Case study: Gumlet turned ChatGPT mentions into 20% of inbound revenue. Read it →
Moment 05 · Agency gap
Your SEO agency said they “do AI search.” Then nothing happened.
You hired an SEO agency 6–18 months ago. The Google work is mostly fine. Then in the past few months you started seeing the gap. A competitor showed up in ChatGPT and you didn’t. A customer mentioned they found your competitor through Perplexity. Your CEO asked about AI search and your agency said “we’re handling it.” Three months later, nothing’s changed. This page is for that moment.
★★★★★
5.0 on Clutch · Proven on Gumlet, REsimpli, Verito
In your report
- Keyword rankings
- Organic traffic
- MQLs from blog
- Backlinks acquired
- Schema implemented
Not in your report
- AI citation tracking
- AVS score over time
- Prompt-mapping
- Entity work beyond schema
- AI-source pipeline
The agency renamed the service. The work didn’t change.
The “we do AI search now” problem
The agency renamed the service. The work didn’t change.
A lot of SEO agencies in 2026 added “AI search” to their service pages without changing how they work. The work still looks like SEO: more blog posts, more backlinks, more on-page optimization. The reports still look like SEO: keyword rankings, traffic, MQLs. The methodology still looks like SEO: keyword research, content briefs, link building.
There’s no separate AI citation tracking. No AVS measurement. No prompt-mapping. No entity work outside of basic schema. No third-party citation strategy specific to LLM source diversity. No pipeline attribution to AI sources.
This isn’t malicious. SEO and GEO share enough signals that an agency can plausibly claim to do both. But the work that produces AI citations is structurally different from the work that produces Google rankings, and most SEO agencies haven’t built the second skillset.
Six tests for your current agency
Run these six tests before deciding what to do.
You can do this without telling them. The answers will be obvious from existing deliverables. If your agency fails 3 or more tests, they’re doing SEO and calling it GEO.
1
Do they track AI citations?
Show me the AI citation report for the last 30 days.
Real GEO
Bi-weekly tracking of specific buyer prompts across ChatGPT, Perplexity, Claude, Gemini.
Rebranded SEO
The report doesn’t exist, or you get generic AI search trend data with no client tracking.
2
Do they measure AVS or an equivalent?
What’s our AI Visibility Score, or the metric you use to track AI search presence?
Real GEO
A scored metric tracked over time, benchmarked against named competitors.
Rebranded SEO
“We don’t have a specific metric for that.” Citation tracking without a score is just a list.
3
Do they know how ChatGPT and Perplexity differ?
Why might we be cited in ChatGPT but not Perplexity for the same prompt?
Real GEO
Specifics: different source weighting, recency requirements, schema sensitivity, definitional anchoring.
Rebranded SEO
A vague answer about “different algorithms.”
4
Is there entity work beyond schema?
What’s our entity optimization plan?
Real GEO
Crunchbase, Wikipedia, founder profiles, knowledge panels, G2 and Capterra listings, consistency layer.
Rebranded SEO
“We added FAQ schema.” That’s 10% of the work.
5
Can they attribute pipeline to AI sources?
Show me the pipeline attribution report for AI-sourced sessions.
Real GEO
GA4 custom segments for AI referrers, tracked through to conversion in your CRM.
Rebranded SEO
“AI traffic is hard to track.” True, but it’s their job to solve it.
6
Do they have AI-specific case studies?
Can I see a case study where AI citation lift was the primary outcome?
Real GEO
Published case studies with specific AI metrics: citation count, AVS lift, AI-sourced pipeline.
Rebranded SEO
SEO case studies with AI added to the conclusion as a side effect.
The scorecard: If your agency fails 3 or more tests, they’re not doing GEO. They’re doing SEO and calling it GEO. The next section is what you do about it.
What we do differently
The five things that actually move AVS.
We’re not the right fit for every situation. Sometimes the answer is to keep your existing agency for Google work and add a specialist GEO partner. Sometimes the answer is to replace. Here’s what we do that creates the difference.
Bi-weekly AI citation tracking across all four LLMs.
We run 50–80 ICP buyer prompts through ChatGPT, Perplexity, Claude, and Gemini in incognito, manually, and score brand presence, link presence, and contextual recommendation. This becomes your AVS.
Citation Engineering as a defined methodology, not a buzzword.
We’ve published our methodology publicly. Five levers: entity clarity, authoritative coverage, third-party corroboration, result documentation, structured parsability. Every engagement maps to specific work in each lever.
GA4 pipeline attribution to AI sources.
Custom segments for ChatGPT, Perplexity, Claude, Gemini, and Google AI Overviews. UTM standards and referrer cleanup so AI traffic stops getting buried in Direct. CRM pipeline tagging so AI-sourced deals can be tracked through close.
Third-party citation building, not backlinks.
Most SEO agencies treat third-party work as backlink acquisition. We treat it as citation source-building. The placements we pursue are the ones LLMs preferentially cite: industry publications, named author bylines, podcast transcripts, Reddit threads, G2 and Capterra category authority.
Founder-led engagement.
Apoorv and Shivanshi are on every engagement directly. There’s no account manager between you and the work. The people on the discovery call are the people doing your AVS audits, building your citation architecture, and writing your content.
The two paths forward
Replace, or augment. We’ll tell you which.
The engagement structure depends on what’s already working and what’s broken. Both paths are common.
1
Path 01 · Replace
Take over both Google and AI work.
Your current agency isn’t producing Google results either, or the Google results are good but the contract makes replacement worth it. We take over both Google and AI search work in one engagement.
Recommended package: usually Own Your Category $7K/mo or Market Leader $12K/mo, depending on stage.
2
Path 02 · Augment
Add a specialist GEO partner alongside.
Your current SEO agency is producing reasonable Google results. The gap is specifically in AI search. We work alongside them, focused exclusively on the GEO layer: entity work, citation engineering, AVS tracking, AI-source pipeline attribution.
Recommended package: Own Your Category $7K/mo, focused on GEO-only scope.
About 60% of our engagements in this moment are Replace. The remaining 40% are Augment.
What the transition looks like
The first 30 days, week by week.
If you’re switching from an existing SEO agency to us, here’s how the handoff actually runs.
1
Week 1
Audit and asset handoff.
We audit the work your existing agency has done. What rankings have moved, what content has been produced, what backlinks have been built, what schema has been implemented. This gives us a baseline and identifies the foundation we can build on vs the foundation we need to rebuild.
2
Week 2
AVS baseline and gap mapping.
We run your AVS baseline against 50–80 ICP prompts. We map the gap between where you are and where you should be in AI search specifically. This is usually the first time you’ve seen this data, because your existing agency hasn’t been tracking it.
3
Week 3
Transition strategy and 90-day plan.
We build the 90-day plan that gets you from where you are to where you should be. Work to continue (existing rankings worth maintaining), work to add (the GEO layer your existing agency wasn’t doing), and work to fix (anything that’s actively hurting AI visibility).
4
Week 4
Execution begins.
By week 4, the new engagement is shipping work. New content, entity fixes, third-party citation outreach, GA4 setup, citation tracking infrastructure. By day 30, you have a clear picture of what was working, what wasn’t, and what the next 60 days will look like.
The proof point for this moment
14 months of nothing. Then 22 AVS points in 60 days.
The fastest transition we’ve run: a B2B SaaS client at Series B with an SEO agency for 14 months and no AI search work. We took over, baselined AVS at day 1, and here’s what happened.
B2B SaaS · Series B · 14 months with previous SEO agency
Day 1
0
AVS lift (baseline locked)
Day 60
+22
AVS points above baseline
Day 90
4%
of demos showing AI source attribution
The pattern is consistent across replace engagements.
The previous agency was producing fine SEO work but had no GEO infrastructure. We add the GEO layer, and within 90 days, AI citations start lifting visibly. By month 6, AI-sourced pipeline becomes a defensible line item in the marketing report.
Questions we get
Frequently asked.
The five questions every marketing leader looking to switch or augment agencies asks us. Honest answers, not pitch answers.
Ask your own questionNo. Talk to us first. About 40% of our engagements work alongside the existing SEO agency. We’ll tell you honestly whether replacement makes sense or whether you should keep them for Google and add us for GEO.
Fast firing decisions usually hurt clients more than they help.
Run the six tests above. If they pass 5–6, they probably can. If they pass 3–4, they’re learning and will be 6–12 months behind a specialist. If they pass 0–2, they’re rebranding traditional SEO.
The tests are the diagnostic. The answer is in the tests.
This usually goes better than expected. Most agencies know AI search is a gap they haven’t filled. If you’re augmenting, the conversation is “we’re bringing in a GEO specialist; here’s how the two engagements coordinate.” If you’re replacing, it’s “we’re moving in a different direction; thanks for the work.”
Both conversations are professional. We’ve coordinated with the previous agency in 80% of transition cases.
We can start work in parallel during their contract wind-down. Most clients run 30–60 days of overlap so the transition is clean.
The first 30 days of our engagement is audit and planning anyway, which doesn’t conflict with the existing agency’s execution.
Read our published methodology at the Citation Engineering framework, our case studies with specific AI metrics, and the 2026 AI Visibility Benchmark Report, the only published research of its kind scoring 50 B2B SaaS companies on AI visibility.
The work is documented. You can evaluate it against the six tests above.
What happens next
Send us your domain. We’ll show you the 3 gaps your current agency is missing.
We’ll run your domain through our AI Visibility Checker live, identify the 3 specific GEO gaps your current agency isn’t addressing, and tell you honestly whether replacement or augmentation makes more sense for your situation.