🍁 GEO & AEO Services
Be the Business AI Recommends
Not the One It Never Mentions
When someone asks ChatGPT, Gemini, or Google’s AI Overviews for a recommendation in your industry, will your business be the answer?
Rank Maple’s GEO & AEO services make sure it is.
43%
of online shoppers used an AI assistant for product research in the past 90 days
L.E.K. Consulting, 2026
48%
of Google searches now trigger an AI Overview before a single blue link appears
BrightEdge, Feb 2026
Early
Mover advantage window most Toronto businesses are optimizing for neither GEO nor AEO yet
Rank Maple market analysis
Two New Rules of Visibility
Most Businesses Are Following Neither
The New Frontier
GEO — Generative Engine Optimization
Positioning your business to be cited, quoted, and recommended by AI chat tools ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude, and Perplexity. When they generate answers about your industry. It’s not about ranking on a page anymore; it’s about becoming a source these models actually pull from and trust enough to name.
The Instant Answer
AEO — Answer Engine Optimization
Structuring your content so it gets pulled directly into Google’s AI Overviews, featured snippets, and voice assistant answers – the “instant answer” that appears before a searcher ever clicks a link. If your content isn’t structured for extraction, it doesn’t matter how good it is; the answer engine simply skips it.
Why Now
Search Isn’t Just Google Anymore &
Neither Is Your Competition
For twenty years, “getting found online” meant ranking on Google. That’s no longer the whole picture. ChatGPT alone has roughly 800 million weekly active users, Gemini has crossed 900 million monthly users, and Perplexity has built an entire product around answering questions directly instead of listing links. These aren’t niche tools anymore. They’re search engines with hundreds of millions of people asking them exactly the kind of questions your business should be answering: “best plumber near me,” “which accounting firm handles small business taxes in the GTA,” “top-rated dentist in North York.”
The uncomfortable part: when someone gets a single AI-generated answer instead of ten results to compare, there’s no “page two” to fall back to. You’re either the business the model names, or you’re invisible to that customer entirely, and they never even see that you existed as an option.
Your competitor gets recommended and you don’t
Even though your business, your reviews, and your service are just as good. AI models cite based on structured, citable content, not on who deserves it more.
Traditional SEO wins don’t carry over automatically.
Ranking #1 on Google doesn’t guarantee ChatGPT or Perplexity will mention you. These systems pull from different signals, and most businesses have never structured their content for them.
Fewer clicks are reaching your website at all.
AI Overviews already trigger on roughly 48% of Google searches, and click-through rates drop sharply whenever one appears. Some studies put the decline as high as 34–61%. The traffic that used to land on your site is increasingly staying inside the AI answer instead.
You have no idea what AI tools are currently saying about your business
Whether they’re saying anything at all. Most business owners have never actually asked ChatGPT, “Who’s the best [your industry] in Toronto?” to see if their own name comes up.
The window to build authority here is still open.
Because GEO and AEO are new, the businesses building citation-worthy content and structured data now are establishing a position competitors will find far more expensive to catch up to once the space matures and gets crowded.
The Shift, In Plain Numbers
How People Search Has Changed
Even in the Last Two Years
Metric |
Then |
Now (2026) |
|---|---|---|
|
Where AI-tool users start purchase research |
25% start on a standalone AI platform (2024) |
46% start on a standalone AI platform |
|
Google searches that show an AI Overview |
13% of desktop queries (2025) |
48% of all queries |
|
Click-through when an AI Overview appears |
Full click-through to results |
Drops 34–61% depending on query type |
|
Consumers whose brand trust is shaped by AI answers |
Minimal influence |
47% say AI now influences which brands they trust |
Our Process
How We Get You Cited, Recommended &
Featured
01
AI Visibility Audit
We test how ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, and Google AI Overviews currently describe or completely ignore your business, so we know exactly where the gaps are before touching anything.
02
Brand Entity Optimization
Consistent business naming, structured data, and accurate information everywhere you appear online, so AI models stop confusing you with a similarly named competitor or an outdated listing.
03
Authority Content
In-depth, genuinely useful content that AI models are more likely to pull from and cite for your industry and your service area, not thin pages stuffed with keywords, which these systems are increasingly good at ignoring.
04
Schema Implementation
FAQ, Organization, Service, and Review schema are the structured signals AI systems use to confidently extract facts about your business instead of guessing.
05
Digital PR & Mentions
Coverage and mentions in sources AI models treat as credible, citable references, building the kind of third-party validation these systems weigh heavily.
06
Ongoing Monitoring
Continuous testing across platforms as models, algorithms, and training data evolve, GEO/AEO isn’t a one-time setup, since these systems update far more often than a traditional Google index.
What’s Included
Every GEO & AEO Engagement Includes
→AI visibility benchmarking across ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity & Google AI Overviews
→Brand entity & knowledge panel optimization
→FAQ-structured, answer-ready content creation
→Schema markup implementation (FAQPage, Organization, Service, Review)
→Authority mention building & digital PR outreach
→Monthly AI citation tracking & reporting
→Integration with your existing Local SEO strategy, GEO/AEO works best layered on a strong local foundation, not in isolation
FAQ