Show Up When AI Answers the Question Instead of Google.
A growing share of searches now end in an AI-generated answer, not a list of ten blue links. Karben optimizes for how AI Overviews, ChatGPT, and Perplexity actually cite and summarize businesses, so you stay visible as the format changes.
Wix Legend Partner
Google Ads Certified
17 Google reviews
Chicagoland Established 2013
What's included in a Karben AI Search engagement
AI Overview & Answer Engine Optimization
Content structured so AI Overviews, ChatGPT, and Perplexity can actually pull an accurate, citable answer from your site, not a competitor's.
Structured Data & Entity Clarity
Schema markup and clean entity signals that tell AI systems exactly who you are, what you do, and where: the technical foundation citation depends on.
Citable Content Architecture
Direct, well-defined answers to real questions, written the way AI systems extract and summarize: clear definitions, not marketing prose.
Brand & Entity Consistency Across the Web
The same accurate facts about your business, repeated consistently everywhere AI systems pull training and retrieval signal from.
AI Visibility Tracking & Reporting
Ongoing tracking of where and how often your business is cited in AI-generated answers, summarized here. The full picture lives in our Case Studies.
Ranking well organically isn't the full picture anymore.
A business can hold a strong organic position and still lose the customer to an AI-generated answer that cites a competitor instead. That's the shift AEO and GEO exist to address: the same underlying authority and content quality that earns organic rankings has to be structured in a way AI systems can actually extract, trust, and cite.
We don't treat this as a separate, speculative discipline bolted onto SEO. It's the same fundamentals (relevance, authority, clarity) applied to a new set of surfaces, tracked with the same rigor as rankings and traffic.
"The businesses that show up in AI answers today are the ones whose content was already structured to be understood, not just ranked."
Karben Marketing, on-page positioning statement
How an AI Search engagement actually runs
01
AI Visibility Audit
We check where and how your business currently appears, or doesn't, across AI Overviews, ChatGPT, and Perplexity for the questions that matter to your business.
02
Structured Data & Entity Cleanup
Schema, entity signals, and factual consistency fixed first, since AI systems can't cite what they can't clearly parse.
03
Citable Content Build-Out
Content rewritten and restructured to directly answer real questions in a form AI systems can extract and cite accurately.
04
Reporting Tied to Citations
We track actual AI Overview appearances and citation frequency, not a vague "AI-readiness score."
“
175% more AI Overview appearances across its tracked query set, after we restructured content around answer-engine-ready formatting.
Burnham Nationwide, Permit Expediting & Building Compliance Services · 4-year Karben partner
+175%
AI Overview Appearances
53 → 146
+61%
Top-3 Keyword Rankings
44 → 71
+85%
Page-One Keyword Rankings
299 → 554
How to evaluate an AI Search / AEO company
AEO and GEO are new enough that a lot of what's sold under those names is unverifiable. Here's what we think is actually worth checking before you hire someone, including us.
A buyer's checklist, not a competitor comparison
What to check | Why it matters |
|---|---|
Tracked, named AI Overview appearances | A vague "AI-readiness" score can't be verified against anything real. |
Structured data implemented, not just recommended | Recommendations in a PDF don't change what AI systems can parse. |
Reporting tied to actual citation frequency | Confirms the work is moving a real, trackable number. |
Treated as an extension of SEO, not a replacement for it | Organic rankings and AI citations reinforce each other. They aren't competing budgets. |
What Chicagoland clients say
"I have been working with Chad since 2018 on helping manage our company's website and SEO/SEM efforts... I would absolutely recommend Karben Marketing to anyone who is looking to grow their business!"
Haley Jones
Frequently asked questions
AI Search Optimization is the work involved in making a business and its website easier for AI-powered search systems to understand, reference and cite. It overlaps with traditional SEO, but puts additional emphasis on clear answers, strong source material, entity signals and content structured for the way AI search engines assemble responses.
SEO focuses primarily on visibility in traditional search results. AI Search Optimization also considers whether a business or its content appears within AI-generated answers, including Google AI Overviews and platforms such as ChatGPT and Gemini. The two disciplines overlap heavily, which is why Karben treats AI visibility as part of a broader search strategy rather than a replacement for SEO.
No. No agency controls which sources an AI platform chooses to cite or recommend. We can improve the signals those systems use to understand your business and content, but we will not guarantee an AI citation or placement.
Our work is primarily focused on the search and answer platforms that influence how customers discover businesses online, including Google Search and AI Overviews, ChatGPT and Gemini. The specific platforms we track and prioritize can change as search behavior and the underlying technology change.
Yes. AI Search has not replaced traditional search. Strong technical SEO, useful content, authority and clear business/entity information also provide much of the foundation AI search systems rely on. We build the two together rather than treating AI Search as a standalone replacement for SEO.
We look at measurable indicators such as whether a brand or website appears in AI-generated answers, how often it is cited across a tracked query set, which pages or sources are being referenced, and how that visibility changes over time. Where reliable referral data is available, we can evaluate that alongside traditional organic search performance.
Let's talk about your AI Search opportunity.
A real conversation about where AI systems currently cite you, or don't, not a canned pitch.