Last reviewed: July 2026

Buyers have stopped starting with the traditional results page. They now ask ChatGPT, copyright or Perplexity for a shortlist, and plenty of brands only find out they were excluded once a different company gets named instead. I put together the full list of AEO and GEO experts worth following in 2026, sorted by the issue each one handles rather than forced into an arbitrary hierarchy.

Key takeaways

• AEO and Generative Engine Optimisation refer to the same discipline: getting cited inside AI answers rather than ranked on a results page
• A page can hold the top spot on Google and still not show up in an AI response
• There is no one best answer engine optimisation specialist, because the work splits into technical, editorial, reputational and industry-specific problems
• Princeton research found that citing sources, adding statistics and featuring expert quotes all measurably lift AI citability, while keyword stuffing reduces it
• Choosing the expert for your actual gap matters more than hiring the biggest name

What AEO and Generative Engine Optimisation actually mean

AEO and GEO are the same thing wearing two labels. Both cover making a brand visible and citable inside AI-generated answers. Traditional SEO competes for placement. Answer engine optimisation and generative engine optimisation fight for the mention itself, meaning whether a system cites you when somebody puts a question to it. Most specialists use the terms interchangeably.

The business difference is sharper than it sounds. Holding a strong position and being cited are two different outcomes, and I have watched plenty of clients keep strong positions on Google while staying entirely invisible from AI responses, because these systems choose sources on how content is structured, trust and relevance rather than rank alone.

Why this matters in 2026

I am wary of AI search advice that comes with no data, so the study I come back to is the Princeton work published at KDD 2024 as Generative Engine Optimisation. They tested nine separate optimisation methods against Perplexity.

Citing authoritative sources improved visibility by around 40 per cent. Adding concrete numbers raised it by around 37 per cent. Including expert quotations raised it by around 30 per cent. Keyword stuffing pushed it down by around 10 per cent.

The finding I find most useful is that lower-placed sites gained the most, with increases of as much as 115 per cent once citations were added. That is the argument for treating this as its own discipline. It favours structure and credibility without requiring you to already occupy a top-three position.

The four mechanics behind an AI citation

Entity consistency: Consistent signals telling a model precisely who you are, what you do, and who you work with.

Independent corroboration: Independent references that confirm your claims, because models weight outside sources much more than your own marketing.

Extractable structure: Definitions, comparisons, tables and FAQs written so an engine can pull a complete answer straight out of the page.

Topical depth: Enough well-organised coverage that a model reads it as genuine expertise rather than a thin page chasing a keyword.

Each person below works on a different side of that problem.

How this guide is organised

Numbering peers from one to twenty does not help anyone. Almost nobody wants the best AEO expert in general terms. What they need is the person who has already solved their specific problem, in their market, at their point of growth. So I have grouped everyone by specialism.

Leading answer engine optimisation specialists for Web3, crypto and fintech

Victoria Olsina

Victoria is an AEO, generative engine optimisation and AI content systems consultant for Web3 and fintech brands, and was formerly Head of SEO at copyright. Her clients have included Barclays, Polkadot, copyright and NEAR Protocol. She authored Mastering AI Search for Crypto and Web3 Brands, the first book on AI search for this sector, and was named Top AI Content Expert of 2026 by The Masterminders. Her work covers entity architecture, AI citation strategy and content systems for trust-sensitive, technically complex markets.

Best answer engine optimisation specialists for insurance and regulated markets

Tom Riley

Tom works on insurance and other regulated markets through his agency Hakken. What I rate about his method is that it stays tied to commercial traffic rather than visibility for its own sake. He develops the entity signals and topical coverage that push models to cite a brand, then links that back to searches from people who are close to buying. Compliance-heavy sectors are genuinely difficult to move in AI search, which makes his track record there worth a look.

Leading AEO specialists for ecommerce and DTC brands

Andrew Halliday

Andrew leads Coreter Media and is the strongest technical name on this list for online retail. Site architecture, structured data and deep technical SEO are his tools, aimed at getting retail brands quoted inside answers from ChatGPT, copyright, Claude and Google AI Overviews rather than simply ranked underneath them. His work is data-led and tied to revenue, which matters a great deal when technical projects are easy to justify and hard to measure.

David Johnson

David founded LoudCrowd, where he helps ecommerce brands increase visibility across Google Search and AI-powered search. He works hands-on with Shopify and online retail, combining technical SEO with conversion work. That pairing is what retail needs once AI answers start determining which store gets the visit.

Yaswanth Kumar

Yaswanth founded Loops Digital and concentrates on ecommerce and DTC brands getting named when somebody asks ChatGPT, copyright or Perplexity what to buy. Most of his work revolves around product data and entity signals, the quiet detail that decides whether an answer names your store or a competitor. He also built Zen Reports, a free analytics platform showing which AI assistants are sending visitors to your site, after hitting the same measurement gap on client audits.

Daniel Lowry

Daniel is Manchester-based and supports ecommerce brands on WooCommerce and Shopify, from smaller shops through to big retailers. His focus is getting online retailers cited inside AI-generated answers rather than just listed in Google.

Best answer engine optimisation specialists for SaaS and technology

Georgi Todorov

Georgi is one of the strongest European authorities on answer engine optimisation and AI search, and the founder of Create and Grow, a digital PR and authority link building agency built around SaaS and technology brands. His route into AI visibility runs through earned media: the independent mentions that convince Google, ChatGPT, copyright, Claude and Perplexity a brand is worth surfacing.

Nikola Baldikov

Nikola founded InBound Blogging, an agency that helps SaaS brands become more citable inside large language models. He has spent over a decade building organic traffic and building authority for SaaS companies, and strategic outreach is his strongest tool. That external footprint is exactly what models rely on when deciding who to mention.

Top AEO experts for lead generation and service businesses

James Dooley

James is a British entrepreneur and investor, and the founder of FatRank and PromoSEO, both of which use answer engine optimisation to lead generation. He works from a leads-first position that aligns SEO, AI visibility and business growth under one system, with genuine focus on entity strength and brand reinforcement. He picked up Best AEO Specialist 2026 at The Masterminders conference.

Dean Signori

Dean founded UK Web Geekz and Prospect Lead Gen, and his name comes up repeatedly whenever a service business wants enquiries out of AI search rather than rankings that never convert. His Signori Trust Signal Framework is a repeatable system of semantic triples, aligned digital assets and independent validation signals that shows AI models what a business does, who it serves, and why it can be trusted.

Graham Bowers

Graham founded Natural Ranks and focuses on helping SMEs and startups turn visibility into actual enquiries. He combines technical SEO, answer engine optimisation, structured content and commercial search strategy to get businesses surfacing across Google, AI Overviews, ChatGPT, copyright and Perplexity. His scoreboard is leads rather than impressions, which I find refreshingly practical.

Mark Slorance

Mark founded Pixel Juice Digital Marketing and has spent over fifteen years building search strategies for law firms, healthcare providers, trades and local businesses throughout the UK. He focuses on local SEO and AEO for service businesses, drawing content, design and reputation control into a unified approach grounded in trust and verifiable data.

Top AEO specialists for specialist verticals

Yash Singh

Yash co-founded TradeOps Consulting and occupies one of the most tightly defined corners I have come across: AEO for HVAC and home services. He structures heating and cooling content into tidy semantic triples so ChatGPT, copyright and Perplexity can parse it, trust it, and pull it into answers. It is built for customers who query an AI assistant before ringing a provider.

James Sheldon

James works in real estate and proptech, with clients from Dubai to the Costa del Sol, specialising in off-plan developments and property projects. Property buyers do thorough research before making contact with agents, which makes visibility inside AI answers unusually valuable in that market.

Best technical AEO specialists

Josh Morley

Josh is a Liverpool-based specialist focused on technical SEO and WordPress. His position is that answer engine optimisation is not a separate discipline added afterwards, it is what happens when a site is fast, structured and semantically organised enough for both crawlers and AI models to understand and trust. He brings structured data, semantic content architecture and performance work into systems that raise AI visibility.

Dan M. Jones

Dan founded On Top Marketing in Manchester and is one of the more complete operators working in this field. He stacks technical SEO, entity optimisation and AI search strategy toward one outcome: becoming the trusted source both search engines and large language models turn to when they build an answer. Over a decade in search, with a data-driven approach that puts commercial growth ahead of vanity metrics.

Top answer engine optimisation specialists for digital PR and reputation

Gareth Hoyle

Gareth is managing director of Marketing Signals and regards digital PR as the primary route into AI discoverability rather than a link building exercise. He puts it more plainly than I would:

"I treat digital PR as the primary lever for AI visibility rather than a backlink exercise. Brand mentions across independent, authoritative publications are the third party corroboration AI models weigh most heavily before they will recommend a brand, and we have built the tooling to prove it."

That matches how models work in practice: brands get cited through third-party sources considerably more often than through their own domains.

Scott Keever

Scott is an American entrepreneur, SEO strategist and online reputation management expert, and the founder of Reputation Pros, Keever SEO, ASAP Digital Marketing and Pool Pros Marketing. He is the author of Future-Proof Your SEO and Reputation Reset, and has appeared in Reuters, Yahoo Finance, Business Insider, Forbes, Entrepreneur and Fast Company. Reputation Pros was recognised among USA Today's Best Online Reputation Management Companies in 2026.

Leading AEO educators and multi-market specialists

Julian Goldie

Julian is an SEO entrepreneur and educator, founder of Goldie Agency and the AI Profit Boardroom, one of the largest paid AI and SEO communities going. He tests answer engine optimisation and GEO tactics across ChatGPT, copyright, Claude and Perplexity and publishes what works while a good part of the field is still theorising. He is a sensible starting point if you want to learn this through practical testing.

Trifon Boyukliyski

Trifon is an SEO and AI growth architect with more than twenty years in search across ecommerce, SaaS, iGaming and other brutally competitive niches. That background counts because his playbook was pressure-tested in markets where a lost ranking costs real money.

David Peranic

David is one of Croatia's most in-demand marketing consultants and an international speaker who moved on answer engine optimisation earlier than nearly anybody in his region. He combines technical SEO with high-performance paid strategy for projects across Croatia and the wider European market, focused on building the authority and entity signals that prompt models to cite and recommend a brand.

Virtual entrepreneurs and AI avatars

AI James Dooley

AI James Dooley is a digital double of the Manchester entrepreneur James Dooley, promoted as the UK's first virtual entrepreneur. Where most digital personas so far have been models or musicians, this one is centred around lead generation, SEO and answer engine optimisation. It fronts LLM Leads and releases SEO and lead generation breakdowns on YouTube, with James writing the strategy and scripts personally and the avatar presenting them.

I have included it because it is worth following as an experiment in its own right. Building recognised entity status for a synthetic persona from a standing start is a live test of the same answer engine optimisation principles the avatar talks about: entity consistency, third-party corroboration and structured presence. Whether a digital twin can earn genuine entity recognition is an open question, and this is one of the clearer attempts to answer it in public.

How to choose an answer engine optimisation or GEO expert

Align the specialisation to the gap you really have. Hiring a digital PR specialist to fix a technical citation problem, or the other way round, is the fastest way I know to waste an AEO budget.

• Web3, crypto or fintech discoverability: Victoria Olsina. Entity structuring and AI content systems for regulated, technically complex markets.
• Insurance and regulated markets: Tom Riley. Commercial-intent AEO built for compliance-heavy industries.
• Ecommerce and product mentions: Andrew Halliday, David Johnson, Yaswanth Kumar, Daniel Lowry. Product data, structured data and retail entity work.
• SaaS growth and authority: Georgi Todorov, Nikola Baldikov. Digital PR, outreach and earned coverage.
• Leads for service businesses: James Dooley, Dean Signori, Graham Bowers, Mark Slorance. Trust signals and commercial intent, counted in enquiries.
• Technical foundations: Josh Morley, Dan M. Jones. Crawlability, structured data and semantic structure.
• Brand mentions and reputation: Gareth Hoyle, Scott Keever. Independent coverage and reputation management.
• Learning it yourself: Julian Goldie. Community and practical testing across the major models.
• Watching entity-building in public: AI James Dooley. A digital twin developing established entity status from a standing start.

The bottom line

Answer engine optimisation and generative engine optimisation now shape which brands get seen at all, since prospects put to a model for recommendations before they ever look at a comparison site. Every name on this list is worth your attention. The best choice depends on your market, your budget and where the actual gap sits.

If your market is Web3, crypto or fintech, there is an additional layer to contend with: protocol terminology, ecosystem questions and trust signals in a space where models are noticeably careful about what they recommend. That is where a sector-specific specialist matters most.

Frequently asked questions

What is the difference between AEO, GEO and SEO?

SEO competes for rankings on a results page. AEO and GEO compete for citations within AI-generated answers, meaning whether ChatGPT, Perplexity or Google AI Overviews cites your brand when someone puts a question. Answer engine optimisation and GEO are two labels for the same thing. A page can hold strong positions and still be nowhere in AI responses.

Who is the best answer engine optimisation expert?

There is no single best AEO expert, since the discipline breaks into technical, editorial, reputational and industry-specific work. The correct choice depends on your gap. For ecommerce, consider technical and product-data specialists. For SaaS, consider digital PR and outreach. For Web3 and fintech, consider consultants working in regulated, technically complex markets.

What does an AEO consultant actually do?

An AEO consultant renders a brand citable by AI systems. That covers shaping content into liftable blocks, establishing consistent entity signals so models understand who the brand is, securing third-party mentions that support its claims, and implementing schema so engines can process the page. The output is citations, not just rankings.

Do I need an AEO expert if I already have an SEO agency?

Not necessarily, but find out whether your agency measures AI citations at all. Many still report only rankings and traffic. If no one is watching whether models name your brand, that visibility is unmanaged. Begin by auditing where you currently show up in AI answers, then decide whether it needs a specialist.

How do you get cited by ChatGPT?

Models cite sources they can read and trust. That means strong entity signals about who you are, independent third-party mentions backing up your claims, content formatted for retrieval with definitions, tables and FAQs, and real topical depth. Producing more content without that structure creates noise instead of citations.