More and more people put their questions to ChatGPT, Perplexity or Google and get a finished answer back, including when the question is which business to choose. This guide is about what you do about that: in what order, how long it takes, how you can tell it is working and what it costs.

If you first want to know what the terms mean, start with What is GEO?. Here we go straight to the work.

What does AI SEO mean? Two things with the same name

People searching for “AI SEO” usually mean one of two things.

1. Appearing in AI answers. Making your business a source that ChatGPT, Perplexity and Google’s AI Overviews build their answers on. The same work is also called GEO (Generative Engine Optimization, not geographic marketing) or AEO, and it is what this guide is about. The definition, and how the names differ, are in What is GEO?.

2. Using AI tools for SEO work, for example for keyword ideas, drafts and heading structure. Google’s guidance on generative AI content (updated 1 October 2026) says generative AI can be particularly useful when researching a topic and when adding structure to original content. Using the tools to generate many pages that add nothing for the reader, on the other hand, may violate Google’s spam policy on scaled content abuse, and everything an AI has written should be fact-checked before it is published.

How does AI affect SEO? AI changes how answers are shown, because Google, ChatGPT and Perplexity can reply with their own summary and a few sources instead of a list of links. It also changes how the work is done, when AI tools are used for research and drafts. The foundation stays the same: Google’s guide to generative AI features (updated 10 July 2026) says the best practices for SEO continue to be relevant.

Does your business need AI SEO?

It depends on how your customers search, but AI use has grown fast. According to the Swedish Internet Foundation’s report Svenskarna och internet 2026 (in Swedish), 62 per cent of internet users in Sweden aged 8 and over had used an AI service such as ChatGPT, Copilot or Gemini in the past twelve months, up from around 4 in 10 the year before. 71 per cent said they usually read Google’s AI Overviews.

Even so, you rarely need a separate AI project. The foundation is the same as for being visible on Google: a website that says clearly what the business does, a complete Google Business Profile and the same details everywhere. What comes on top is a few technical checks and following up on how your business is described. That applies to local businesses as much as to companies with customers across the country, because a written answer only names the businesses the AI has found and understood.

How the work is done, step by step

The work can be split into six steps, and the order matters: there is no point rewriting your copy if the search services’ crawlers can’t get into your site.

Step 1: See how your business is described today

Ask ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini and Google’s AI Mode about your business and about your industry where you operate. Note whether the business is mentioned, whether the description is right and which sources are shown. How to do this the same way every month, and what to look for, is in How your business shows up in ChatGPT.

Matrix of what decides whether AI models mention your business: how clear your text is on one axis, whether your details match across sources on the other. Clear and consistent makes you easy to recommend.
Where does your business land today? The goal is the top-right box: clear text and the same details on every source.

The answers show where to start. If the business isn’t mentioned at all, as in the “Easy to leave out” box, start with steps 2 and 3. If it is described vaguely, start with step 3. If it is mentioned but described wrongly, start with step 4.

Step 2: Let the right crawlers in

Each AI service has its own crawlers, often one for its search service, one that fetches pages when a user asks and one that collects text to train language models. It is mainly the search crawlers that decide whether your site can appear in the answers.

Google. There are no additional requirements to appear in AI Overviews or AI Mode: the page must be indexed and eligible to be shown in Google Search with a snippet, and Googlebot is the crawler that fetches it. Also check in Search Console, under Settings > Search generative AI, that your site is included. That is the default, and the control has been available for all websites since 31 August 2026. Google-Extended controls whether content may be used to train Gemini and for grounding in the Gemini apps, but does not affect whether your site appears in Google Search.

ChatGPT, Claude and Perplexity. This is what the crawlers are called in robots.txt, according to each provider (as of October 2026):

ServiceSearch crawler: decides whether you can appearFetches for a userModel training
ChatGPT (OpenAI)OAI-SearchBotChatGPT-UserGPTBot
Claude (Anthropic)Claude-SearchBotClaude-UserClaudeBot
PerplexityPerplexityBotPerplexity-UserNeither crawler is used for training, according to Perplexity

OpenAI says that sites opted out of OAI-SearchBot will not be shown in ChatGPT search answers, except as plain navigational links. Anthropic says that blocking Claude-SearchBot or Claude-User may reduce your site’s visibility when Claude’s users search, and that its crawlers follow robots.txt.

At OpenAI and Perplexity, however, robots.txt does not always apply to the crawlers that fetch for a user: OpenAI says its rules may not apply to ChatGPT-User, and Perplexity that Perplexity-User generally ignores them. The training crawlers are a separate choice: OpenAI and Perplexity both say their settings work independently of each other. The older advice to allow GPTBot, ClaudeBot and Google-Extended in order to be visible therefore points to the wrong crawlers, because GPTBot and ClaudeBot are for training and Google-Extended does not affect Google Search.

Hosting and CDN. A block at your website host or content delivery network can stop the search crawlers even if robots.txt lets them in. OpenAI recommends allowing traffic from the IP addresses it publishes for its search crawler, and Perplexity gives the same advice for its crawlers. At Cloudflare, AI crawlers are now managed by purpose – search, agent and training – and Cloudflare’s documentation gave 15 September 2026 as the date the legacy Block AI bots setting would be deprecated. Under the new settings, a block on training also stops crawlers that are used for both search and training.

llms.txt is a proposal by Jeremy Howard, published on llmstxt.org on 3 September 2024, not a standard. Google says such a file will neither harm nor help your visibility in Google Search, and we have not found documentation from OpenAI, Anthropic or Perplexity saying their search services read it (as of October 2026). Put it last on the list. The same goes for semantic HTML: good practice, but we have found no evidence that it is a ranking factor for AI in its own right.

Step 3: Write so that what your business does can’t be misunderstood

Start with the basics: what your business is, what it does, for whom and where. A headline like “We help you grow” works for a customer who already knows you, but an AI trying to describe your business has nothing to go on.

An example: “We’re a hair salon in Vasastan, Stockholm, specialising in men’s cuts and beard trims. We’ve been at the same address since 2018 and booking happens via our website or Bokadirekt.” That tells the reader what kind of business it is, where it is, which services it offers, how long it has been there and how to book. The same clarity helps a hurried visitor on a phone.

Step 4: The same details everywhere, and structured data that matches

Name, address, phone number, opening hours, categories and description should be the same on your website, your Google Business Profile and in directories and industry sites. In our experience, conflicting details are a common reason a business gets mentioned but described wrongly.

Structured data (JSON-LD), for example Organization and LocalBusiness, describes your business in a format machines read directly. Google says structured data isn’t required for its AI features in Search and that there is no special markup you need to add, but that it is a good idea to keep using it because it helps a page be eligible for rich results. Under Google’s guidelines it must be a true representation of the page content and must not mark up content readers can’t see.

Google also says that Business Profiles and Merchant Center can help your products and services be visible both in AI responses and in other search results. There is more on that in Google AI Overviews: how your business ends up in the answer.

Step 5: Answer real questions

Think in questions and answers, not keywords. “We offer quality dental care in Stockholm with modern methods” contains the keywords, but no one asks a question that matches it. Write instead: “How long is the wait for an emergency examination? Usually the same day or the next. We always hold an emergency slot every morning.” That gives an AI something concrete to pass on when someone asks about an emergency dental appointment.

Collect the most common questions with short answers that can be read on their own, on the page where they belong. You don’t, however, need to write in a special way for AI or break your text into small pieces: Google says neither is required for its AI features in Search. What makes a single page easy to cite is covered in Optimise for Perplexity.

Step 6: Keep it current and show first-hand experience

Update prices, opening hours and what you offer when they change, and remove what is no longer true. A page with old details can produce a wrong answer, and our assessment is that AI services prefer a source that looks up to date.

Also show what only you can show: your own photos, your own examples, real prices and how you actually work. Google’s guide has its own section on creating valuable, non-commodity content. What else the guide says is covered in What Google says about AI search optimisation.

What to avoid

  • Hidden instructions to AI models (prompt injection). It is dishonest and works against the trust you are building.
  • Invented figures, quotes or awards. Other sources won’t confirm them.
  • Mass-produced AI text, which may violate Google’s spam policy on scaled content abuse.
  • Bought or fake mentions. Google says seeking inauthentic mentions isn’t as helpful as it might seem.
  • Promises of a guaranteed place in AI answers. If a supplier makes one, be sceptical: no one can promise that.

How long does it take?

There is no fixed answer, but some timings are documented.

  • The crawlers: OpenAI says it can take about 24 hours for a robots.txt change to be reflected in its search results, and Perplexity says up to 24 hours.
  • Google: crawling can take anywhere from a few days to a few weeks, according to Google’s help page on asking Google to recrawl.
  • Training data: what a language model already “knows” only changes with new model versions. We have not found any published schedule for that.

In our experience, the technical side is quick to fix, while it takes longer for new, consistent details to spread to other sources.

An example from our own work: we built a new website for Kvarnens Klippotek, a hair salon in Uppsala, Sweden, with booking and a structure built for local search and readable for AI. Barely three weeks after launch, the salon came up as one of the suggestions in Google’s AI answer to a search for a good hairdresser near Vaksala torg. AI answers vary between users and over time, so this is an observation on a single occasion, not a guarantee, and we cannot say exactly what decided it.

How do you measure whether it works?

1. Search Console. The Generative AI performance report (Search) shows impressions, meaning how many times links to your site were shown in AI Overviews and AI Mode, by page, country, device and date. It has been available for all websites since 31 August 2026, but may be missing if your site has had too few impressions in these features. According to Google, clicks from AI features are counted in the regular Performance report, under the Web search type.

2. Analytics. Look for visits from sites such as chatgpt.com and perplexity.ai. Expect the figure to be on the low side: a visit that carries no information about where the visitor came from is counted as direct traffic, even if the click came from an AI service.

3. Monthly spot checks. Ask the AI services the same questions and compare with the previous month, using the method in How your business shows up in ChatGPT.

4. Ask your customers. “How did you find us?” at booking or on the first call catches what no report sees.

Do it yourself or get help?

You can do a lot yourself: the spot checks in step 1, the copy in step 3, the details in step 4, the questions in step 5 and the monthly follow-up. Help usually pays off where things get technical or time-consuming: robots.txt, CDN settings and structured data, correcting conflicting details in directories, and following up over time.

If you hire someone, ask four questions:

  • What exactly is delivered, and when?
  • How is it measured, and who sees the figures?
  • Do you promise a guaranteed place in AI answers? The right answer is no.
  • Who owns the accounts, the website and the content if the work ends?

Pay for the work, not the label, whether it is called AI SEO, GEO or AEO.

What does AI SEO cost at Synlighetsverket?

We have no separate price for AI visibility. The foundation is included in the Basic (SEK 995 a month), Plus (SEK 1,995 a month) and Premium (SEK 2,995 a month) subscriptions, all excl. VAT, and Premium includes extended local SEO and AI optimisation. There is no setup fee and no lock-in. See our pricing for what each package includes, and AI visibility on our services page for what the work involves.

You can see what it looks like in practice in our case study on rebuilding our own parent company’s site. If you first want to see where your business stands, SynlighetsTEMPEN is a free tool that gives a preliminary assessment of your business’s digital visibility in a few minutes.

No serious provider can promise that you will appear in AI answers, and we make no such promise either. What we can do is make sure your business is easy to find, understand and recommend.

Guides for each AI service

Frequently asked questions

What is AI SEO?

AI SEO usually means the work of making a business visible in AI answers from ChatGPT, Perplexity and Google’s AI Overviews, and is then also called GEO or AEO. Sometimes it means using AI tools for SEO work instead, for example for keyword ideas and drafts. They are two different things with the same name.

What is the difference between AI SEO and regular SEO?

The foundation is the same: a clear, indexed website with correct details, and the same details everywhere else your business appears. The difference is where you show up: with regular SEO in the list of search results, with AI SEO in the answer an AI writes. There is more on the difference in GEO vs SEO.

How does AI affect SEO?

AI changes how answers are shown, because Google, ChatGPT and Perplexity can reply with their own summary and a few sources instead of a list of links. The foundation does not change: Google says its SEO best practices continue to be relevant, because its generative AI features in Search are rooted in the same ranking and quality systems (as of October 2026).

How long does it take to appear in AI answers?

There is no fixed answer. According to OpenAI and Perplexity, a robots.txt change takes effect within about a day, and Google says crawling can take anywhere from a few days to a few weeks. What is already in a language model’s training data only changes with new model versions, and no one can guarantee when or whether a business is mentioned.

How can I see whether my business appears in AI answers?

For Google, Search Console has a generative AI performance report showing how often links to your site have been shown in AI Overviews and AI Mode. For other services, run your own monthly spot checks, as we describe in How your business shows up in ChatGPT, and look for visits from sites such as chatgpt.com and perplexity.ai in your analytics.

Do I need an llms.txt file?

No, it is not a requirement. llms.txt is a proposal, not a standard, and Google says such a file will neither harm nor help your visibility in Google Search. We have not found documentation from OpenAI, Anthropic or Perplexity saying their search services read it (as of October 2026).

Can anyone guarantee that my business is mentioned in AI answers?

No. AI answers vary between users and over time, and Google, for example, says that neither indexing nor serving in its AI features is guaranteed. What you can do is make sure your business is easy to find, understand and describe correctly.

How much does AI SEO cost?

At Synlighetsverket there is no separate price: the foundation for AI visibility is included in the Basic (SEK 995 a month), Plus (SEK 1,995 a month) and Premium (SEK 2,995 a month) subscriptions, all excl. VAT, and Premium includes extended local SEO and AI optimisation. See our pricing for what each package includes.

Sources

All web pages read on 17 October 2026. The details on crawlers, Search Console and Cloudflare reflect the situation in October 2026 and may change.