What Do AI SEO Services Include? A Checklist for 2026

AI SEO services are paid work to get a brand found, cited and recommended in AI-generated answers: Google's AI Overviews and AI Mode, ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, Copilot and Claude.

The same services go by many names. Across the 18 firms in our AI SEO agency comparison, the work was sold as GEO, AEO, AI SEO, AI search optimization, SAIO, LLM SEO, Relevance Engineering and Information Gain SEO. One more warning before you compare quotes: "AI SEO" also names software that uses AI to write or optimize pages. This checklist is about the service, the work done to change what AI answers say about you.

A full AI SEO services list has seven parts, and a program can include all of them or only a few, so use this list to see what a proposal covers and what it leaves out:

Two parts deserve the closest look. The baseline needs repeated runs, because AI answers change from one run to the next: when ChatGPT answered the same question twice in our study of where ChatGPT gets its information, only 40% of the sites cited across the two answers were cited in both, for the median question. And the off-site work matters because AI answers lean on other people's pages: across 100 buyer questions in our four-industry comparison, only 31% of the sites ChatGPT cited ranked in Google's top ten for the same question.

Fan-out research is the newest line. Google says AI Overviews and AI Mode may use a query fan-out technique, issuing multiple related searches across subtopics and data sources to build a response. ChatGPT also searches before it answers: all five of its answers about AI SEO services on November 5, 2026 ran at least one web search, such as "AI SEO services what they include agencies tools 2026". Our guide to query fan-out explains how the technique works. For reporting, Google's own Generative AI performance report in Search Console, which Google says had rolled out to all websites as of August 31, 2026, shows how often AI Overviews and AI Mode link to your pages, for free. Google's newer guide also says a site must be included in Search generative AI features in Search Console to be eligible for those features at all, so that setting belongs on the technical checklist.

AI SEO packages bundle these services in three ways, priced by the audit, by the month or by the number of tracked prompts:

• Audit first. A one-off audit sets the scope and price of the work that follows. Ask whether its fee is credited against the program.
• Monthly retainer. The usual model, with tiers that add services as the price rises. One B2B agency lists six tiers from $3,000 to $15,000 a month, and our review of 18 AI SEO agencies found retainers from about $3,000 to more than $50,000 a month where prices were published.
• Per-prompt plan. Productized offers charge by the number of buyer questions they track and the tasks they complete each month, such as one provider's $499 a month for 40 prompts up to $1,999 for 150.

The price depends far more on the off-site work and content volume in the package than on the measurement, which most tracking tools now sell from under $100 a month. Our full breakdown of how much AI SEO costs covers each model, and our own AI SEO services start at $7,500 a month after a $750 audit.

AI SEO services should not include promises or busywork that Google and OpenAI say don't matter, and five items in proposals deserve a hard question:

• Guaranteed placement. OpenAI says placement in ChatGPT search is not guaranteed, and Google says using a service or tool doesn't guarantee ranking success. A fee guarantee tied to tracked prompts is a different thing; ask who picks the prompts.
• llms.txt and "AI markup" as must-haves. Google's guide to generative AI search says you don't need new machine-readable files, AI text files, markup or Markdown to appear in Google Search, including its AI features, because Google Search doesn't use them. Other AI services may read them, so they are optional, not the core of the job.
• Chunking every page. The same guide says there's no requirement to break content into tiny pieces for AI to understand it.
• A page for every query variation. Google's guide warns that creating separate content for every variation of a search, fan-out searches included, primarily to manipulate rankings or AI answers violates its scaled content abuse policy. A few strong pages beat hundreds of thin ones.
• Blocking the wrong crawler. Sites that block OAI-SearchBot are not shown in ChatGPT search answers, while blocking GPTBot only opts out of model training. On Google, the Google-Extended setting doesn't affect inclusion in Google Search at all.

There are AI tools that can do parts of SEO, but no AI can do the parts of AI SEO services that need judgment or other people's websites.

AI tools can draft and edit pages, group keywords, audit a site for technical problems and check what ChatGPT says about you; a growing set of ChatGPT SEO tracking tools does that last job every day. They can't decide how your company should be described, earn a place on a ranked list or a review site, or tell you which of your claims a buyer will believe. Google's guide adds a condition for AI-written pages: if you use generative AI tools to help create content, the work still has to meet Google's Search Essentials and spam policies.

SEO for AI is called GEO (generative engine optimization), AEO (answer engine optimization), LLM SEO or AI SEO, depending on who is selling it, and the work behind the names overlaps almost completely.

Google's view is that the label doesn't change the job. Its guide to generative AI search says that from Google Search's perspective, optimizing for generative AI search is optimizing for the search experience, and thus still SEO. What a provider adds under any of these names is the measurement in AI answers and the extra off-site work. Our explainer on what a GEO agency does covers the agency side of the same question.

These AI SEO services FAQs cover which platforms to include, one-time projects, SEO and timing.

Which AI platforms should AI SEO services cover?

AI SEO services should cover the AI platforms your buyers use. Start with Google's AI Overviews and AI Mode, since Search Console reports your impressions there for free, and ChatGPT, then add Gemini, Perplexity, Copilot and Claude as your buyers turn to them.

Can I buy AI SEO services as a one-time project?

You can buy some AI SEO services as a one-time project: an audit, a technical fix list or a set of new pages. The off-site work and the remeasurement take months, so a one-off project tells you where you stand and fixes what you own, while a retainer covers the rest.

Do AI SEO services replace SEO?

AI SEO services don't replace SEO, because Google says the same SEO best practices apply to its AI features, and ChatGPT searched the web before every answer in our November 2026 test. Whether you need a separate provider at all is a separate question, covered in our guide to whether you need a GEO agency.

How long do AI SEO services take to show results?

How long AI SEO services take to show results is the least proven claim in this market. The agency pages we read in October 2026 quoted anything from four to eight weeks to three to six months, and none said how they measured it. We remeasure at 60 to 90 days, against the same questions measured the same way.

• Google Search Central: AI features and your website
• Google Search Central: Optimizing your website for generative AI features on Google Search
• Google Search Central: Spam policies for Google web search (scaled content abuse)
• Google Search Central: Guidance on third-party SEO tools and advice
• Search Console Help: Generative AI performance report
• OpenAI Help Center: Searching the web with ChatGPT
• OpenAI: Overview of OpenAI crawlers
• Google Crawling Infrastructure: Google's common crawlers (Google-Extended)

To see which AI SEO services your brand needs before you buy a program, start with the Category Salience Brief: your buyers' questions run across Google and the main AI surfaces, your competitors side by side, and a ranked list of what to fix first. It costs $750, credited in full against an engagement signed within 60 days.