Google just made AEO/GEO official — here's how to vet a vendor

For the last couple of years, "AEO" and "GEO" — optimizing so AI assistants recommend your business — have lived in a gray area. Useful, clearly where things…

For the last couple of years, "AEO" and "GEO" — optimizing so AI assistants recommend your business — have lived in a gray area. Useful, clearly where things are heading, but not formally recognized by anyone. Plenty of small-business owners weren't sure if it was a real discipline or a buzzword someone invented to sell a service.

That's changing. Google has now publicly acknowledged answer-engine and generative-engine optimization (AEO/GEO — getting your business surfaced in AI answers, not just the old blue links) as a legitimate part of search marketing, and it has pointed to a standard for how to vet the vendors who offer it.

That second part is the one worth your attention.

How to vet an AEO/GEO vendor: the short answer

Before anyone does a single hour of work, insist on three things: a measurable baseline of where you stand today, a list of named and checkable fixes, and a specific date to measure again. If a vendor can't or won't give you all three, that's your answer. Everything below is just the detail behind that rule.

Why this matters to you

Whenever a new service gets official recognition, two things happen at once. Good practitioners get validated — and a wave of opportunists shows up selling "guaranteed AI rankings" that don't exist. A vetting standard exists precisely because that second group is predictable.

If you're an owner, this is your shield against overpaying for vague promises. If you're an agency, it's the bar you'll be measured against — and a chance to look credible while competitors are still winging it.

The one thing to do this week

Whoever you hire — or whatever you decide to do in-house — insist on a measurable baseline before any work starts. The standard leans on a simple idea: a real vendor shows you where you stand today, in plain terms, before they sell you a fix.

That means three concrete things.

A starting score or snapshot. "How often, and how accurately, do AI assistants mention us right now?" If they can't tell you where you are today, they can't prove they moved you.

Named, checkable fixes. "Add a clear services-and-areas page." "Correct your business hours across the web." "Answer the five questions customers actually ask." Not "we'll optimize your AI presence."

A re-check date. A specific time to measure again, so improvement is something you can see, not something you're told.

If a vendor resists any of these three, you've learned what you need to know. The whole point of the standard is that AI visibility should be as inspectable as a credit report — numbers you can read, steps you can verify, progress you can confirm.

The question that cuts through any sales pitch

Here's a quick gut-check that works on almost any pitch: "Show me, in plain English, what an AI assistant says about my business today and what it'll say after you're done."

Honest practitioners welcome that question. The rest get uncomfortable. You don't need to be technical to read the room — you just need to ask it and watch the reaction.

The bigger picture

Official recognition doesn't change what good work looks like. It just makes it harder to fake. The businesses that win here won't be the ones who spent the most. They'll be the ones who knew their starting point and tracked real movement from it.

So before you talk to anyone, find out where you actually stand. A clear baseline turns a confusing sales conversation into a simple one: you already know the answer to the most important question, which means no one can sell you a problem you don't have — or a fix you can't verify.