What is AEO (Answer Engine Optimization)?

AEO is the practice of optimizing your brand's presence in AI-powered answer engines like ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity, and Google AI Overview. Unlike traditional SEO which focuses on search engine rankings, AEO focuses on how AI systems talk about, recommend, and represent your brand when users ask questions.

How is AEO different from SEO?

SEO optimizes for search engine rankings and click-through rates. AEO optimizes for AI visibility and sentiment. With AEO, you're not competing for a link on page one—you're competing to be mentioned, recommended, or cited when AI answers a user's question. Both are important, but AEO addresses a new channel that's growing rapidly.

Which AI platforms does AEO Copilot track?

AEO Copilot tracks your brand's visibility across ChatGPT (OpenAI), Claude (Anthropic), Perplexity, and Google AI Overview. These are the four major AI platforms where users ask questions and expect recommendations.

How often is the data refreshed?

You can refresh data manually at any time with a single click. Automated scheduling is available on paid plans — weekly, bi-monthly, or monthly depending on your plan. Each run re-queries all your prompts across the selected AI platforms and updates your dashboard with fresh results.

Can I track competitors?

Yes. When you set up a brand in AEO Copilot, you can add up to 10 competitors. The platform then tracks how often competitors are mentioned alongside your brand in AI responses — giving you a clear picture of your relative visibility.

Do I need technical skills to use AEO Copilot?

No. AEO Copilot is designed for freelancers and small agencies — not engineers. You enter your brand name, competitors, and topics. The platform handles all API calls, analysis, and reporting. Most users are set up and running their first audit within 10 minutes.

Is there a free plan?

Yes — you can start for free with no credit card required. The free plan includes one brand, ChatGPT tracking, and manual refreshes. Paid plans unlock multi-brand management, all four AI platforms, automated scheduling, team collaboration, and PDF reporting.

Can I invite my team or clients?

Yes. Team collaboration is built into AEO Copilot. You can invite teammates or clients by email and assign roles (owner, editor, viewer). This makes it easy to collaborate on brand strategy, share results, and keep everyone aligned on AI visibility performance.

How to run a technical audit in AEO Copilot

Name: AEO Copilot
Author: Sofian Bettayeb

2026-02-27 · Sofian Bettayeb

The technical audit tells you whether AI systems can actually read a site. Here's what it checks, how to run it, and what to fix first.

Before you start tracking how ChatGPT or Perplexity talks about a brand, you need to know whether AI systems can actually read the site. That's what the technical audit is for.

If you haven't set up your brand yet, start with How to create your brand on AEO Copilot first.

How to run the audit

Once you're logged in, go to the Technical section at aeo-copilot.com/technical.

Go to technical tab, on the left side of your screen
Run the scan. It takes 30–60 seconds.
You can also import a list of URLs, if your website is too big.
Get your score and see what needs to be ready for optimization.

You'll get a score out of 100 and a breakdown by category.

!The Technical page showing a score of A/90, with 100% on Structure, Crawlability, and Authority

What the audit checks

Structure

Is the site's hierarchy clear? Are internal links logical? AI systems don't browse — they map. A site with scattered, unlinked pages is harder for a model to interpret than one with a clear structure. If this fails, check whether your main pages are actually linked from the homepage or navigation.

Crawlability

Can bots reach the site? This checks robots.txt, sitemap.xml, and whether pages are set to noindex. If crawlability fails, robots.txt is usually too restrictive or there's no sitemap.

Bot accessibility

Specific to AI bots — GPTBot, ClaudeBot, PerplexityBot. Some sites block them by accident, often through robots.txt rules set up for SEO purposes that were never revisited.

Schema markup

Structured data tells machines what a page is about. Organization schema on the homepage. FAQPage schema on FAQ sections. Article schema on blog posts. Without it, AI systems guess. Most sites just haven't added it yet — it's a missing fix, not a broken one.

LLMs.txt

A file at the root of the site that tells AI crawlers what the site contains and how to use it. Most sites don't have one. Adding it takes about 10 minutes. See the full audit methodology for what to include.

Authority signals

HTTPS, proper meta tags, canonical URLs. If these fail, fix them first. They affect both SEO and AI visibility.

Readability

Is the content accessible without JavaScript rendering? Is heading structure logical — H1, then H2, then H3? JavaScript-heavy sites sometimes render nothing to a crawler. If your site is fully JS-rendered, flag it to a developer.

!Audit category cards showing Bot Accessibility, Schema Markup, Robots.txt, Sitemap, LLMs.txt all passing, and Readability at 51%

How to read the results

The audit flags issues by category. Don't try to fix everything at once.

!Pages Analysis table showing page URLs with Has Schema, Crawlable, and Bot Accessible status columns

Fix in this order:

Bot accessibility and crawlability — if AI can't reach the site, nothing else matters.
Schema markup — highest return after access is confirmed.
LLMs.txt — quick to add, direct signal to AI crawlers.
Structure and readability — these usually involve dev or content work, so they take longer.

Why this comes before topics and prompts

AEO Copilot runs on a sequence: access, then understanding, then authority, then optimization.

Topics and prompts tell you how AI talks about a brand. But if the technical layer is broken, those results aren't reliable. The model might be working from incomplete or misread content. You'd be optimizing based on a distorted picture.

Run the audit first. Fix what it flags. Then move to tracking.

Not logged in yet? Run a free audit on any URL to see what the scan covers before signing up. For a full breakdown of the methodology in an agency context, see AI visibility audit for agencies and the core guide to AI visibility tools.