As of Q3 2026, the question that separates a strong AEO and GEO agency from a weak one is what its guarantee covers: your presence in an AI answer, or the accuracy of what that answer tells your buyers. Accurate answers keep your business on the shortlists that turn into sales. Price tells you what the engagement costs. It does not tell you what happens when AI gets your facts wrong. Ten direct questions do.
Ten Direct Questions Reveal Whether an Agency Fits
Ten direct questions give you a clear read on whether an AEO and GEO agency fits before you commit budget, and a strong agency answers most of them without hesitation. A vague or deflected answer on any one of them is itself useful information. The questions apply to two services that build on a third. AEO (answer engine optimisation) gets your business quoted in Google AI Overviews, featured snippets, answer boxes and voice answers. GEO (generative engine optimisation) gets it cited in the AI chats. Both build on SEO (search engine optimisation), which earns your place in Google's regular results.
| # | Area | Question | What a good answer looks like | Red flag |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Guarantee | What exactly does your guarantee cover? | A named, specific outcome: a percentage, a timeline, or a factual-accuracy standard, stated in writing | "We guarantee results" with no metric attached |
| 2 | Citation proof | Do you show a citation from an AI engine on request? | A named business cited inside ChatGPT, Gemini, or a Google AI Overview, shown live or as a dated capture with its prompt and session conditions | No example, or a screenshot with no date, prompt or session detail |
| 3 | Pricing | Is your pricing published, or does it come after a sales call? | Published starting points and a dated, written quote for the engagement | No published figure and no written quote before the contract |
| 4 | Measurement | Do you measure results across a whole content cluster, or by single keyword? | Reporting grouped by topic and prompt clusters, with ranking reports alongside | Rank-tracking reports built entirely around individual keywords |
| 5 | GEO timing | Is GEO planned from day one, or only after months of separate SEO work? | AI-chat visibility work is planned from day one, alongside other work, and is live once the changes are implemented | GEO withheld until an SEO audit clears, with no interim AI-visibility work |
| 6 | Contract | What is the contract length and exit process? | A stated term, a stated minimum and a stated cancellation notice period, in writing | A long lock-in with no stated minimum and no stated notice period |
| 7 | Methodology | Do you explain your methodology, or call it "AI optimisation"? | A named process, described step by step | Vague language with no described method |
| 8 | Compliance | How do you handle a regulated industry's compliance requirements? | A named process for verifying claims against the industry's actual rules | No mention of compliance, or a generic answer that ignores the industry |
| 9 | Delivery team | Who does the actual work: an in-house team or a subcontractor? | The team members assigned to the campaign, introduced to you by name | Deflection on who performs the work |
| 10 | Corrections | What happens if the AI states a fact about my business incorrectly? | A defined correction process with a stated timeline | No process, or "that's out of our control" |
Ten questions to put to any AEO and GEO agency before signing.
What to Look for in an AEO and GEO Agency
Look for five things you check before signing, not promises made after it. A strong agency:
- Names a specific guarantee and puts it in writing.
- Shows a citation from a real AI engine on request, live or as a dated capture.
- Publishes its starting points and gives a dated, written quote for the engagement.
- Measures results across a whole topic cluster, not by single keyword.
- Describes its methodology step by step.
An agency that answers all five clearly gives you evidence to evaluate. An agency that answers none of them asks for trust with no evidence attached.
Why These 10 Matter
The guarantee question matters most because it shows what you are paying to fix: whether buyers see your business, or whether what they read about it is correct. Each engine answers from what it has learned and looked up about your business across many sources, and your website is only one of them. Two different guarantees test two different things about those answers. A guarantee that your business appears in the answer tests presence. A guarantee that what the answer says about your business is correct tests accuracy. Presence is a real and useful measure; it is a different measure from accuracy. A business appears clearly and is still described wrong, and a presence guarantee does not test for that.
Three questions on the list do most of the differentiating work: guarantee, citation proof and methodology. A named methodology lets you judge whether the work compounds over time or resets with every renewal. Citation proof across several AI engines, not just one, matters because each AI chat and Google AI Overviews answers from its own model and retrieved sources, and a business described correctly in one is not automatically described correctly in another.
How Large Is the Audience Behind These Questions?
Google AI Overviews alone had over 2 billion monthly users as of July 2025, and B2B buyers spend only 17% of their buying time meeting potential suppliers. Google's own figures put the scale of just one AI surface at over 2 billion monthly Google AI Overviews users across more than 200 countries and territories and 40 languages as of July 2025 (Google, 2025). One citation on one surface does not establish coverage across the engines and search intents your buyers use. Gartner research (2020) shows that B2B buyers typically spend only 17% of their time meeting with potential suppliers when they are considering a purchase, and a Gartner sales survey published 25 June 2025 found that 61% of B2B buyers prefer an overall rep-free buying experience. That independent research is where an agency's guarantee counts, because the facts your buyers meet there are either correct or wrong before any supplier conversation.
| Statistic | Figure | Who it measures | Date | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Google AI Overviews monthly users | Over 2 billion | Google Search users in more than 200 countries and territories | July 2025 | Google, Alphabet Q2 2025 earnings remarks, 23 Jul 2025 |
| Share of B2B buyers' time spent meeting potential suppliers when considering a purchase | 17% | B2B buyers | 2020 | Gartner press release, 15 Sep 2020 |
| B2B buyers preferring an overall rep-free buying experience | 61% | 632 B2B buyers, surveyed August to September 2024 | Published 2025 | Gartner sales survey, 25 Jun 2025 |
Sources: Google, July 2025 and others
Do AEO and GEO Agencies Guarantee Results?
An agency guarantee covers presence, accuracy or nothing at all, so read its wording before you compare prices. A presence guarantee, such as a share-of-voice or page-one target, does not test whether the facts an AI states about your business are correct, which is the gap a truth guarantee closes. Dated guarantee and price comparisons for each market sit on the Singapore guide and the Australia guide.
Bought on its own, the Showstopper Sensor (Sprint 1) carries the Ground Truth Guarantee. The Ground Truth Guarantee: within 30 days of publishing, ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini and Perplexity answer your showstopper questions with the facts in your Brand Codex. If they do not, Aemorph refunds 100% of your Sprint 1 fee and keeps working on the answers for a further 60 days, 90 days in total.
Terms: the Ground Truth Guarantee covers Sprint 1 bought on its own; Sprint 1 inside a monthly package carries no refund; it does not cover Sprint 2 (Entity Hardening), search rankings or Google AI Overviews. Full terms
How Aemorph Answers Each Question
Aemorph answers all ten questions on a video call in the free strategic conversation and recaps them by email, so you compare its answers directly with every other quote you hold. Each answer names its source and a page to read more.
| Area | Question | Aemorph's answer | Evidence | Where to read more |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Guarantee | What does the guarantee cover? | Correct in ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini and Perplexity within 30 days of publishing, or a 100% refund of Sprint 1 and 60 more days of work (the Ground Truth Guarantee, on the Showstopper Sensor (Sprint 1), only when bought on its own; Sprint 1 inside a monthly package carries no refund) | Guarantee terms, 6 October 2026 | Showstopper Sensor |
| Citation proof | Citation proof? | Aemorph shows a dated capture in which ChatGPT cites Aemorph and names it as a source | ChatGPT, logged-out session, 4 August 2026: cited 3 to 4 times for "PSG SEO Singapore", "Best PSG Vendor for SMEs", "B2B lead generation agencies" and "best PSG SEO services" | GEO service |
| Pricing | Published pricing? | Quoted on the output you need; starting points on the pricing page | Aemorph pricing page, 6 October 2026 | Pricing |
| Measurement | Cluster-level measurement? | Reports group results by topic and prompt clusters, and ranking reports are also provided; one combined report where one website serves several markets, separate reports where you run separate sites | Aemorph reporting practice, 6 October 2026 | Cluster-level measurement guide |
| GEO timing | GEO from day one? | GEO work is planned from day one of an engagement: prompt packs, a schema review and a crawlability and extractability audit; it is live once content is published and your developers implement the changes, which Aemorph then verifies | Aemorph delivery practice, 6 October 2026 | GEO service |
| Contract | Contract and exit terms? | Terms are set out in your quote | The written quote for the engagement | Request a quote |
| Methodology | Methodology named? | A full-coverage attribute mapping method | Method published on aemorph.com | Attribute mapping methodology guide |
| Compliance | Regulated-industry handling? | Every regulated claim is checked before publication; health claims against PubMed, professional associations and government health authorities; financial and insurance claims for disclaimers and no guaranteed outcomes; each country's healthcare advertising rules stay the client's obligation | Your nominated point of contact signs off regulated claims before Aemorph publishes them | Who we work with |
| Delivery team | Who does the work? | Each engagement introduces the team members assigned to that campaign, and every SEO consulting engagement has its own account manager; Aemorph supplies the specifications, your developers or IT vendor implement site changes, and Aemorph verifies each one | Aemorph delivery practice, 6 October 2026 | About Aemorph |
| Corrections | Correction process? | The Hallucination Diagnostic finds incorrect facts (a sample of 10 to 20 showstopper questions across the four AI chats, report in 5 business days, presented on a call); Sprint 1 publishes the approved answers to your showstopper questions, the buyer questions that stop a purchase when AI answers them badly, and, bought on its own, Sprint 1 carries the Ground Truth Guarantee: correct in ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini and Perplexity within 30 days of publishing, or a 100% refund of Sprint 1 and 60 more days of work | Ground Truth Guarantee terms, 6 October 2026 | Hallucination Diagnostic |
Aemorph's answers to the ten questions. Sources: Aemorph, October 2026 and others
Red Flags to Reject
Four patterns in an agency's pitch signal a weak engagement whatever the price, and any one of them is reason enough to keep looking before you commit budget. Each one hides a cost or a risk the pitch does not state directly. A weak agency:
- Locks you into a long contract with no point at which you leave without a penalty, removing the option to exit a poorly performing engagement.
- Hides its methodology, with no step-by-step account of how the work gets done.
- Promises vague "AI optimisation" with no named deliverable, surface or metric attached to it.
- Fails to show a citation from a real AI engine, live or as a dated capture with its prompt, offering a mocked-up screenshot instead.
What Questions to Ask an AEO Agency
Ask every agency the same ten questions, on guarantee, citation proof, pricing, measurement, GEO timing, contract, methodology, compliance, delivery team and corrections, and treat a deflected answer on any one of them as a red flag on its own. A strong agency answers each question directly, in writing, before you sign a contract.
Get an Assessment Against This Checklist
Put Aemorph through this checklist yourself in a free strategic conversation, and see how its answers compare before you choose an agency. The GEO service and the AEO service set out the work behind each answer.
The strategic conversation is free and runs 30 to 60 minutes. Aemorph answers your vetting questions on that video call, recaps them by email and responds within 24 hours to all communication. Bought on its own, the Showstopper Sensor (Sprint 1) is the standalone start; on the enterprise route it runs inside Attain or Apex after the audit and the Influencer Blueprint.