I have read a lot of AI search optimization proposals this year, usually because a business owner has forwarded one to me and asked whether it is worth the money. Many of them list the same deliverables: an llms.txt file, content “chunked” for AI, special schema, a campaign to seed brand mentions around the web.
Here is what nobody selling those packages tells you. In July 2026 Google updated its own guide to optimising for its generative AI features and listed almost every one of those items under things you do not need to do. Its advice to site owners, in so many words, is to prioritise effective SEO over AEO and GEO hacks.
That does not mean AI search optimization is a con. It means you need to know which part of the invoice is doing the work. So this is a buyer’s guide rather than a tactics guide: what the job really involves, what it costs in the UK, how to tell whether you need to pay anyone at all, and what to ask before you sign.
What is AI search optimization, in plain terms?
AI search optimization is the work of making your business easy for AI answer engines to find, understand and recommend when someone asks a question you should be the answer to. The engines that matter are Google’s AI Overviews and AI Mode, ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity and Claude.
The useful way to think about it is as ordinary search optimisation with two genuinely new jobs bolted on. The first is measurement. You now have to check what several different AI tools say about you, not just where you rank on one results page. The second is reputation off your own site, because these tools lean heavily on what reviews, directories, press and comparison articles say about you.
Everything else is the SEO you should have been doing anyway: pages that crawlers can reach and that answer real questions clearly.
Does your business actually need it?
You probably do if your customers research before they buy and they ask questions in full sentences. A solicitor, an accountant, a B2B software firm, a private clinic, a specialist manufacturer: these are businesses where someone types “who is the best employment lawyer for a small company in Leeds” into ChatGPT and takes the shortlist seriously.
You probably do not, or not yet, if most of your customers already know your name, or if you sell on price in a category where people simply open Amazon. A café with a strong Google Business Profile gets most of what it needs from that profile.
One quick test costs nothing. Open ChatGPT and Google’s AI Mode in an incognito window and ask five questions a real buyer would ask before choosing a business like yours. Write down who gets named. If it is always the same two competitors and never you, that is your answer.
What should a provider actually do each month?
A good provider spends the first month diagnosing and the following months fixing and measuring, and you should be able to see the evidence of both. This is roughly the shape I would expect from any engagement worth paying for.
- Build the prompt list. Twenty to fifty questions your buyers actually ask, agreed with you, grouped by service. This list is the backbone of the whole thing, and if a provider cannot show you theirs, stop there.
- Record a baseline. What each AI tool says in answer to every prompt today, who it names, and which websites it cites as sources.
- Fix the access and technical faults. Crawler rules, pages that render badly, duplicate pages, a thin or broken Google Business Profile. Usually a one off piece of work.
- Improve the pages that should be winning. Service pages that answer the question directly, with real prices and real proof, rather than three paragraphs of adjectives.
- Work on the sources the AI tools are citing. If ChatGPT keeps quoting a trade directory or a “best firms in Manchester” roundup, the job is to get your business listed and described accurately there.
- Report against the baseline. Same prompts, same tools, a clear before and after, plus your Search Console numbers.
That sixth step is the one that separates real work from theatre. Since 31 August 2026 every site can see a generative AI performance report in Google Search Console, showing impressions in AI Overviews and AI Mode. It shows impressions only, no clicks yet, but it is free and it is Google’s own data, so any provider who does not reference it in their reporting has some explaining to do.
What does AI search optimization cost in the UK?
The honest range runs from nothing, if you track it yourself, to several thousand pounds a month for an agency programme. Where you should sit depends on how competitive your sector is and how much of the work you want to own.
A detail worth knowing about those tools: they mostly price by the number of prompts you track. Semrush’s base toolkit covers 25 prompts on one domain. For a local firm with three services that is plenty. For a national business with twenty product lines it runs out fast, and the extra prompts are where the bill climbs.
Specialist sectors pay more. One UK pricing guide puts professional services, healthcare and finance at 30 to 50 percent above the norm, because the claims on those sites need more care and the competition for those answers is fierce.
Which tactics does Google say you can skip?
Google’s July 2026 guide lists five things you do not need to do for its AI features, and several of them are sold as premium deliverables. If a proposal leans on these, ask what else you are getting.
Two caveats, because I do not want to overstate this. Google’s guide speaks for Google, not for ChatGPT or Perplexity, and an llms.txt file does no harm. Structured data is still worth having for ordinary search. The point is narrower: none of these should be what you are mainly paying for.
The one I would push back on hardest is the mention campaign. Paying someone to scatter your brand name across low quality blogs and forums is the 2026 version of buying links, and Google has already said it offers minimal benefit.
Should you do it yourself or hire someone?
Do it yourself first if your sector is local and not especially competitive. A few hours a month covers most of it: keep a spreadsheet of twenty prompts, check them in ChatGPT, Gemini and Google on the first Monday of each month, fix your Google Business Profile, and write one page a month answering a question customers genuinely ask you on the phone.
Hire help when the stakes justify it. That usually means a competitive national market, or a sector where one new client is worth thousands. A site with technical problems you cannot see is another good reason. In those cases the cost of being absent from the shortlist is bigger than the retainer.
Whichever route you take, insist on owning the prompt list and the baseline. They are yours. If you part ways with a provider, that spreadsheet is what lets the next person, or you, carry on without starting from zero.
What should you ask before you sign?
Ask for the evidence, not the vocabulary. These are the questions I would put to any provider, including me.
- Which prompts will you track, and can I approve the list?
- Which AI tools will you check, and how often?
- Can I see an anonymised monthly report from a current client?
- What exactly will you change on my website in the first ninety days?
- Which third party sites do you think the AI tools are citing in my sector, and how did you find that out?
If the answers come back full of proprietary scores and “AI readiness indexes” but short on named prompts and named websites, keep your money.
I take the same view of this work that I take of automation: you should understand what is being done well enough to judge it, and ideally well enough to keep some of it going yourself. The owners who get the most from AI search optimization are the ones who read their own prompt report and ask awkward questions about it.
If you would like someone to run the whole thing for you, that is what my Search and AI Visibility service does, with a tracked prompt list and a plain monthly report you own. You can read more about how I work, or get in touch and send me the proposal you have been quoted. I will tell you honestly which lines are worth paying for.