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All capabilities · Search & AI visibility

Get a brand cited in AI answers (GEO / AEO)

Find the prompts buyers ask ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity and Google's AI Overviews, track whether and how the brand is cited, then reshape content, sources and crawler access so it is the answer — and report share of voice over time.

~30 focused hoursintermediate
Explore 5 tools for this project
Market relevance

Which roles ask for this — and how often

Share of job postings in India, per role, that name this capability.

AI Search Optimization Specialist100%
What employers mean

You should be able to…

  1. Build a prompt set from real buyer questions, grouped by intent, that the brand should be cited for
  2. Run the prompt set across ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, Copilot and Google AI Overviews and record mentions, citations and which sources each engine used
  3. Report share of voice and citation share against named competitors, per engine, over time
  4. Find the third-party sources engines lean on (review sites, directories, publications, forums) and plan how to earn a place on them
  5. Restructure pages so they can be quoted: answer-first openings, self-contained sections, question-shaped headings, clear facts and dates
  6. Set and document crawler policy for OAI-SearchBot, GPTBot, ClaudeBot, PerplexityBot and Google-Extended, and know which bots affect search versus training
  7. Keep brand facts consistent across the website, Google Business Profile, LinkedIn and directories
  8. Read AI citation data where engines provide it, such as Bing Webmaster Tools' AI Performance report

Needs first: Explain how LLMs work and where they fail, Run technical and on-page SEO for a website

Learn — free, link-checked

The few resources that matter

Read · beginner · 15 min · developers.openai.com

Overview of OpenAI Crawlers

Why OAI-SearchBot (ChatGPT search), GPTBot (training) and ChatGPT-User are controlled separately — so you can block training without vanishing from ChatGPT answers. — OpenAI
Read · beginner · 15 min · blogs.bing.com

Introducing AI Performance in Bing Webmaster Tools Public Preview

The first first-party citation report from an AI engine: total citations, cited pages and grounding queries for Copilot and Bing AI answers, plus Microsoft's own advice on earning citations. — Microsoft Bing Webmaster team
Read · beginner · 15 min · llmstxt.org

The /llms.txt file

The llms.txt format several AEO postings ask for, from its author — read it alongside Google's note that no AI text file is needed, so you can explain what it does and does not promise. — Jeremy Howard
Read · beginner · 20 min · developers.google.com

AI features and your website (AI Overviews and AI Mode)

Google's position on AI Overviews and AI Mode: no special files or markup required, which controls (nosnippet, Google-Extended) apply, and where the traffic shows in Search Console — the baseline to argue from. — Google Search Central
Read · intermediate · 60 min · arxiv.org

GEO: Generative Engine Optimization (KDD 2024)

The paper that introduced GEO: a benchmark and measured visibility gains from content changes that differ by domain — the method behind treating AEO as experiments rather than a fixed playbook. — Aggarwal, Murahari, Rajpurohit, Kalyan, Narasimhan, Deshpande
Tools for practice

Choose a tool for the job

Start with one tool for each part of your project. You don’t need to learn them all.

Go to the practice brief

5 tools to explore

HubSpot AI Search Grader

Monitor

Get a one-off read of how ChatGPT, Perplexity and Gemini describe a brand — sentiment, share of voice and competitive position — to compare with your own prompt tracking.

Free

A one-off analysis needs no account; ongoing monitoring is a separate paid HubSpot product.

Visit tool

Bing Webmaster Tools

Monitor

Verify a site for Bing, submit sitemaps, and read the AI Performance report of how often its pages are cited in Copilot and Bing AI answers.

Visit toolGetting started

Google Search Console

Monitor · Test

Verify a site you own, inspect why a URL is or is not indexed, and track impressions, clicks and structured data issues from Google Search.

Visit toolGetting started

Google Sheets

Data · Plan & explain

Build a scoring sheet, clean a small dataset or make assumptions visible in a simple model.

Visit toolGetting started

Practices & references

Selected for practice by RoleGPS. No paid placements or affiliate links.
Access can change; check the details before starting.

Think your tool is a good fit? Let us know

Practice

AI visibility audit and share-of-voice tracker for a consumer brand

Pick an Indian D2C brand and three competitors in one category, and write a 30-prompt set of real buyer questions grouped by intent. Run every prompt in ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini and Google Search (noting any AI Overview) on three separate days, logging in a sheet whether each brand is mentioned or cited, its position and the source domains each engine used. Compute share of voice per engine, compare it with a HubSpot AI Search Grader run, review the brand site's robots.txt for AI crawlers, and write a recommendations memo covering on-page fixes, off-site sources to earn and crawler policy. Apply the on-page changes to a page on your own site and track what Bing Webmaster Tools' AI Performance report shows.

Start from

A brand and three competitors you choose, a 30-prompt set you write, and answers you collect from free ChatGPT, Perplexity and Gemini accounts and Google Search

Milestones
  1. Choose the brand and three competitors and write a 30-prompt set grouped by intent (discovery, comparison, problem, brand) · ~4h
  2. Run the prompt set on four engines on three separate days and log mention, citation, position and cited domains in a sheet · ~7h
  3. Compute share of voice and citation share per engine, list the top cited source domains and compare with an AI Search Grader run · ~6h
  4. Audit the brand site's robots.txt for AI crawlers, its answer-ready page structure and its presence on the top cited sources; write the recommendations memo · ~6.5h
  5. Rewrite one page on your own site answer-first, check its crawler access and track Bing AI Performance and Search Console for it · ~5h
Done when
  • The tracking sheet has 30 prompts × 4 engines × 3 runs with mention, citation, position and cited domains for all four brands
  • Share of voice is reported per engine with run-to-run variation shown, not as a single number
  • The memo names at least five specific actions, each tied to evidence in the sheet (a missing source, an uncited page, a crawler rule)
  • The robots.txt review states for each of OAI-SearchBot, GPTBot, ClaudeBot, PerplexityBot and Google-Extended whether it is allowed and what that controls
Prove it

Evidence a recruiter can check

  • The tracking sheet (30 prompts × 4 engines × 3 runs) with share-of-voice and citation-share charts per engine
  • A top-cited-sources table showing which domains each engine relied on for the category, and where the brand is absent
  • The recommendations memo, each action linked to the rows of evidence behind it
  • A crawler-policy table for the brand site covering search bots versus training bots, with the robots.txt lines quoted
  • Before/after of the page you rewrote answer-first, with its Bing AI Performance or Search Console data
Signal it

Measured a D2C brand's share of voice across ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini and Google AI Overviews on a 30-prompt set against three competitors, traced which sources each engine cited, and turned it into an evidence-backed AEO action plan.

Interview

Questions you'll get asked

  1. How would you build a prompt set for a brand? How many prompts, which intents, and how do you keep it stable over time?
  2. AI answers change between runs. How do you measure share of voice so the number means something?
  3. If we block GPTBot in robots.txt, do we disappear from ChatGPT search? Which bot actually controls that?
  4. Google says no special optimisation is needed for AI Overviews. So what does an AEO specialist actually change?
  5. A competitor is cited by Perplexity for our main category prompt and we are not. How do you find out why?
  6. Should we publish an llms.txt file? What would you expect it to do, and what would you not promise?
  7. How do you connect AI visibility work to signups or revenue for leadership?
  8. Which off-site sources would you prioritise for a B2B SaaS brand versus a D2C skincare brand, and why?
See where you stand for AI Search Optimization Specialist