What is the difference between AEO, GEO, and LLMO?
AEO, GEO, and LLMO address three distinct layers of AI search visibility, and each requires a different set of actions to improve. AEO is about winning specific questions — it targets the moment a user asks an AI engine a question your content should answer. GEO is about winning category authority — it targets the broader responses AI engines give when summarising an industry, a market, or a shortlist of providers. LLMO is about accuracy at the model level — it targets the internal knowledge representation that AI engines use to describe your brand, regardless of what source they are drawing from. In practice, you need all three because gaps in any one layer undermine the other two.
Which of the three should an Australian business start with?
The answer depends on your existing baseline. If your content is strong but AI engines are describing your business incorrectly, start with LLMO. If your entity data is clean and your content is structured but you are not appearing in industry summaries, start with GEO. If there are specific high-intent queries your customers are making and you are consistently losing them, start with AEO. The AI Search Audit provides this answer with data specific to your business, rather than a generic recommendation.
Is it necessary to run all three disciplines, or can one do the job?
All three are necessary for sustained AI visibility, but not all three need to run at the same pace or start at the same time. The issue is that each discipline has a ceiling it hits when the others are underdeveloped. AEO performance plateaus if you do not have GEO authority signals telling AI engines your brand is trustworthy. GEO brand mentions are less useful if LLMO accuracy is poor and AI engines are misdescribing you when they name you. A phased approach — leading with the highest-impact discipline and building the others over six to twelve months — is the most cost-effective path for most Australian businesses.
How long does it take to see results from an AI visibility programme?
AEO results are the fastest to appear. Well-structured content with appropriate schema can begin appearing in direct AI-generated answers within four to eight weeks for queries with existing search volume. GEO results take longer — building citation signals across high-authority Australian and international sources is a three-to-six-month process. LLMO accuracy improvements are tracked over time and typically show measurable improvement in the three-to-six-month range as updated entity data propagates through AI model training and retrieval systems. The programme is structured so you see AEO wins early, while GEO and LLMO build progressively.
What does an integrated programme cost for an Australian business?
Integrated AEO, GEO, and LLMO programmes in the Australian market are priced from AUD 3,500 per month, depending on the scope of the audit, the breadth of target questions and citation sources, and the complexity of the entity data work required. Single-discipline programmes are available at a lower entry point for businesses that already have strong foundations in two of the three areas. All engagements begin with the AI Visibility Audit, which is scoped and priced separately so you have a clear baseline and ROI case before committing to an ongoing programme.
How does AI search optimisation relate to the traditional SEO work we are already doing?
Traditional SEO and AI search optimisation share some foundational inputs — well-structured content, authoritative external references, and clean technical implementation help both. But they diverge meaningfully in what they optimise for. Traditional SEO targets a position in a ranked list of links. AI search optimisation targets inclusion in generated text responses that increasingly appear before, above, or instead of those ranked links. Australian businesses that treat AI search optimisation as a separate programme running alongside their traditional SEO — rather than as a replacement for it — will compound visibility across both channels. We are not recommending you abandon what is working in traditional search. We are recommending you build the layer on top of it that is increasingly deciding whether buyers reach you at all.