Choosing your approach
Do I need an AEO agency, or will my current marketing agency cover it?
Answered by Ryan, RankNext strategist · Updated July 2, 2026
The short answer
Ask your agency three questions: which AI crawlers does my robots.txt allow, what does ChatGPT answer for my top five buyer questions, and can you show me captured answers month over month? If they can answer crisply, they're covering it. If you get hand-waving about 'AI-optimized content,' the answer layer is unowned.
The three-question audit
Good agencies exist, and some have genuinely added AEO. The test is specificity. Crawler access is checkable in one file. Current AI answers for your market are checkable in five minutes of asking. Measurement is either happening — stored answers, engine by engine, month by month — or it isn't.
The tell-tale gap: many agencies retrofitted the vocabulary (“we do AI SEO now”) without the practice. If your reports still show only rankings and traffic, nobody is watching what the engines actually say about you — which is where your customers increasingly decide.
Complement or replace — both are legitimate
If your agency runs strong paid ads or brand work, keeping them for that and adding a focused AEO layer is a sane split; the disciplines don't conflict. If they're billing for 'SEO' that hasn't changed since 2021, consolidating into one system that covers the foundation and the answer layer usually costs less than the sum.
We publish exactly what our system includes, engine by engine, with pricing on the site — so the comparison with your current scope takes ten minutes. And the free check gives you the current-state answers to bring to that conversation.
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