Specialist, generalist, or leave it alone.
If your buyers are starting to research on AI, you have three real choices: keep the SEO agency you already have, do nothing new, or bring in someone who works AI citations specifically. This is a genuine comparison of all three, not a pitch wearing the shape of one.
What each option actually does.
The rows below are meant to be checkable, not persuasive. Where a column is weaker, it says so.
| Question | Specialist AEO agency | General SEO agency | Doing nothing |
|---|---|---|---|
| What it optimises for | Being cited in ChatGPT, Perplexity, Claude, Gemini and Google AI Overviews | Google search ranking position | No change to current visibility |
| Typical AU monthly cost | $2,400 to $5,000+, depending on scope | $1,500 to $5,000+ for a retainer | No direct cost |
| Touches AI citations directly | Yes, this is the core deliverable | Sometimes, as a side effect, and rarely measured | No |
| Touches Google ranking | Some overlap at crawl, index and structure, but not the core deliverable | Yes, this is the core deliverable | No |
| How results are measured | Citation audits across named engines, with prompt coverage tracked over time | Rank tracking, backlink reports, organic traffic | Not measured |
| Risk if AI-assisted buyer research keeps growing | Low. Already positioned for it | Medium. Depends on incidental overlap, not on anything designed for it | High. A growing channel goes unmeasured and unmanaged |
One caveat this table would be dishonest without: AI referral traffic is still a small share of most companies’ total traffic today. The case for acting now is not that AI answers already dominate buying. It is that presence in the answer is a growing, increasingly measurable channel, and it is cheaper to be early than to catch up once the category fills in. If someone quotes you a large AI traffic number, check it against your own analytics before you believe it.
The honest version of who should pick what.
A specialist AEO agency
This fits when your technical SEO fundamentals are already in reasonable shape, meaning a crawlable site and a decent Google presence, and you want a second, engine-specific effort layered on top. It does not replace an SEO agency. It overlaps only at the technical foundation, not at ranking-position work. If your site still cannot be crawled or indexed properly, that gets fixed first, and an AEO engagement on its own is premature.
A general SEO agency
This fits when Google ranking position is still the primary problem, or when you have no technical SEO foundation yet at all. Worth being honest that most SEO retainers do not measure AI citations right now. A company relying only on this has no read on whether it shows up in ChatGPT or Perplexity answers. That is not a failure of the agency. It sits outside what the retainer is built to report on.
Doing nothing
This is genuinely fine in the short term for companies with a longer sales cycle, where buyers lean on existing relationships or formal RFPs rather than open research. It gets riskier the more your buyers do independent research before they ever talk to sales. The right time to revisit it is when you start hearing prospects mention things they found without you in the room.
Straight answers.
Do I need to replace my SEO agency to work with an AEO specialist?
No. They are different deliverables. An AEO specialist works on how you show up in AI answers; an SEO agency works on how you rank in search. The two overlap only at the technical foundation, such as crawlability and page structure, so there is no conflict in scope.
How do I know if AI-assisted research already matters for my buyers?
A starting signal is your own analytics. Check whether chatgpt.com or perplexity.ai show up as referrers. That only catches the cases where someone clicked a citation, not the larger share of AI answers that shape a buyer’s shortlist without ever producing a click, so read it as a floor rather than the full picture.
What happens if I do nothing?
In the short term, often not much. AI referral traffic is still a small share of most companies’ total traffic. The channel is growing and the category is not yet heavily contested, so acting early costs less than acting once it is crowded. The risk rises the more your buyers research independently before they ever contact sales.