distinction and what they do about it. The good ones identify which pages LLMs are citing in their responses for the prompts you care about, then do outreach to get your brand mentioned on those specific pages.
That's different from traditional link building where the goal is general domain authority. Here the goal is placement on the exact sources that are shaping the AI answer your buyer sees.
What's their approach to keyword research?
Most agencies pull a list from Ahrefs or Semrush, sort by volume, and work from there. That process can surface useful keywords, but it misses the ones that come from understanding your buyer.
The best AI optimization SEO agencies tend to start with sales call recordings because they reveal the language buyers use, the pain points they describe, the competitors they bring up, and the objections they raise.
Those insights give direction to keyword research and surface high-converting terms you'd never find by sorting a spreadsheet by volume. Keyword tools are still part of the process, but they work better when the research starts with the buyer.
Who will you actually work with?
At a lot of AI SEO agencies, the strategist who pitches you during the sales process is not the person who ends up doing the work. Your account gets handed to a junior team member following a template.
AI search is new enough that the strategic decisions still require experienced judgment. There isn't a proven playbook you can hand to someone with six months of experience and expect results.
So it's worth asking: who will run my strategy? Will I work with them directly? How many clients are they managing? The answers tell you how much real attention your brand is going to get.
9 best AI SEO agencies
Here are the agencies I'd recommend based on the criteria above, covering a range of team sizes, industries, and approaches to AI search.
Usama Khan Consulting
Best for: Growth-stage B2B SaaS companies that want a senior, hands-on AI SEO strategist focused on pipeline and revenue.
Usama Khan Consulting is a boutique AI SEO practice that works with growth-stage B2B SaaS companies as a fractional, embedded extension of their marketing team. Depending on your internal setup, that means leading strategy and managing your existing content team, or handling content production alongside strategy.
Everything I do is built around driving pipeline and revenue, not just impressions or keyword rankings for their own sake. The content strategy, the SEO work, the AI visibility layer: all of it is measured by whether it produces qualified leads.
The engagement is boutique by design. I work with a limited number of clients at any given time, which means you work with me directly on strategy rather than being handed off to a junior account manager after the sales call.
AI search optimization only works when the SEO foundation underneath it is strong. LLMs search the web when generating responses, so if your content doesn't rank in Google for the queries that matter, it's unlikely to get surfaced in AI answers either.
My approach starts with traditional bottom-of-funnel SEO done well, then layers AI visibility on top: brand narrative alignment across the web, targeted outreach to the pages LLMs pull from, and content tweaks that make it easier for LLMs to parse and reference your content accurately.
My VISIBLE framework guides this full process:
- Vet the Buyer
- Identify High-Intent Keywords
- Substance Over Fluff
- Influence the Sources
- Benchmark and Track
- Live and Fresh
- Entity Clarity
Here's how that translates into the actual engagement.
It starts with customer research, not keyword tools
Before any keyword research happens, I review sales call recordings to understand how your best customers describe the problem your product solves. The language they use, the competitors they mention, the objections they raise during evaluation. I also have direct conversations with your sales, customer success, and product teams to pull out insights that don't show up in recordings alone. This maps to "Vet the Buyer" in the VISIBLE framework.
That research is what gives keyword research its direction. When you understand how buyers actually talk about their problem, you can find high-conversion keywords that you otherwise might have missed. It also shapes how the content gets written, because the language your buyers use on calls is often the same language that makes content resonate with them when they find it through search.
Keyword tools are still part of the process, but they come after the customer research.
Bottom-of-funnel content that maps to real buying decisions
Every keyword in my strategy sits at the intersection of three things: search demand, ICP pain points, and product relevance. If there's no search demand, the content won't get found. If it doesn't connect to a real pain point your ICP has, it won't resonate with buyers even if it ranks. And if it doesn't tie back to something your product solves, it won't convert even if it brings the right people to the page. All three need to be true for a keyword to be worth going after.
That's why I focus on bottom-of-funnel content that targets people who are ready to buy. They're comparing solutions, evaluating alternatives, and looking for the product that fits their specific situation.
And because people searching in LLMs tend to give real context about their industry, their team size, and their constraints, the content you produce needs to match that level of specificity.
That means writing about who you serve, what problems you solve, and how your product addresses those problems in enough detail that an LLM can confidently recommend you when a buyer describes a situation your product is built for.
That's where the customer research pays off. When you've studied sales calls and understand how your best buyers describe their pain points, you can write content that maps your product's features directly back to those pain points. Not generic benefits, but specific capabilities solving specific problems for a specific type of buyer.
The formats I focus on are comparison pages, versus pages, listicles targeting specific use cases and industries, and how-to content tied to concrete pain points.
If you rank for these terms in Google, you're significantly more likely to appear in AI answers for related queries. You're leading the narrative rather than hoping the internet tells your story correctly.
Source-level outreach and entity coherence
When a brand isn't showing up as a recommendation for a target query, the next step is figuring out why. I identify which pages LLMs are actually citing in their responses for that query and then work to get your brand mentioned on those specific pages.
This maps to "Influence the Sources" in VISIBLE.
This is different from traditional link building where the goal is raising domain authority in a general sense. The goal is placement on the exact sources that are shaping the AI answer your buyer sees. If ChatGPT is pulling from a specific listicle when someone asks for the best software in your category, and your brand isn't on that listicle, that's the gap to close.
Connected to this is entity coherence, which maps to "Entity Clarity" in the framework. LLMs don't just read your website when deciding whether to recommend you. They pull from review platforms, directories, listicles, and third-party articles.
If your homepage describes your product one way, your G2 listing describes it differently, and a third-party review says something else entirely, those inconsistencies weaken the signals LLMs have to work with.
Part of my engagement involves auditing how your brand is described across these sources and aligning the narrative so the story is coherent everywhere an LLM looks.
Tracking what matters
A single prompt doesn't tell you much. Buyers rarely type the same thing into ChatGPT the same way twice. So for each target keyword, I build out multiple prompt variations that cover different angles of the same query and track your brand's visibility across all of them in LLMs. That gives a more accurate picture of whether your brand is actually showing up when your ICP searches for solutions in your category.
But AI visibility tracking is only one part of it. I also track the performance of the content itself: Google rankings, organic traffic, backlink acquisition, and how those metrics move over time.
Ahrefs research has shown that LLMs reward recently updated content, so I run refresh cycles every two to three months to keep pages current and maintain their performance across both Google and AI platforms.
The harder piece is connecting all of this to pipeline. Direct referral traffic from ChatGPT, Perplexity, and other LLMs can now be tracked in GA4 through custom channel groups, and tools like Ahrefs Web Analytics categorize AI traffic automatically.
But the bigger attribution gap hasn't been solved. Most buyers who discover your brand through an AI tool don't click through from the chat itself. They Google your name afterwards or visit your site directly, which means GA4 credits that session to branded search or direct traffic rather than AI. Seer Interactive's Wil Reynolds makes the case that this makes AI visibility tracking on its own a vanity metric, and suggests using offsetting metrics like branded search volume and direct traffic trends as proxies for whether your AI visibility work is actually producing results.
I take a similar approach. I combine referral tracking with a "how did you hear about us" field before demo booking, with AI search included as an option, and track branded search trends alongside demo volume as the north star. Perfect attribution isn't possible yet, but directional clarity is.
Core services: SEO/AEO/AI SEO strategy, content strategy, content writing, backlinks, brand mentions and citation outreach, content refreshes
Notable clients: Listen Labs, livepro, Makula, Gleantap
Pricing: Custom scoped based on goals, content volume, and engagement depth.
PS., If you're an agency looking for an experienced fractional SEO strategist to lead AI search and content strategy on your client accounts, get in touch.
Spicy Margarita
Best for: Venture-funded B2B companies that want a boutique SEO and AI search partner.
Spicy Margarita is a UK-based SEO and content agency that caps its client list at 10. The team is small by design, made up of senior specialists, and built by people who came from in-house teams rather than other agencies. They embed with your marketing org, take ownership of growth outcomes, and measure success by pipeline and closed revenue.
Their AI search approach centers on making your brand the default recommendation in its category. They produce content targeting the prompts buyers use when actively comparing solutions, and run digital PR to get clients mentioned in the high-authority placements LLMs tend to pull from. Founder Ben Goodey is one of the more active practitioners in the GEO space, publishing ongoing experiments through How the F*ck, an SEO publication with case studies and interviews.
All packages include biweekly strategy calls with Ben and unlimited Slack access. Contracts are 30-day cancellation, though most clients stay 12 to 24 months.
Core services: SEO strategy and execution, AI search optimization (AEO/GEO), content production, digital PR and link building, B2B podcast production, executive thought leadership
Pricing: Fractional SEO/AEO starts at $5,999/month. Full-service packages priced higher. Retainer-based.
Notable clients: Rillion, Givebutter, Eton Venture Services
Seen
Best for: SaaS companies, especially YC-backed startups and growth-stage teams.
Seen is an AI SEO agency founded by Irina Maltseva, who spent over a decade in SaaS SEO. The agency is built around the reality that search has fragmented. Your buyers are on Google, but also on ChatGPT, Gemini, Reddit, and review sites.
Seen treats Google and LLM visibility as one connected system. Their method starts by learning the client's product and competitive landscape deeply enough to function as an in-house extension. From there they build a unified strategy covering keyword and entity research, product-led content, and link building that generates the brand signals AI systems use to decide who to recommend.
Core services: Google and AI search strategy, keyword and prompt research, product-led content, link building
Pricing: Contact for pricing. Retainer-based.
Notable clients: Aura, Hunter, Artisan, Sphere
Animalz
Best for: B2B SaaS and technology companies that need a content partner focused thought leadership.
Animalz is a fully remote content marketing agency founded in 2015 that works primarily with B2B SaaS, technology, and venture-backed companies. Their model is built around producing fewer, more deeply researched pieces designed to build topical authority over time.
They’ve added SEO and AEO (Answer Engine Optimization) to their service offering, including AI visibility audits that show how your brand appears across Google, AI Overviews, and LLM tools. Their content approach leans heavily on thought leadership, executive ghostwriting, research reports, and long-form editorial work.
Animalz is not a pure AI search optimization agency. They're a content agency that has expanded into AI visibility as the landscape has shifted.
Core services: Content strategy and production, SEO/AEO optimization, thought leadership and executive content
Pricing: Custom scoped. Third-party sources list minimum projects starting around $10,000 with typical retainers in the $8,000 to $30,000/month range.
Notable clients: Google, Amazon, GoDaddy, Zendesk
Siege Media
Best for: Brands that need scalable, design-forward content production and digital PR.
Siege Media is a content marketing and SEO agency founded in 2012 with a team of over 100 people. They've built a reputation around producing high-quality, design-heavy content assets like data studies, interactive tools, and infographics that earn links from authoritative sources.
Their AI search methodology centers on owned content creation, which aligns with the research showing that traditional organic performance is the strongest predictor of AI mentions. They have proprietary tools like DataFlywheel that automatically refresh existing content with new data on a quarterly basis, which helps maintain freshness signals that both Google and LLMs value.
Core services: Content strategy and creation, digital PR and link building, technical SEO, GEO/AI search optimization, graphic design
Pricing: Contact for pricing. Engagements are typically retainer-based and scoped for scale.
Notable clients: Zapier, Figma, Zendesk, Shutterstock
CEEK
Best for: Fashion, luxury, hospitality, and lifestyle brands.
CEEK is a London-based digital marketing agency with deep roots in hospitality, having launched some of London's most well-known restaurants and hotels. Over the years they've expanded into fashion, luxury, food and beverage, sport, travel, and lifestyle brands.
Their AI search offering focuses on building brand reputation and credibility across AI platforms through what they describe as a proprietary workflow. The process starts with understanding your brand goals and running a baseline assessment of how LLMs currently process your brand entity. From there, they optimize your presence across multiple AI platforms, recognizing that each one requires different adjustments.
They're a full-service digital marketing shop that includes social media, paid media, influencer marketing, and content creation alongside their SEO and AI visibility work. That breadth is worth knowing because it means AI search is one part of a larger engagement, not the entire focus. For brands outside of tech and SaaS, that integrated approach may actually be a better fit.
Core services: AI search optimization, SEO, paid media, social media marketing, digital PR, influencer marketing
Pricing: Minimum project size $5,000+. Typical hourly rates $150 to $199. Campaigns range from $15,000 to $100,000 annually depending on scope.
Notable clients: The Savoy, and various luxury hospitality, fashion, and lifestyle brands across the UK and Europe
Shawn Ragell Consulting
Best for: B2B SaaS companies that want a hands-on marketing consultant.
Shawn Ragell is a B2B SaaS marketing consultant based in Toronto with over 10 years of experience working with tech companies on content, SEO, and conversion-focused marketing. He's held in-house roles at well-known companies before starting his own consultancy in 2020.
His helps with end-to-end SEO strategy, content creation, landing page optimization, and partnership development. He works with a small team of specialists and collaborates directly with founders and marketing leads at startups and scaleups.
Core services: SEO strategy, content marketing, CRO, GA4 setup, partnership and co-marketing
Pricing: Contact for pricing.
Notable clients: Together, Spendesk, 360Learning, ProcureDesk, Cognota
Omniscient Digital
Best for: Mid-market B2B SaaS companies.
Omniscient Digital is an organic growth agency that work exclusively with B2B software companies.
Their AI search work is built around an approach called Surround Sound SEO. The idea is that ranking your own content for a high-intent keyword is only part of the picture. You also need to show up across every third-party listicle, review site, and comparison page that ranks for that keyword, because those are the sources LLMs draw from when generating recommendations.
Their GEO strategy involves auditing which third-party sources mention your brand (and which don't), then filling those gaps through digital PR and citation outreach.
Core services: SEO strategy, generative engine optimization (GEO), content production, digital PR and link building, programmatic SEO
Pricing: Custom scoped. Engagements typically start at $12,000 to $20,000+/month.
Notable clients: Jasper, Loom, Hotjar, Order.co
Flow Agency
Best for: B2B SaaS startups and professional services firms that need a senior-led SEO and GEO partner.
Flow Agency is a Berlin-based boutique agency founded by Viola Eva that works specifically with B2B SaaS companies and professional services firms..
Their GEO offering treats AI search as an extension of SEO rather than a separate channel. They start by auditing which sources AI platforms are pulling from for queries relevant to your business, then build a strategy that combines organic ranking performance with LLM visibility.
They've published research analyzing 300K+ keywords to understand how AI Overviews work, and they've built a proprietary LLMO dashboard that tracks how prospects find you through AI search, what they engage with, and how they convert.
Flow reports that prospects who click through from AI-generated answers to their clients' sites convert at an average of 0.7%, with top performers hitting 2.3%.
Core services: SEO, GEO, content, link building and mentions, paid media (Google Ads, LinkedIn Ads)
Pricing: Minimum monthly retainer of $3,500. Custom scoped based on goals, website size, and execution needs.
Notable clients: Betterworks, Beekeeper, MailCharts, Detrack
Bottom Line: Usama Khan Consulting is the best AI SEO agency in 2026
AI search optimization is still a new field, and most agencies are figuring it out as they go. The agencies on this list are the ones that have built real methodologies, produced documented results, and can explain not just what they do but why it works.
If you're a growth-stage B2B SaaS company looking for a partner who embeds directly into your team, builds strategy around your buyer's actual language and pain points, and measures everything by pipeline and revenue rather than mention counts, that's what I built Usama Khan Consulting to do.
Book a free strategy call and I'll walk you through where your brand currently shows up across ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, and AI Overviews, where your competitors are showing up instead, and what it would take to close that gap.
FAQs about the best AI SEO agencies
What is AI search optimization?
AI search optimization is the practice of making your brand visible and recommended across AI-powered search platforms like ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, Claude, and Google AI Overviews. It involves a combination of traditional SEO, content strategy, entity coherence across third-party sources, and targeted outreach to the pages that LLMs pull from when generating answers. The goal is to get your brand recommended when your buyers ask AI tools for solutions in your category.
How much do AI SEO agencies charge?
Pricing varies widely depending on the agency's scope and model. Boutique consultants and smaller agencies typically start in the $2,000 to $6,000/month range. Mid-size agencies with full content production and link building included tend to fall between $8,000 and $20,000/month. Enterprise-focused agencies can go higher. Most work on monthly retainers, and some offer rolling 30-day contracts while others require longer commitments.
Is GEO the same as SEO?
GEO (Generative Engine Optimization) is not the same as SEO, but the two are closely connected. SEO focuses on ranking your content in traditional search results on Google. GEO focuses on getting your brand cited and recommended in AI-generated answers. Research has shown a strong correlation between Google rankings and AI mentions, which means a solid SEO foundation is the most reliable path to AI visibility. The best agencies treat them as one connected system rather than separate disciplines.
How do you measure AI search visibility?
You track which prompts your brand appears in across ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, and Claude. Because buyers don't all type the same prompt, you need to test multiple variations of the same query to get an accurate picture. Beyond AI-specific tracking, you should also monitor Google rankings, backlink growth, content freshness, and pipeline metrics like demo bookings. Adding a "how did you hear about us" field with AI search as an option helps connect visibility to actual business outcomes.
Do I need a separate agency for AI SEO or can my current SEO agency handle it?
It depends on what your current agency is actually doing. If they have a clear methodology for AI visibility, track your brand across LLM platforms, and can explain how their work connects to AI recommendations, they may be able to handle it. If they've added "GEO" to their services page without changing their underlying process, you're probably getting traditional SEO with new terminology. Ask them the evaluation questions from this article. Their answers will tell you whether they've built a real AI search practice or repackaged what they were already doing.
7+ years in B2B content marketing and SEO. I help brands rank on Google, get recommended by LLMs, and turn content into pipeline. For agencies, I lead client accounts end to end as a fractional SEO strategist. I also build AI-powered workflows for content teams who want to do more with less. When I’m not in the trenches, I’m probably watching cricket.