01
What AEO is
AEO, GEO and SEO as one practice with a new scoreboard.
Buyers ask Is AEO just SEO with a new name?
The complete field guide for B2B SaaS
The Ultimate Guide to AEO
How B2B SaaS brands get recommended by ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity and Google's AI answers.
By Maeva Cifuentes, founder of Flying Cat
Built from the questions buyers asked across 120 client and prospect calls
- 10chapters covering the hottest AEO questions as of Q4 2026
- 2routes through the guide, one for the person deciding and one for the person doing
- 12working tools, from a fan-out coverage check to a mention rate calculator
YouWhat's the best platform for a mid-size B2B team?
Three tools come up most for teams your size.
- 1Your brand fits mid-size teams best, with pricing per seat and a fast rollout.Recommended
- 2
- 3
yourbrand.comg2.comreddit.com+6
64%mention rate
+9 searches behind one prompt
Choose your route
Tell us what you came to do
Every chapter stays on the page. Your route marks the stops that fit your job and sets the order to read them in.
In this guide
Four parts take you from understanding answer engines to proving the work paid off.
Part one
Understand
How answer engines choose what to say and who to name.
02
How answer engines work
Memory, retrieval and the path from a prompt to a named brand.
Buyers ask Does ChatGPT already know us, or does it look us up?
03
Query fan-out
One prompt becomes several searches. Read the themes and plan from them.
Buyers ask What does the engine look up about my category?
Part two
Do
The work itself, in the order it pays to do it.
04
Can AI read your site
AI bots, robots.txt, rendering and llms.txt.
Buyers ask Should we let AI bots in?
05
Prompt research
Build the prompt set that every later number depends on.
Buyers ask Which prompts should we track?
06
On-site content
Pages that state the facts an engine needs and get cited for them.
Buyers ask Which funnel stage comes first?
07
Off-site visibility
Listicles, reviews, LinkedIn, YouTube and earned media.
Buyers ask Why does ChatGPT keep recommending our competitor?
Part three
Prove
Numbers a CFO accepts, and the case for funding the work.
08
Measurement and reporting
Mention rate, citation rate, share of voice and how to explain them upstairs.
Buyers ask How do I measure this and show the value?
09
The business case
A workshop for building your case, with the cost of waiting shown beside the cost of acting.
Buyers ask Will this bring us pipeline?
Part four
Decide
Who does the work, in-house or with a partner.
10
Choosing an AEO partner
What to ask an agency, a tool vendor or a new hire.
Buyers ask What sample size sits behind your numbers?
By the numbers
The figures that explain why answer engines reward a different kind of page.
Flying Cat client result
12% → 33%
D2L's visibility in AI answers, alongside 73% growth in demo requests
12%Before
33%After
Source D2L case study
Flying Cat client result
of ChatGPT category answers named an enterprise procurement platform
Source case study
People write to an answer engine at four times the length of a search
A Google query, about 6 words
A chat prompt, about 25 words
Source Ethan Smith of Graphite, on Lenny's Podcast, September 2025
How often an AI mention carries a link back to you
Source Ahrefs AEO course. Bars share one scale from 0 to 100%.
Searches an answer engine runs for one average prompt
9 to 11
Source Seer Interactive and Nectiv research, cited by Ahrefs
Third-party figures are each publisher's own and sit in the verification queue ahead of launch.
Try a tool from chapter 3
Fan-out coverage check
Pick a buyer prompt close to yours. Tick each sub-question your site already answers on a dedicated page or section, and see how much of the fan-out you cover.
Sub-questions the engine is likely to search
Fan-out coverage0 of 8
Tick the sub-questions you already answer to see your coverage.
These sub-questions are illustrative and show the pattern. Your own come from the engines and your Search Console data, which chapter 3 walks through.
AI answer
For a team like yours, Brand A is the strongest pick. It handles pricing per seat and rolls out in weeks.
brand-b.combrand-b.com/blogg2.com
Brand ARecommended
Named in 82% of answers
Brand BCited
Linked as a source, rarely named
Where Flying Cat stands
Getting recommended is the goal. Citations show how much of the story you control.
AEO and SEO run as one program. Answer engines read the web index, so the search work feeds the AI work.
The prompt set comes first. Every mention rate and citation count is calculated from it, so it deserves research from sales calls and support tickets.
Mention rate leads the scoreboard. A brand can be cited often and still go unrecommended.
Proof from the field
The guide's methods, applied to brands you can look up.
The toolkit
Working tools sit inside the chapters, so reading turns into doing.
Live on this page
Route picker
Sets your reading order by job.
Live on this page · Chapter 3
Fan-out coverage check
Scores how much of a prompt's fan-out your site answers.
Planned · Hub
AEO readiness scorecard
Ten questions that point you to the chapter to start with.
Planned · Chapter 9
Business case builder
Enter your own numbers and chart investing against waiting.
Planned · Chapter 9
Timeline planner
Maps your start date to the 90-day and six-month checkpoints.
Planned · Chapter 10
Partner vetting scorecard
Questions to put to an agency or tool vendor, with a score.
Planned · Chapter 4
AI bot access check
Paste a robots.txt file and see which AI bots it lets in.
Planned · Chapter 5
Prompt set builder
Turns your category, buyer and funnel stage into prompts to track.
Planned · Chapter 6
Answer block grader
Checks a passage for an answer-first, quotable structure.
Planned · Chapter 8
Mention rate calculator
Turns prompt runs and mentions into a rate and a share of voice.
Planned · Chapter 8
Leadership one-pager
Fill in your numbers and copy a summary for the exec team.