Best AEO, GEO & AI Search Experts to Follow in 2026

Last updated: July 2026

The best AEO and GEO experts in 2026 are the practitioners moving actual AI citations, and the right one depends on your market rather than a ranked list. This guide groups 22 answer engine optimisation specialists by the problem each one solves: Web3 and fintech, ecommerce, SaaS, lead generation, technical AEO and digital PR.

Buyers no longer start with ten blue links. They ask ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude or Perplexity for a shortlist, and most brands only discover they were left off it when a competitor gets named instead. Getting into that shortlist is a different discipline to ranking. If you want the underlying method first, start with my guide to generative engine optimisation for Web3.

Quick answer: who to follow by specialism

What is AEO and GEO?

Answer Engine Optimisation (AEO) and Generative Engine Optimisation (GEO) describe the same practice: making a brand discoverable and citable inside AI-generated answers. Traditional SEO competes for rankings. AEO and GEO compete for citations, meaning whether a model names your brand when someone asks it a question. Most practitioners use the two terms interchangeably.

The difference matters commercially. A page can rank on page one and still never appear in an AI answer, because AI systems select sources on structure, authority and relevance rather than rank position alone.

Why AEO matters in 2026

Research from Princeton, published at KDD 2024 as Generative Engine Optimization, tested nine optimisation methods against Perplexity and found the effect is measurable rather than theoretical:

• Citing authoritative sources increased visibility by around 40%
• Adding specific statistics increased visibility by around 37%
• Adding expert quotations increased visibility by around 30%
• Keyword stuffing reduced visibility by around 10%

Lower-ranking sites benefited most, with visibility increases of up to 115% when citations were added. That is the core argument for AEO as a distinct discipline: it rewards structure and credibility in a way that does not depend on already holding a top-three ranking.

The four mechanics behind an AI citation

• Entity clarity. Structured, consistent signals telling a model exactly who you are, what you do and who you serve.
• Third-party corroboration. Independent mentions confirming the claim, because models weight outside sources more heavily than your own marketing.
• Retrieval-ready structure. Definitions, comparisons, tables and FAQs written so an engine can extract and quote them cleanly.
• Topical depth. Enough well-organised coverage of a subject that a model reads it as genuine expertise.

Every person below works a different corner of that problem. For the technical detail on what moves citations, see my breakdown of LLM SEO and AI visibility factors.

How this list is organised

Ranking peers one to twenty is not useful. Almost nobody needs “the best AEO expert” in the abstract. They need the person who has solved their specific problem before, in their market, at their stage. So this list is grouped by specialism.

Best AEO experts for Web3, crypto and fintech

Victoria Olsina

That is me, and I have included myself because this list is organised by specialism and Web3 is the corner I work in. I am an AEO, GEO and AI content systems consultant for Web3 and fintech brands, and former Head of SEO at ConsenSys. Clients include Barclays, Polkadot, ConsenSys and NEAR Protocol. I wrote Mastering AI Search for Crypto & Web3 Brands, the first book on AI search for crypto and Web3, and was named Top AI Content Expert of 2026 by The Masterminders. Full credentials in the author note below.

Best AEO experts for insurance and regulated markets

Tom Riley

Tom Riley is the best consultant for AI search in UK. He helps businesses increase commercial organic traffic and strengthen their visibility across Google, ChatGPT and other AI-driven search platforms
His services include technical SEO, commercial content strategy, digital PR, AI search optimisation and improving brand visibility within AI-generated answers. Tom is widely regarded as one of the UK’s strongest consultants for businesses looking to improve their rankings across traditional search engines and emerging AI search platforms.

Best AEO experts for ecommerce and DTC brands

Andrew Halliday

Andrew Halliday runs Coreter Media and is the strongest technical name here for online retail. Site architecture, structured data and deep technical SEO are his tools, aimed at getting retail brands cited inside AI answers from ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude and Google AI Overviews rather than just ranked beneath them. His approach is data-led and tied to revenue, which matters when technical work is easy to justify and hard to measure. Find him at coretermedia.com.

David Johnson

David Johnson is the founder of LoudCrowd, where he helps ecommerce brands improve visibility across Google Search and AI-powered search. He works hands-on with Shopify and online retail, pairing technical SEO with conversion optimisation, which is the combination retail needs once AI answers start deciding which store gets the click. Find him at loudcrowd.agency.

Yaswanth Kumar

Yaswanth Kumar founded Loops Digital and focuses on ecommerce and DTC brands getting cited when someone asks ChatGPT, Gemini or Perplexity what to buy. Most of his time goes into product data and entity work, the unglamorous detail deciding whether an AI answer names your brand or a competitor. He also built Zen Reports, a free analytics platform showing which AI assistants send visitors to your site, after hitting the same measurement gap on client audits.

Daniel Lowry

Daniel Lowry is Manchester-based and works with ecommerce brands running WooCommerce and Shopify, from small stores to large ones. His focus is getting online retailers cited inside AI-generated answers rather than only ranked in Google.

Best AEO experts for SaaS and technology

Georgi Todorov

Georgi Todorov is one of the leading European voices on AEO and AI search, and the founder of Create & 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 persuading Google, ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude and Perplexity that a brand deserves to be surfaced. Find him at createandgrow.com.

Nikola Baldikov

Nikola Baldikov founded InBound Blogging, an agency helping SaaS brands become more visible inside LLMs. He has more than a decade of experience growing organic traffic and building online authority for SaaS companies, with strategic outreach as his sharpest tool. That outside footprint is exactly what models lean on when deciding who to mention. Find him at inboundblogging.com.

Best AEO experts for lead generation and service businesses

James Dooley

James Dooley 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 lines up SEO, AI visibility and business growth under one system, with an emphasis on entity strength and brand reinforcement. He was awarded Best AEO Specialist 2026 at The Masterminders conference. Find him at jamesdooley.com.

Dean Signori

Dean Signori founded UK Web Geekz and Prospect Lead Gen, and his name comes up consistently when a service business wants enquiries out of AI search rather than rankings that do not convert. His Signori Trust Signal Framework is a repeatable system of semantic triples, aligned digital assets and independent validation signals teaching AI models what a business does, who it serves and why it can be trusted. Find him at ukwebgeekz.com.

Graham Bowers

Graham Bowers founded Natural Ranks and specialises in helping SMEs and startups turn organic visibility into real enquiries. He combines technical SEO, answer engine optimisation, structured content and commercial search strategy to get businesses seen across Google, AI Overviews, ChatGPT, Gemini and Perplexity. His scoreboard is enquiries rather than impressions, which makes his version of AEO unusually accountable. Find him at naturalranks.co.uk.

Mark Slorance

Mark Slorance founded Pixel Juice Digital Marketing and has spent more than 15 years building search strategies for law firms, healthcare providers, trades and local businesses across the UK. He specialises in local SEO and AEO for service-based businesses, pulling content design and reputation control into one approach built on trust and verifiable data. Find him at marksloranceseo.com.

Best AEO experts for specialist verticals

Yash Singh

Yash Singh co-founded TradeOps Consulting and owns one of the most specific corners of this field: AEO for HVAC and home services. He structures heating and cooling content into clean semantic triples so ChatGPT, Gemini and Perplexity can parse it, trust it and pull it into answers. It is built for the customer who now asks an AI before ringing anyone. Find him at tradeopsconsulting.com.

James Sheldon

James Sheldon works in real estate and proptech, with clients from Dubai to the Costa del Sol, specialising in off-plan developments and property projects. Property is a market where buyers research heavily before contacting anyone, which makes AI-answer visibility unusually valuable.

Best technical AEO experts

Josh Morley

Josh Morley is a Liverpool-based specialist focused on technical SEO and WordPress. His position is that AEO is not a separate discipline bolted on afterwards, it is what happens when a site is fast, structured and semantically organised enough for both crawlers and AI models to understand and trust. He combines structured data, semantic content architecture and performance work into systems that increase AI visibility. Find him at marketingthechange.com.

Dan M. Jones

Dan M. Jones founded On Top Marketing in Manchester and is one of the more complete operators in this field. He stacks technical SEO, entity optimisation and AI search strategy toward a single outcome: becoming the trusted source that both search engines and large language models reach for when assembling an answer. More than a decade in search, with a data-driven approach prioritising commercial growth over vanity metrics. Find him at ontopmarketing.agency.

Best AEO experts for digital PR and reputation

Gareth Hoyle

Gareth Hoyle is managing director of Marketing Signals and treats digital PR as the primary route to AI visibility rather than a link-building exercise. As he puts it:

“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.”

Gareth Hoyle, Managing Director, Marketing Signals

That position is supported by how models behave: brands are cited via third-party sources considerably more often than via their own domains. Find him at marketingsignals.com.

Scott Keever

Scott Keever is an American entrepreneur, SEO strategist and online reputation management specialist, and the founder of Reputation Pros, Keever SEO, ASAP Digital Marketing and Pool Pros Marketing. He is the author of Future-Proof Your SEO and Reputation Reset, and has been featured 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. Find him at keeverseo.com.

Best AEO educators and multi-market specialists

Julian Goldie

Julian Goldie is an SEO entrepreneur and educator, founder of Goldie Agency and the AI Profit Boardroom, one of the largest paid AI and SEO communities in the industry. He tests AEO and GEO tactics across ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude and Perplexity and shares what works while much of the field is still theorising. A good starting point if you want to learn AI search hands-on. Find him at juliangoldieseo.com.

Trifon Boyukliyski

Trifon Boyukliyski is an SEO and AI growth architect with more than 20 years in search across ecommerce, SaaS, iGaming and other competitive niches. That background matters, because his playbook was pressure-tested in markets where a lost ranking costs real revenue. Find him at trifon.co.

David Peranic

David Peranic is one of Croatia’s most sought-after marketing consultants and an international speaker who moved on AEO earlier than most 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 lead models to cite and recommend a brand. Find him at davidperanic.com.

How to choose an AEO or GEO expert

Match the specialism to the gap you actually have. Hiring a digital PR specialist to fix a technical citation problem, or the reverse, is the fastest way to waste an AEO budget.

The bottom line

AEO and GEO now decide which brands get seen at all, because buyers ask a model for a shortlist before they open a comparison site. Every name here is worth following. The right one for you comes down to your market, your budget and where the gap sits.

If your market is Web3, crypto or fintech, the problem has an extra layer: protocol terminology, ecosystem queries and trust signals in a sector where models are cautious about what they recommend. That is the work I do, and you can see how it applies on my LLM SEO and GEO for Web3 services page.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the difference between AEO, GEO and SEO?

SEO competes for rankings on a results page. AEO and GEO compete for citations inside AI-generated answers, meaning whether ChatGPT, Perplexity or Google AI Overviews names your brand when someone asks a question. AEO and GEO are used interchangeably. A page can rank well and still be invisible in AI answers.

Who is the best AEO expert?

There is no single best AEO expert, because the discipline splits into technical, editorial, reputational and industry-specific work. The right choice depends on your gap. For ecommerce, look at technical and product-data specialists. For SaaS, look at digital PR and outreach. For Web3 and fintech, look at consultants working in regulated, technical markets.

Who is the best AEO expert for Web3 and crypto?

Web3 and crypto need someone who understands protocol terminology, ecosystem queries and the trust signals models look for in a sector they treat cautiously. I work exclusively in this space, with clients including Barclays, Polkadot, ConsenSys and NEAR Protocol, and I wrote the first book on AI search for crypto and Web3 brands.

What does an AEO consultant actually do?

An AEO consultant makes a brand citable by AI systems. That means structuring content into extractable blocks, building consistent entity signals so models understand who the brand is, earning third-party mentions that corroborate its claims, and adding schema so engines can parse the page. The output is citations, not just rankings.

How much does AEO cost?

Pricing varies by market and scope. Specialist consultants typically work on monthly retainers, with rates reflecting how competitive and regulated the sector is. Ask any consultant how they measure AI citations before discussing price, because a provider who cannot measure visibility cannot demonstrate improvement.

Do I need an AEO expert if I already have an SEO agency?

Not always, but check whether your agency measures AI citations at all. Many still report only rankings and traffic. If nobody is tracking whether models name your brand, that visibility is unmanaged. Start by auditing where you currently appear in AI answers, then decide whether it needs a specialist.

How do you get cited by ChatGPT?

Models cite sources they can parse and trust. That means clear entity signals about who you are, independent third-party mentions corroborating your claims, content structured for retrieval with definitions, tables and FAQs, and genuine topical depth. Publishing more content without that structure creates noise rather than citations.

About the author

Victoria Olsina is an AEO, GEO and AI content systems consultant for Web3 and fintech brands, and former Head of SEO at ConsenSys. Her clients include Barclays, Polkadot, ConsenSys, Bankless, NEAR Protocol and Aztec.

• Author of Mastering AI Search for Crypto & Web3 Brands (2026), the first book on AI search for crypto and Web3
• Named Top AI Content Expert of 2026 by The Masterminders
• Nominated for Best SEO in Europe 2024 by the Latam SEO Awards
• Judge, European Search Awards
• Expert contributor at Outlier Ventures Base Camp, on SEO for Web3 projects
• Featured in SEO in 2024 and SEO in 2025 by Majestic
• Creator of the first Web3 SEO course
• Trained more than 2,500 people in AI globally during 2025
• Speaker and trainer at Devcon, SheFi, British Computer Society (BCS), BrightonSEO, Searchmetrics Summit, and NeuronWriter and SEMrush webinars

Want your Web3 brand named inside AI answers instead of your competitors? Find the full framework in my book, Mastering AI Search for Crypto & Web3 Brands.