Answer engine optimisation is the work of becoming the business an AI names and quotes when someone asks a question in your market. It covers three things: the answers on your website, how your site is built so a machine can read it, and the other websites the AI checks before it replies.
Generative engine optimisation, or GEO, describes the same work across generative engines such as ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini and Perplexity. The two terms overlap almost completely. We use both because buyers use both.
The old job was ranking on a page of links. The new job is being the answer, because most people now read one answer and stop.
This is for New Zealand professional services, healthcare, property and tourism businesses where a single new client is worth thousands and buyers research before they enquire. Law firms, financial advisers, private clinics, immigration advisers, real estate agencies and premium tourism operators.
It is not for a business that wants a result this month. This has to be earned and then held. If you need leads by Friday, run ads.
An AI answers in two different ways, and it names different businesses in each. Across thousands of questions, the two lists only match up about one time in eight.
From memory, the AI repeats what it already thinks about your market, which it picked up long before you heard of it. After a search, it reads whatever it can find online today.
Winning one does nothing for the other. Most agencies sell one service against one idea of how AI answers, which is why so much of this work disappoints.
The AI reads what it already thinks about your market. It moves slowly, over months, and it shifts when you are described the same way everywhere online.
The AI reads what it can find and quote right now. It moves faster, once the pages exist, and it shifts with clear answers on pages it can find and quote today.
We ask the real questions your buyers ask across five AI tools, both ways. You get a list of the questions where a competitor is named and you are not.
We write pages that answer those questions completely in the first paragraph, in a shape an AI can lift and quote.
We make sure a machine can tell exactly who you are: the same business name everywhere, the right hidden labels in your website code, and matching details wherever they appear.
We work on the outside pages an AI reads before it answers, because your own site is only half of where the answer comes from.
Step one, starting point, week one. We ask your market's questions and record who is named, who gets a source link, and where you sit. Everything later is measured against this.
Step two, priorities, week two. We rank the questions by what they are worth and how winnable they are, then agree what we go after first.
Step three, build, weeks three onward. We write the answers, rebuild the pages so a machine can read them, and work on the other websites.
Step four, measure again, monthly. We ask the same questions again and report what moved and what did not.
The first time we see real movement is usually months in, not weeks. We say so at the start because the alternative is a client expecting something the work cannot do.
There is no agreed price in this market. When we asked the AI tools in August 2026 what a New Zealand business should budget, the answers ran from about $400 a month to more than $20,000. Most landed on roughly $1,500 to $5,000 a month for ongoing work, plus GST.
That spread is worth understanding before you buy anything. What the AI told New Zealand buyers in August 2026: entry or foundational work, $400 to $1,500 a month. Ongoing retainer, the most common answer, $1,500 to $5,000 a month. Comprehensive or enterprise, $5,000 to $20,000 or more. A one off audit, $1,500 to $8,000. A one off project, $5,000 to $30,000 or more.
Agencies in New Zealand can charge anywhere from $400 a month to $8,000 a month, and both ends of the market will show you case studies that look impressive.
Claude, asked what AEO costs in New Zealand, August 2026.
What actually drives the number: how many questions people ask in your market, how crowded your industry already is, how much of the work sits on other websites rather than your own, and whether AI currently recognises your business at all.
We scope to the brief rather than sell a package. Tell us your market and we will tell you what it takes.
We asked 91 questions about answer engine optimisation in New Zealand across every AI we track. They named 546 different agencies between them. The most named one got 5.9 percent of all mentions.
We publish that because it is the honest starting point and because it is the condition we fix. The next cycle will say something different, and we will publish that too.
how we measure what AI saysAnswer engine optimisation is about being named and quoted when an AI answers a question. Generative engine optimisation is the same idea applied across generative engines such as ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini and Perplexity. In practice the two overlap almost completely and the work is identical.
SEO gets your page into a list of links that a person then picks from. Answer engine optimisation makes your business the one name inside a single answer, where there is no list and no second place. A lot of the groundwork is the same. What you are aiming at is not.
When we asked the AI tools in August 2026, the answers ran from about $400 a month to more than $20,000, landing mostly on $1,500 to $5,000 a month plus GST for ongoing work. The number depends on how many questions people ask in your market, and how much of the work sits on other websites rather than your own.
Months rather than weeks. We take a starting measurement in week one, then measure again every month, so you see which way it is going early even though the finished result takes longer. Anyone promising movement in days is selling something else.
ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Perplexity and Google AI Overviews. We ask the first three twice each, once from memory and once after they search, because they name different businesses in each.
It works slowly and unevenly, the way earning a reputation does. We can prove the measurement is real and we publish our own numbers, including the ones that do not flatter us. We cannot promise you a position, and anyone who does is selling something else.
Tell us your business and your market and we will ask the questions your buyers are asking. Phone 027 368 0892 or email rob@citable.co.nz.