Zero-click searches hit 27.2% in the U.S. as of March 2025. That represents a massive portion of potential customers getting their answers without ever visiting a website.
This evolution presents a massive opportunity. Choosing who to work with is a critical decision when turning these behavioral and technological shifts into an advantage for your brand.
What Is an AEO Agency And Why It Matters 2026
Simply put, AEO agencies help your business get cited in AI-powered search. These agencies aim to optimize your digital footprint so that Large Language Models (LLMs) treat your brand as a trusted fact source.
Consider how potential customers search today. They don't just type keywords into a bar. They hold full conversations with LLMs like ChatGPT. If a user is using ChatGPT to find solutions to their pain points, you want the AI to recommend your brand explicitly.
AEO agencies execute the specific tactics required to achieve this visibility.
The Evolution: From SEO → AEO
Search has changed. It started with keyword-based ranking. Next came featured snippets, giving users fast answers at the top. Now it’s the AI-answer era. Tools like ChatGPT and Google Gemini pull info and give direct responses.
User behavior has evolved significantly. We moved past typing robotic strings of keywords. Now, people ask full, natural questions. Instead of "weather Paris," users ask, "What is the weather like in Paris this weekend?" This conversational shift changes everything.
Current data backs this up. 27% use voice search on mobile and that number keeps climbing. It's a massive shift in how audiences discover information.
Traditional SEO prioritizes visual rankings on a search page. You fight for clicks among blue links. AEO works differently. It ensures AI systems and chatbots view your content as the single, definitive source. You want the AI to read your site and provide your information directly to the user.
Core Services To Expect From An AEO Agency
Monitoring and tracking: Track how often your brand gets mentioned and cited in LLMs and voice assistants. It's also important to look at the accuracy of the information.
Content strategy: Target conversational queries and direct answers. Creating content that gives clear, fast answers through formats such as FAQs, comparisons, and how-to content.
Authority building: Build trust by earning brand mentions in the right locations on the web.
Top AEO Agency Options
These agencies specialize in AEO and AI-driven search. They offer specialized AEO services, and some, like Hatter, even provide tools.
Hatter AI – Tailored AEO & AI Visibility
Hatter takes a distinct approach. It started as a tech platform focused on content that trains LLMs on your business.
Jenna Hannon (Uber Eats' first marketing hire) and Peter Holc (CTO with Microsoft and Deliveroo experience) lead the team. This foundation gives Hatter advantages others lack: proprietary tools and deep technical expertise.
Clients include Runway, Swimply, Transcend, and Column Five Media.
Strengths:
Hatter's tech is key. The platform uses advanced tools that most agencies can't match for faster execution and higher-quality content and optimization.
It ingests business context, documents, and brand rules to deliver unique content with specific insights.
The platform provides real-time dashboards tracking AI visibility and SEO performance.
Case studies show clients seeing AI citation rates rise 3-5× in 90 days (see case studies).
Tradeoffs:
Hatter is best for teams who want efficiency over high-touch, manual account management.
Hatter focuses specifically on LLM training and SEO content. You should look elsewhere for broad creative advertising or offline PR campaigns.
Graphite – Advanced Analytics for Enterprise
Best for: Large tech companies or enterprises that need deep analytics and can support higher retainers.
Graphite helps tech startups and enterprises track content visibility across ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Google’s AI Overviews. They help you understand how AI models view your brand.
Industry expert Ethan Smith leads the company and teaches SEO and AEO at Reforge. Plans start at $10,000 per month. Clients include MasterClass, Notion, BetterUp, and Webflow.
Strengths:
Powerful analytics and data.
If your team can implement recommendations, Graphite gives you the insights to move fast.
Trade-offs:
Small and midsize businesses usually don’t fit their model. Self-service approach requires more in-house work.
Daydream – Tech-Focused Generative SEO & AEO
Daydream started in 2023 as a programmatic SEO agency. Retainers run $4,000 to $10,000 a month covering editorial SEO, technical optimization, and LLM-specific data structuring.
They deploy structured templates to roll out hundreds or thousands of articles for both AI and search.
Strengths:
Great for companies needing content at scale.
Trade-offs:
Price works for larger, well-funded startups. Not a small business option.
Volume strategies invite search penalties: Pumping out thousands of pages creates significant liability. Experts flag risks with pure volume play as Google can penalize it.
Established SEO Agencies Now Offering AEO
Many strong SEO and digital agencies now offer AEO as part of their core services. Most of these agencies aren’t as deep in AEO or don't have the technical expertise of the specialist providers above. Many older agencies offer AEO as a bolt-on.
Amsive
Amsive works with large clients in healthcare, finance, ecommerce, and B2B. Lily Ray, a top AI Overviews expert, leads their team. They officially rolled out AEO in June 2025.
They handle:
Technical SEO for AI (clean HTML, fast sites, crawler-friendly code)
Strategic AEO topic selection
AI-structured content
Brand citation accuracy on AI platforms
LLM share-of-voice, citation, and sentiment metrics
Strengths:
Good partner for larger companies needing a full omnichannel approach with AI search included.
Trade-offs:
Higher fees and more complex projects. AEO is one part of their bigger SEO/digital mix.
9 Clouds
9 Clouds works with midsize businesses in automotive, healthcare, manufacturing, and family niches. They combine SEO and AEO to help clients show up in both search and AI-generated responses.
Services:
Site clean-up and structure improvement
Content for SERP and AI-generated answers
Focus on organic and local visibility
Strengths:
Good for brands needing traditional SEO.
Right fit for small and midsize businesses wanting local-friendly support.
Trade-offs:
They don’t have the same AI-visibility tools or focus on content quality as the AEO specialist.
Note that some traditional agencies bill separately for content, technical work, or reporting.
How to Choose the Right AEO Agency for Your Team
Start by naming your goals. Do you want to protect your brand in AI answers? Grow your citation share in your main categories? Regain lost organic traffic as more goes to AI Overviews?
Pick a dedicated AI-first AEO agency (Hatter, Graphite, Daydream) if you need AI dashboards and a focused AEO content and playbook. Go with an agency built around LLMs and answer engines.
Where to Go from Here
Start with an audit of your current AI presence. If you’re not tracking AI visibility, you’re flying blind. You can only improve what you measure.
Try a free AI visibility check with Hatter. See how often AI mentions your brand. The free plan gives you weekly monitoring, your AI Visibility Score, competitor insights, trending citations, and clear examples of how you show up in AI answers.
Decide if you need a specialist AEO agency or a broader SEO partner. Shortlist two or three agencies from this guide and schedule discovery calls. Use those conversations to clarify scope, compare approaches, and determine which partner can meaningfully improve your AI visibility over the next 6–12 months.
