Answer Engine Optimization (AEO)
Answer Engine Optimization (AEO) is the practice of optimizing your brand’s presence in AI-generated responses. While traditional SEO focuses on ranking in search engine results pages (SERPs), AEO focuses on being mentioned, recommended, or cited by AI answer engines. AEO considers factors like:- How AI models perceive your brand authority
- The quality and recency of content about your brand
- Your presence in training data and knowledge bases
- Citations and sources that reference your brand
AI Answer Engines
AI answer engines are platforms that use large language models to generate conversational responses to user queries. Unlike traditional search engines that return lists of links, answer engines provide direct answers. ChatFeatured tracks all major answer engines:| Engine | Provider | Description |
|---|---|---|
| ChatGPT | OpenAI | The most widely used conversational AI |
| Claude | Anthropic | Known for nuanced, detailed responses |
| Gemini | Google’s multimodal AI model | |
| Perplexity | Perplexity AI | AI-powered search with citations |
| Grok | xAI | Elon Musk’s AI with real-time knowledge |
| Microsoft Copilot | Microsoft | AI assistant integrated with Microsoft products |
| Google AI Mode | Google’s AI-enhanced search experience | |
| Meta AI | Meta | Meta’s AI assistant across platforms |
Organizations, Brands, and Workspaces
ChatFeatured uses a hierarchical structure to organize your data:Organizations
An organization is your top-level account. It represents your company or agency. Organizations can have multiple team members with different roles.Brands
Brands are the companies, products, or entities you want to track within an organization. Each brand has:- A primary name
- Optional aliases (alternative names, abbreviations)
- A website URL
- Its own set of prompts, competitors, and analytics
Workspaces
A workspace is the environment where you manage a brand. When you switch between brands, you’re switching workspaces.Prompts
Prompts are the questions you want to track across AI answer engines. Good prompts represent real questions your potential customers might ask AI assistants.Prompt Properties
- Text: The actual question or query
- Countries: Geographic regions to test (AI responses vary by location)
- Tags: Labels for organizing and filtering prompts
- Status: Active (running daily) or paused
Prompt Results
When a prompt runs, it generates results from each AI engine. Results include:- The full AI response
- Whether your brand was mentioned
- Competitor mentions
- Sources and citations
- Response metadata
Competitors
Competitors are other brands you want to track alongside your own. When ChatFeatured analyzes prompt results, it checks for mentions of both your brand and your competitors. This allows you to:- See which competitors appear in the same responses as you
- Identify gaps where competitors are mentioned but you aren’t
- Track relative visibility over time
Visibility Metrics
ChatFeatured provides several metrics to measure your AI visibility:Mention Rate
The percentage of prompts where your brand was mentioned. Higher is better.Sentiment
The overall tone of how AI models discuss your brand—positive, neutral, or negative.Citation Rate
How often AI responses include sources/links that reference your brand or website.Tags
Tags are labels you can apply to prompts to organize them into groups. Common tagging strategies include:- By product: “CRM”, “Analytics”, “Support”
- By funnel stage: “Awareness”, “Consideration”, “Decision”
- By topic: “Pricing”, “Features”, “Alternatives”
- By campaign: “Q1 Launch”, “Rebrand”, “New Feature”
AI Agents
AI Agents are intelligent assistants built into ChatFeatured that help you take action on your data:- AEO Agent: Analyzes your visibility data and provides recommendations for improvement
- Content Agent: Helps create optimized content based on AI visibility insights
Knowledge Base
Your Knowledge Base provides additional context about your company, brand, and products to ChatFeatured’s AI agents. This context helps agents deliver more accurate and relevant outputs—for example, during content generation, the agent uses your knowledge base to write in your brand voice and include accurate product details. You can add:- Company information and documentation
- Product details, features, and positioning
- Target audience profiles
- Brand voice and messaging guidelines
Integrations
Integrations connect ChatFeatured with other tools in your workflow:- WordPress: Publish optimized content directly to your WordPress site
- Cloudflare: Submit URLs for faster indexing