Updated: 28 July 2026

Searchers no longer start with a page of search results. Instead they ask an AI assistant for a list of options, and most companies only find out they are missing when a competitor gets named instead. I built the full list of AEO and generative engine optimisation experts worth following in 2026, sorted by the challenge each one addresses rather than crammed into an arbitrary hierarchy.

Key takeaways

• AEO and GEO describe the same thing: getting cited inside AI responses rather than ranked on a results page
• A page can hold position one on Google and still never appear in an AI answer
• There is no single best answer engine optimisation expert, because the discipline divides into technical, editorial, reputational and industry-specific problems
• Research from Princeton found that referencing sources, including data and quoting experts all measurably lift AI citability, while keyword stuffing lowers it
• Choosing the expert for your actual gap counts for more than going after the most famous name

What AEO and Generative Engine Optimisation actually mean

AEO and GEO are the same thing wearing two labels. Both describe making a brand discoverable and citable inside AI-generated responses. Traditional SEO competes for placement. Answer engine optimisation and GEO compete for the mention itself, meaning whether a system mentions you when somebody asks it a question. Most practitioners treat the terms interchangeably.

The commercial difference is bigger than it sounds. Ranking well and being cited are not the same outcome, and I have seen plenty of clients keep strong positions on Google while being completely absent from AI answers, because these systems select sources on structure, trust and relevance rather than rank alone.

Why this matters in 2026

I am wary of AI search advice with no evidence behind it, so the study I keep returning to is the Princeton work published at KDD 2024 as Generative Engine Optimisation. The researchers tested nine separate optimisation methods against Perplexity.

Referencing authoritative sources lifted visibility by around 40 per cent. Including concrete numbers raised it by around 37 per cent. Adding expert quotes raised it by around 30 per cent. Keyword stuffing reduced it by around 10 per cent.

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

The four mechanics behind an AI citation

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

Independent corroboration: External references that back up your claims, because models favour outside sources far more heavily than your own marketing.

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

Topical depth: Sufficient well-organised coverage that a model reads it as real expertise rather than a thin page targeting a keyword.

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

How this guide is structured

Ranking peers from one to twenty is not useful. Almost nobody needs the best answer engine optimisation expert in general terms. What they need is the person who has already fixed their specific problem, in their market, at their stage. So I have grouped everyone by specialism.

Leading AEO specialists for Web3, crypto and fintech

Victoria Olsina

Victoria is an answer engine optimisation, generative engine optimisation and AI content systems consultant for Web3 and fintech brands, and was formerly Head of SEO at copyright. Her clients include Barclays, Polkadot, copyright and NEAR Protocol. She authored Mastering AI Search for Crypto and Web3 Brands, the first book on AI search for this industry, and was named Top AI Content Expert of 2026 by The Masterminders. Her track record covers entity structuring, LLM citation strategy and content systems for trust-sensitive, technical markets.

Top AEO experts for insurance and regulated markets

Tom Riley

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

Leading answer engine optimisation 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, focused on getting retail brands quoted inside answers from ChatGPT, copyright, Claude and Google AI Overviews rather than just listed underneath them. His work is data-driven and connected 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 improve visibility across Google Search and AI-powered search. He works hands-on with Shopify and online retail, combining technical SEO with conversion work. That combination is what retail requires once AI answers start determining which store gets the visit.

Yaswanth Kumar

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

Daniel Lowry

Daniel is based in Manchester and supports ecommerce brands on WooCommerce and Shopify, from smaller shops through to large ones. His priority is getting online retailers named 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 voices 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 coverage: 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 growing organic traffic and building authority for SaaS companies, and strategic outreach is his sharpest tool. That external footprint is precisely what models lean on when deciding who to mention.

Top AEO specialists 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 apply answer engine optimisation to generating leads. 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 specialises in helping SMEs and startups turn visibility into real leads. 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 enquiries rather than impressions, which I find refreshingly practical.

Mark Slorance

Mark founded Pixel Juice Digital Marketing and has spent over fifteen years shaping search programmes for law firms, healthcare providers, trades and local businesses throughout the UK. He focuses on local SEO and answer engine optimisation for service businesses, bringing content, design and reputation control into a single strategy built on trust and verifiable data.

Leading answer engine optimisation specialists for specialist verticals

Yash Singh

Yash co-founded TradeOps Consulting and owns one of the most specific corners I have come across: answer engine optimisation for HVAC and home services. He structures heating and cooling content into clean 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, focusing on off-plan developments and property projects. Property buyers do extensive research before approaching agents, which makes visibility inside AI answers unusually valuable in that market.

Top technical answer engine optimisation experts

Josh Morley

Josh is a Liverpool-based specialist focused on technical SEO and WordPress. His position is that AEO is not a separate discipline bolted on later, it is what results 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 lift 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 combines 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 assemble an answer. Over a decade in search, with a data-driven approach that puts commercial growth ahead of vanity metrics.

Leading AEO specialists for digital PR and reputation

Gareth Hoyle

Gareth is managing director of Marketing Signals and approaches digital PR as the main route into AI discoverability rather than a backlink exercise. He puts it more directly 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 actually behave: 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 wrote Future-Proof Your SEO and Reputation Reset, and has appeared in Reuters, Yahoo Finance, Business Insider, Forbes, Entrepreneur and Fast Company. Reputation Pros was named among USA Today's Best Online Reputation Management Companies in 2026.

Best 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 large portion 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 matters because his playbook was proven in markets where a lost ranking costs real money.

David Peranic

David is one of Croatia's most sought-after marketing consultants and an international speaker who moved on answer engine optimisation earlier than almost anyone 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 twin 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 built around lead generation, SEO and answer engine optimisation. It fronts LLM Leads and puts out SEO and lead generation breakdowns on YouTube, with James writing the strategy and scripts himself and the avatar delivering them.

I have included it because it is worth following as an experiment in its own right. Building established entity status for a synthetic persona from a standing start is a live test of the same AEO 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 AEO or GEO expert

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

• Web3, crypto or fintech discoverability: Victoria Olsina. Entity architecture and AI content systems for technical, trust-sensitive markets.
• Insurance and regulated markets: Tom Riley. Commercial-intent answer engine optimisation designed for compliance-heavy sectors.
• Ecommerce and product citations: Andrew Halliday, David Johnson, Yaswanth Kumar, Daniel Lowry. Product data, structured data and retail entity signals.
• SaaS growth and credibility: Georgi Todorov, Nikola Baldikov. Digital PR, outreach and earned coverage.
• Enquiries for service businesses: James Dooley, Dean Signori, Graham Bowers, Mark Slorance. Trust signals and commercial intent, measured 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 hands-on testing across the major models.
• Following 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 determine which brands get seen at all, because prospects put to a model for a shortlist before they even visit a comparison page. Every name here is worth following. The right choice depends on your market, your budget and where the real gap lies.

When your market is Web3, crypto or fintech, there is an added layer to deal with: protocol terminology, ecosystem queries and trust signals in a space where models are visibly cautious about what they recommend. This is exactly where a Web3-focused specialist earns their keep.

Frequently asked questions

What is the difference between AEO, GEO and SEO?

SEO competes for rankings on a results page. AEO and GEO fight for citations inside AI-generated responses, meaning whether ChatGPT, Perplexity or Google AI Overviews cites your brand when someone puts a question. AEO and GEO are used interchangeably. A page can hold strong positions and still be invisible in AI responses.

Who is the best answer engine optimisation expert?

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

What does an answer engine optimisation consultant actually do?

An AEO consultant renders a brand citable by AI systems. That involves structuring content into liftable blocks, building coherent entity signals so models recognise who the brand is, securing third-party mentions that support its claims, and adding schema so engines can parse the page. The deliverable is citations, not just rankings.

Do I need an answer engine optimisation expert if I already have an SEO agency?

Not necessarily, but check whether your agency measures AI citations at all. Many still report only rankings and traffic. If nobody is monitoring whether models name your brand, that visibility is left to chance. Start by reviewing where you already show up in AI answers, then judge whether it calls for a specialist.

How do you get cited by ChatGPT?

Models reference sources they can process and trust. That calls for strong entity signals about who you are, independent third-party mentions supporting your claims, content structured for retrieval with definitions, tables and FAQs, and genuine topical depth. Pushing out more content without that structure creates noise instead of citations.