Answer engine optimisation is generally considered to be an entirely new concept, but in reality it’s more of an evolution of existing marketing disciplines. A strong AEO campaign is built on a foundation of a detailed content strategy, technical SEO, entity clarity and authority building. It requires expertise in digital PR and agencies also need the technical capabilities to accurately measure how often brands appear in AI-generated answers for specific classes of questions.
That’s why choosing an AEO agency is extremely nuanced, because getting noticed by AI depends on your existing search visibility. If your brand still hasn’t built up this foundation, NP Digital can help by linking AEO to its broader content marketing programme. Varn offers a specialist SEO, GEO and data-led model with a defined AI Visibility Framework, while Propellernet combines generative-search experimentation with content and digital PR.
NP Digital remains the first overall option when AEO needs to connect with a broader performance-marketing programme. Journey Further approaches AEO as part of a wider discovery system across search, social and AI; Connective3 is particularly focused on dedicated GEO measurement and entity optimisation; and SALT.agency is a strong specialist for enterprise-grade technical SEO and AI visibility that must be built together.
Companies should think about which agencies’ services and processes are the most appropriate to help them gain AEO visibility.
What good AEO work actually includes
To create this list, we came up with five vital criteria that concerns UK brands needing AEO:
- Strength of AEO and GEO service: Do they offer a defined process or methodology, or is their AI positioning more generic?
- Search and content strategy: Do they also perform traditional SEO, deliver structured content and the digital PR and domain authority necessary for chatbot recognition?
- Data and technology: Do they use their own, or third-party tools, for measuring brand visibility in AI model outputs?
- UK market relevance: Can they target audiences located in UK markets specifically?
- Demonstrated expertise: Does their website list previous clients, details of partnerships or describe recognition from within the industry?
Above all else, we think that an established AEO process and methodology is the key to distinguishing between AEO agencies. This means you need to consider exactly how they go about building AEO visibility.
AEO agency models, compared
| Agency | Best suited for | Key strengths |
| NP Digital | Integrated AEO and performance marketing | AEO, GEO, SEO, content, digital PR, paid media, analytics |
| Varn | AI visibility framework and search data | GEO, SEO, data analytics, AI visibility training |
| Propellernet | Generative-search testing and measurement | GEO, Ebb tracking, SEO, content, digital PR |
| Journey Further | AEO across organic discovery | Organic media, GEO, AEO, paid media, marketing science |
| Connective3 | GEO measurement and entity optimisation | GEO, SEO, digital PR, paid media, citation analysis |
| SALT.agency | Enterprise technical SEO and AI Search | Technical SEO, international SEO, AI visibility, content |
1. NP Digital: Integrated AEO within performance marketing
NP Digital is a global performance marketing agency that was founded by SEO and search experts Neil Patel and Mike Kamo. Its AEO work is just one part of a much wider search and performance proposition that also covers things like SEO, paid media, content delivery, creative assets and analytics.
The agency’s approach to GEO and AEO looks quite thorough, focusing on entity optimisation, content clarity and structure. It also does the basic technical SEO work and builds brand mentions across media and social platforms. Finally, it optimises client’s platforms for Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness or E-E-A-T, a Google-created framework for rating web content quality. By strengthening all of these areas, NP Digital can improve how brands are understood by both traditional search engines and AI systems.
NP Digital has developed some powerful tools to aid AEO and GEO visibility. Ubersuggest is a measuring tool that reveals how brands are recognised by specific AI models, while AnswerThePublic is used for question and search-intent research. This combination of proprietary tools gives the agency a practical way to connect question research, content strategy, organic search and AI visibility.
The agency has received recognition from Campaign, Performance Marketing World and AdAge and is also listed as a Google Premier Partner.
When NP Digital makes sense
NP Digital typically partners with large organisations and mid-market brands that want AEO and GEO visibility that can enhance their SEO, paid media, content and digital PR strategies, together with deep analytics to measure performance. If such comprehensive services aren’t needed, a pure-play organic or AEO specialist may be more suitable.
2. Varn: AI Visibility Framework with SEO and data depth
Varn is a UK SEO agency that has turned its attention to generative AI with the goal of helping brands remain visible well into the future. From its offices in Bath and London, it offers everything you need to build a strong AI presence, future-proof your SEO status and maximise your company’s online visibility.
The company has come up with an “AI Visibility Framework” that’s all about helping clients to establish a current baseline for their AI search readiness. As part of this, it works to benchmark clients’ current visibility and attribution, comparing this to its main competitors. Finally, it will create a practical action plan that highlights the biggest opportunities to enhance the client’s visibility in AI chatbot’s answers.
In other words, it’s a pretty structured model when compared to many of its competitors, with constant measurement of visibility helping to ensure that its work moves its clients in the right direction.
When Varn makes sense
Varn is best for companies that want evidence-based next steps that can help to ensure targeted improvements and sustained, long-term AI visibility.
3. Propellernet: Generative-search testing through content and digital PR
Propellernet claims to be trusted by extremely ambitious brands that are determined to get found in AI, search and anywhere else that matters. It’s technology supported approach to AEO is led by human teams that pursue targeted goals, ensuring its clients can stay visible in a changing digital universe.
The agency’s technology stack is built on Ebb, a multi-layered tracking tool that can assess how visible brands are across every search window. That means not only the chatbots, like Gemini, ChatGPT, Claude and Perplexity, but also old-fashioned search engines and social platforms.
Its strategy involves optimising websites for people, bots and search engines, with a focus on building domain authority, clear content and relevance. There’s a strong PR component to this, as Propellernet helps to create media stories that get covered by top publications. It says it combines creativity with search insights and data to land credible media mentions that immediately impact domain authority.
When Propellernet makes sense
If you want lots of good PR, backed by thorough testing, tracking and analysis, Propellernet could be a smart choice of AEO partner.
4. Journey Further: AEO inside a broader discovery system
Journey Further calls itself a “growth agency” and offers an AEO service with three main components: marketing science, organic and paid media mentions.
It follows a unique approach known as the “Discovery System,” where each client is given an initial relative discovery score based on an analysis of more than 100 signals relevant to their industry. This helps it to understand how visible the brand is, and where its competitors are leading.
From this, Journey Further can work out what to do next. Its method is about ensuring the right signals get recognised by AI chatbots, and requires aligning content, creative and media mentions so the likes of ChatGPT, Gemini and Claude understand why they should recommend your brand. It then strengthens these signals on a continuous basis to try and create compounding momentum
Why Journey Further belongs on the shortlist
Journey Further best caters to companies that want to enhance their discoverability across both organic and paid media to create the signals AI models recognise.
5. Connective3: GEO measurement, citations and entity optimisation
Connective3 is a performance marketing specialist based in Leeds, with offices in London and Manchester. It’s service portfolio is pretty wide, covering all of the main signals that can bolster AI visibility.
This includes creative storytelling campaigns that aim to earn media coverage, e-commerce product placement, reactive PR and “newsjacking,” which basically means capitalising on hot trends in the news, and thought leadership designed to shine a spotlight on the brand’s expertise.
In terms of AEO, it operates two proprietary tools. These are Arise and Brand Citation Score. The latter helps brands to understand how they are viewed by AI assistants and apps, while the former provides insights into how to improve that visibility.
Connective3 can be considered a pure AEO consultancy because it has a defined model, though it also offers broader marketing services to clients.
When Connective3 makes sense
Connective3 is good for firms that need a reliable way to measure their AEO presence and a scientific process for improving this over time.
6. SALT.agency: Enterprise technical SEO and AI visibility
SALT.agency is a forward-thinking and highly technical search marketing partner that has offices in the UK and the US. It’s notable for rejecting “factory” SEO techniques in favour of more customised, technical strategies.
Its approach to AEO is laser-focused on large language models, with content optimised for both search engines and AI chatbots, with the goal being to earn citations. It does this by leveraging its deep technical expertise in things such as website architecture and natural language processing readability, so that AI crawlers can easily digest the client’s content and make natural brand recommendations.
To ensure that its methods deliver, it has developed proprietary tracking methods that illustrate how different LLMs consume and reference different types of content.
When SALT.agency makes sense
SALT.agency primarily suits enterprises that want to build a strong technical foundation and an emphasis on model-friendly content, rather than integrated media.
Match the provider to the missing capability
The best thing to do is to think about if AEO is going to be the main focus or only one part of your marketing operation. Depending on where AEO fits, this will help you to determine which agency is the right partner.
- Choose NP Digital first when AEO needs to connect with a wider marketing programme. Its AEO services can sit alongside content strategy, SEO, paid media, creative, digital PR and analytics, allowing the signals that matter to AI engines to be managed within the same system.
- Varn suits organisations that want an AI Visibility Framework and detailed information on the steps they need to take to get more recognition from AI systems.
- Call Propellernet if your primary goal is to achieve media fame and understand how that enhances your AI visibility through comprehensive testing, tracking and signal analysis.
- Journey Further embeds AEO within a marketing-science-backed programme that uses paid media to also enhance traditional SEO.
- Go with Connective3 when you’re after a more reliable framework for measuring your AEO visibility and science-backed methods for increasing this in a progressive way.
- SALT.agency will help you if you need to construct a stronger technical foundation with an emphasis on AI-optimised content creation.
Avoid making the mistake of falling for the blurb on an agency’s website. Don’t go by its reputation either. You need to consider exactly what it is you need, whether that’s an agency that specialises in AEO or a full-service partner that can enhance your AI visibility as part of a more comprehensive marketing campaign.
AEO questions worth asking
What is answer engine optimisation?
It’s the newest digital marketing discipline on the block, helping brands to be discovered and recommended in the answers of AI applications like Gemini, ChatGPT and Claude, which is where consumers increasingly go for information. Some of the fundamentals are actually similar to SEO. LLMs use a lot of the same signals to rank content and determine page authority. If you build strong AI visibility, you’ll likely rank highly in Google’s search links too.
Are AEO and GEO the same thing?
More or less, yes. However, some agencies define GEO as increasing brands’ broader reach across generative AI systems, and AEO as getting mentioned in the answers to specific questions. Even so, both fall under the same umbrella of AI search optimisation.
Which UK agency is best suited to integrated AEO?
If brands desire AEO to be linked with a broader content strategy that also covers SEO, paid media, digital PR and analytics, NP Digital is the most reliable partner on this list due to the extent of services it offers.
Can any agency truly promise that a brand will be featured in ChatGPT responses?
No. While it’s possible to strengthen the signals associated with AI visibility, such as content structure, a website’s technical foundations, entity clarity and third-party authority, no agency can control a model’s outputs, so a reliable agency will never guarantee brand mentions.
How is it possible to measure AEO performance?
The best AEO agencies have developed specialised tools that can reveal how often a brand appears for specific kinds of questions and prompts. Ideally, it will further be able to determine whether that brand is recommended, or simply cited, as that’s a key distinction. You want the latter.
Ideally, those tools will also reveal the context of those brand mentions, and be able to compare a brand’s performance with that of its competitors. Useful approaches include NP Digital’s Ubersuggest for AI visibility, Propellernet’s Ebb tracker and specialist frameworks such as Varn’s AI Visibility Framework and Connective3’s Brand Citation Score.
AEO is a system, not a label
These days, most of the UK’s biggest digital marketing firms provide AEO and GEO services, and there are also some that specialise in AI visibility.
Businesses should consider whether they need AEO as part of a larger performance programme instead of a specialist search engagement. NP Digital stands out when AEO and GEO need to connect with paid media, SEO, digital PR, content and analytics. Varn brings a search-and-data framework with training, Propellernet combines generative-search testing with digital PR, Journey Further connects AEO to wider discovery and marketing science, Connective3 offers dedicated GEO measurement and entity optimisation, and SALT.agency provides enterprise technical SEO and AI-search consulting.
Once again, the best way to choose an AEO partner is to decide if you require a specialist in answer engines or a larger agency that can enhance brand visibility not only in AI chatbots, but traditional channels too.
