How to check your content for AI search engines

An AI engine optimization audit evaluates brand visibility, accuracy, and citations on AI-powered search engines. It shows how a brand appears in ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity and Bing Copilot and identifies gaps in the facts, descriptions and links these systems rely on. In contrast, a traditional SEO audit focuses on website rankings and technical health in traditional search engines.

AI search extracts information directly from content, public sources and structured data. This shift is changing the way shoppers discover brands and validate solutions. Growth-focused teams benefit from accurate, consistent brand details in AI summaries as these summaries influence early research, shortlists, and pipeline creation.

This post provides teams with a complete workflow for conducting an AI engine optimization audit, priority fixes, a practical checklist, and the HubSpot tools to support the process. Each section provides clear steps for testing visibility across AI engines, measuring accuracy, updating content, and publishing structured, AI-friendly pages at scale.

Table of contents

What is an AI engine optimization audit?

An AI engine optimization audit is a structured review that measures how accurately AI search engines represent a brand. It evaluates visibility, accuracy and citations across systems such as ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity and Bing Copilot. The goal is to confirm that AI-generated summaries accurately reflect the brand’s facts, product details and sources.

An AI engine optimization audit is different from a traditional SEO audit. A traditional SEO audit focuses on rankings, crawlability, and technical health. An AEO audit focuses on entity accuracy, brand mentions, citation frequency, and the precision of AI-generated summaries. An AI engine optimization audit identifies outdated facts, missing brand mentions, and misquotes in AI summaries. These problems are often due to unstructured pages, unclear entities, and inconsistent context.

AI engines pull information from discrete blocks, structured data, and patterns across the web. You interpret content more accurately when pages use clear headings, defined entities, semantic triples, and consistent formatting.

HubSpot Search Grader offers a free way to assess brand visibility in AI search engines and create a quick baseline. It complements basic work like conducting a website audit, improving the basics in the SEO technical guide, adding markups from the structured data walkthrough, and checking performance in your SEO report.

How AEO, GEO and SEO work together

AEO, GEO, and SEO each strengthen the way buyers discover and understand a brand.

• AEO (Response Engine Optimization) focuses on entity clarity, accurate quotes, and how AI engines summarize a brand.
• GEO (generative engine optimization) focuses on the performance of generative experiences across all channels, including conversation responses and synthesized results.
• SEO (search engine optimization) focuses on rankings, crawlability and technical performance in traditional search engines.

Teams gain greater visibility when these workflows converge. AEO points out legal gaps. GEO highlights the depth and usefulness of content in generative environments. SEO highlights technical and ranking signals. Adding all three dimensions to your SEO report allows teams to track visibility changes across search experiences.

Exam Type	What the exam covers	Why it is like that Important
AEO (Answer Engine Optimization)	Entity definitions, brand mentions, citations, factual accuracy, and how AI systems interpret and summarize the brand	Ensures AI engines clearly understand who a brand is, what it offers, and when to reference the brand in direct answers and summaries
GEO (Generative Engine Optimization)	Performance on generative experiences, including conversational responses, synthesized results, multi-source responses, and content utility	Improves visibility and influence in AI-driven discovery moments where users receive generated answers instead of links
SEO (Search Engine Optimization)	Rankings, crawlability, indexing, website architecture, technical condition, backlinks and keyword performance	Provides strong visibility in traditional search results and ensures content can be discovered, indexed and ranked effectively

Why do an AI engine optimization audit now?

AI search now plays an important role in how shoppers research categories, compare providers, and validate solutions. An AI engine optimization audit gives teams a clear understanding of how AI engines summarize their brand today and where improvements will have the greatest impact.

AI search is changing top-of-funnel discovery.

As AI engines become the first port of call for contextual answers, it becomes harder to generate traffic. Large Language Models (LLMs) generate tailored responses that provide users with direct guidance and reduce the need to interact with traditional SERP links. Strong AEO fundamentals help AI engines highlight accurate facts and breaking news.

AI engines influence B2B purchasing committees.

AI summaries often appear before shoppers reach a website. These early summaries shape category expectations, map key features, and influence which vendors appear relevant. AEO improvements provide more consistent visibility in these moments.

Incorrect or missing brand facts spread quickly.

AI engines absorb outdated information from old pages, old entries and external sources. These inaccuracies can extend across multiple systems. By releasing consistent, structured updates, AI engines can be aligned with current facts.

Pipeline and revenue reports require accurate AI mentions.

Creating a pipeline depends on how clearly buyers understand a brand’s offerings. Updated AI summaries support more consistent messaging across the funnel. Smart CRM connects content improvements to pipeline and revenue results, linking AEO efforts to measurable business impact.

AI search optimization is increasing over time.

Clear entity signals help AI engines categorize a brand more accurately. Early improvements create a foundation that strengthens recognition and citation patterns in future updates.

How to Conduct an AEO Audit (Step-by-Step)

An AEO audit evaluates how AI engines describe a brand, highlights errors, and directs updates that strengthen visibility. Each step acts as a standalone task that teams can complete one at a time or integrate into existing content workflows.

Step 1: Define the entities, topics, and brand phrases you want AI engines to recognize

List the core facts that AI engines should reference when summarizing your brand. Include company names, product names, key features, target personas, and category terms. Add high-intent topics that fit your positioning.

Step 2: Test your brand in top AI engines

Run targeted prompts for ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity and Bing Copilot. Include private or industry models if relevant to your audience. Test brand queries, category queries, and solution-oriented prompts. Teams evaluating the Microsoft ecosystem can also refer to our guidance Whether marketers should optimize for Bing.

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Pro tip: Use HubSpot for free AEO grader to see how your website appears in AI search engines.

Step 3: Capture and categorize all AI output

Record screenshots and text from each engine. Categorize outputs as correct, obsolete, incomplete, inaccurate or missing. Add a column for trust features such as citations, links, attributed sources, and contextual accuracy.

Pro tip: Add a trust mark column to highlight which search engines come from trusted sources.

Step 4: Assess visibility, accuracy, and completeness of citations

Create a simple scoring model for visibility, accuracy, depth, and citations. Visibility measures whether the brand appears. Accuracy measures factual correctness. Depth indicates whether product-level details are displayed. Citations measure whether AI engines link to brand-owned sources.

Step 5: Identify entity gaps and semantic errors

Look for incorrect founders, dates, product descriptions, or industry categories. Highlight missing features, outdated positioning, and expired pricing. This step brings out unclear or inconsistent entity signals.

What I like: Entity gap reviews often reveal inconsistencies between about pages, product pages, and listings. Updating these hubs will simultaneously strengthen AEO, SEO and GEO signals.

Step 6: On-site review content for structure and AEO clarity

Evaluate whether the content uses extractable blocks, clean H2/H3 formatting, lists, and explicit semantic triples. Check internal links and entity details on important pages. Strengthen structured data using the approaches in the HubSpot Structured Data Guide. HubSpot Content Hub supports structured, entity-friendly publishing at scale.

Step 7: Update or create supporting content with an AI-friendly structure

Design updates using AI tools and then validate each fact manually. Breeze AI Suite accelerates content briefings, QA pairs and optimization tasks. Content Hub and Marketing Hub help teams combine SEO and AEO updates with structured editing tools and performance insights.

Best for: Teams managing large content libraries benefit most from designing first-pass updates in Breeze and refining them through human review.

Step 8: Test again with HubSpot AI Search Grader

Run another full test with HubSpot Search Grader after releasing updates. Record changes, compare results, and refine your entity list as the brand evolves. An AI engine optimization audit should be repeated quarterly or after major content changes.

How to operationalize your AEO audit in HubSpot

HubSpot’s ecosystem supports the entire AEO workflow:

• AI search grader sets baselines for visibility, accuracy and citations.
• Content Hub publishes structured, business-friendly updates.
• Breeze AI Suite speeds up content reviews, revisions and quality assurance tasks.
• Marketing Hub SEO tools Highlight technical issues and topic gaps that support AEO and SEO work.
• Smart CRM combines content updates with insights into engagement, lead quality and sales.

Best for: Teams that want a repeatable AEO workflow that ties directly to content operations and reporting.

Priority fixes after your Answer Engine Optimization audit

High-impact fixes focus on correcting brand data, strengthening entity clarity, publishing structured content, expanding high-intent coverage, updating public listings, and adding authoritative citations.

Solution 1: Correct brand facts in all owned content.

Update outdated product descriptions, feature lists, and claims. Add semantic triples that establish clear relationships between the brand, its products, and its categories.

Pro tip: Add semantic triples to product pages, about pages, and glossary entries to improve entity clarity.

Fix 2: Strengthen entity pages and brand hubs.

Clarify who the brand serves, what categories it operates in, and what products it offers. Strengthen about pages, glossary entries, and product pages so AI engines have reliable sources for the basics.

Fix 3: Add structured data and better content architecture.

Publish schema markup for entities, products, and organization details. Strengthen information architecture so AI engines can quickly interpret site structure. HubSpots The structured data guide describes markup patterns that teams can implement across the site.

What I like: Structured data often becomes one of the fastest ways to correct misaligned AI-generated facts.

Solution 4: Create supporting content for high-intent topics.

Expand content to match buyer needs in AI engines. Add explanations, templates, guides and updated category pages. Marketing Hub SEO Recommendations highlight topic gaps and content opportunities.

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Best for: Teams build topic expertise via hybrid AEO and SEO workflows.

Fix 5: Update digital footprints on high authority platforms.

Update brand information on LinkedIn, G2, GitHub, YouTube, and other profiles commonly referenced by AI engines. Only create a Wikipedia page if the brand meets reputation standards and can follow editorial guidelines.

Fix 6: Add Earned Media and Authoritative Citations.

Strengthen your presence in reputable media, including press outlets, podcasts and interviews. AI engines favor brands with consistent external validation.

Pro tip: Earned Media improves citation patterns and reduces stale references across AI engines.

AI search optimization audit checklist

Use this AEO audit checklist as a repeatable monthly or quarterly workflow.

• Identify the core units to evaluate.
• Test visibility in top AI engines.
• Record and categorize expenses.
• Evaluate visibility, accuracy and citations.
• Fix entity and semantic errors.
• Update content structure and metadata.
• Add structured data and entity markup.
• Test again HubSpot AI Search Grader.
• Repeat this quarterly.

AI Engine Optimization Audit FAQs

Teams encounter several common questions as they begin to evaluate how AI engines summarize their brand.

Do I need developer resources for an AI engine optimization audit?

No developer support is required for the evaluation itself. Developer resources can be helpful when adding structured data, updating schema markup, or adjusting the site architecture to support clearer entity signals.

How often should I repeat the audit?

Conduct the audit quarterly or after major content, product, or positioning updates. This rhythm ensures that the summaries generated by the AI ​​are aligned with your current brand details.

Should I create a Wikipedia page for my brand?

Only create a Wikipedia page if the brand meets the recognition criteria and can follow editorial standards. Pages that do not meet these requirements may be removed, causing confusion for AI engines.

Will llms.txt affect traditional SEO?

llms.txt manages access for AI crawlers and has no influence on Google’s ranking algorithms. It works independently of traditional SEO signals.

What is the best way to get cited faster by AI engines?

Publish structured, content-rich content with clear semantic relationships. Increase external citations from reputable media. Use HubSpot AI Search Grader to identify gaps and plan updates.

First steps

An AI engine optimization audit shows how AI search engines describe a brand, identifies accuracy gaps, and guides updates to improve visibility throughout the buyer journey. The shift toward AI-generated summaries makes this work an important part of discovery, revenue generation, and growth planning. Start by defining core entities, testing visibility in key AI engines, and performing an initial baseline with HubSpot AI Search Grader.

I’ve seen significant improvements in teams that adopt a consistent review cycle, update outdated facts, and publish structured content – small improvements compound. AI engines quickly update their summaries when brands publish clear, reliable information in structured formats.