Generative vs a traditional SEO agency

The short version: an SEO agency gets you the click on Google. We get you the recommendation inside AI answers. Same underlying discipline, different battlefield - and increasingly, the second one is where the buyer actually decides.

Where we overlap. Both jobs come down to the same thing: do the work to earn your place in what the machine reads. Good SEO and good AEO both need clear content, technical foundations, and third-party trust. If an agency tells you AEO has nothing in common with SEO, be sceptical.

Where it diverges:

• The click vs the recommendation. SEO earns a link the buyer clicks and chooses between. AEO earns the named recommendation they act on. More and more buyers never click - they ask, get an answer, and go.

• The buy-layer. We track which product AI recommends to purchase, and why a rival's wins. Most SEO agencies do not touch this, because it did not exist to touch until recently.

• You can watch it move. Our dashboard shows your visibility across the models changing week to week. The long game becomes something you can actually see, not just trust.

When you need which. If you have no SEO foundation at all, start there - AEO builds on the same ground. If your SEO is solid but the AI answers are recommending everyone but you, that is exactly the gap we are built for. Often it is both, run together.

The honest bit. We ran paid media for years, so we know how boxed-in brands are on Google and Meta. AEO is the organic recommendation layer that sits alongside your paid, not instead of it. Anyone selling it as a replacement for everything else is overselling.

See the gap for yourself - generative-agency.com/ai-health-score