How to Measure and Improve AEO Performance in 2025

Search is no longer a list of links.
In 2025, brands are competing for visibility inside AI-generated answers — where context, clarity, and authority decide who gets quoted.

Answer Engine Optimisation (AEO) focuses on how your content is interpreted, trusted, and referenced by AI systems such as ChatGPT, Gemini, and Copilot.

As marketers shift from ranking on pages to being featured in answers, new performance indicators are emerging. This guide explains how to measure AEO success, track your visibility in AI-generated results, and improve your position as a trusted source in conversational search.

What Is AEO and Why It Matters in 2025

AEO, or Answer Engine Optimisation, is the process of structuring content so that AI-driven platforms can easily find, understand, and cite it as part of their generated responses.

In 2025, AEO is not optional. With the rise of generative AI in search, your visibility depends on how well you teach machines what your business knows.

Unlike traditional SEO, AEO focuses on context rather than keywords, meaning you must optimise for relationships, clarity, and authority signals — not just technical structure. Explore proven AEO strategies that improve how your brand appears in AI-generated answers and voice search results.

The Shift from SEO to AEO Metrics

Traditional SEO metrics such as rankings and click-through rates only tell part of the story.
In an AI-driven environment, visibility and influence are just as important as traffic.

How the measurement mindset is evolving

AEO requires understanding how your content performs when AI answers a user’s question — not just how it ranks on Google.

Key AEO Performance Metrics to Track

1. AI Answer Visibility

This measures how often your brand or content appears in AI-generated summaries or featured responses.

Tools like Serpstat, Semrush AI Monitoring, or MarketMuse AI Discovery are starting to provide this data.
You can also manually test prompts in ChatGPT or Gemini to see how often your brand appears in answers.

Track metrics such as:

• Percentage of AI answers mentioning your brand.

• Number of URLs referenced in AI sources.

• Context accuracy (how your expertise is represented).

2. Entity Authority

Entity-based SEO is the foundation of AEO.
Search engines use entities — people, companies, and topics — to understand relationships between content.

Use tools like InLinks or Kalicube Pro to measure:

• Brand entity strength (how your brand is recognised in relation to topics).

• Co-occurrence with key industry terms.

• Mentions in structured data and knowledge graphs.

Understand how semantic SEO strengthen the relationships AI uses to determine authority.

3. Content Clarity and Schema Accuracy

Structured data helps AI engines interpret your site. Monitor your schema markup for:

• FAQ and Article schema validity.

• Proper use of author and organisation markup.

• Coverage of schema across all key pages.

Run Google’s Rich Results Test regularly and fix schema errors immediately. Learn how structured data and schema markup help AI interpret your content accurately, improving your AEO performance.

4. AI Search Engagement

Measure engagement from conversational and voice-driven queries.
This includes:

• Impressions and clicks from AI Overviews in Google Search Console.

• Referrals from voice or assistant-based sources in analytics.

• Performance of question-based blog sections or FAQs.

See how conversational SEO and voice optimisation extend your AEO reach into AI assistants and voice-driven platforms.

5. Topical Coverage and Internal Linking

AI models reward completeness.
If your topic clusters cover all relevant subtopics, your brand appears more frequently as a credible authority.

Track:

• Number of connected cluster articles per pillar page.

• Internal links to and from each topic cluster.

• Time spent on related pages (an indicator of contextual relevance).

How to Measure AI Visibility in Practice

1. Test Prompts Regularly

Create a list of 10–20 high-intent prompts relevant to your services.
Example:

• “What is the best CRM migration approach for mid-sized companies?”

• “How do you measure AEO performance in B2B marketing?”

Test these across ChatGPT, Gemini, and Copilot monthly.
Document how often your brand or URLs appear, and what language AI uses to describe your business.

2. Track SERP Features

Monitor featured snippets, knowledge panels, and People Also Ask results — these remain entry points for AI training and summarisation.

Being cited in structured search features often translates into higher AI visibility later.

3. Analyse Semantic Coverage

Use HubSpot SEO tools or MarketMuse to ensure each blog connects semantically to its main pillar topic.
The stronger your topic cluster, the more likely AI will interpret your brand as an authority.

4. Monitor Brand Mentions in AI Results

Some analytics tools can now track zero-click visibility — instances where users see your brand name in an AI answer but do not click through.
Even without clicks, these mentions contribute to brand recall and perception.

Improving AEO Performance

Once you understand your baseline visibility, focus on improving how AI models interpret and prioritise your content.

1. Build Structured and Trustworthy Content

Use schema markup, consistent formatting, and citations.
Include clear author bios, publication dates, and references to signal reliability.
AI systems prioritise well-structured, verifiable content.

2. Optimise for Natural Language

Write in a conversational, question-answer format.
Use short paragraphs and direct definitions to make your content easy for AI to summarise.
Include both broad and specific variations of your target questions.

3. Strengthen Topic Clusters

Link related blogs, pillar pages, and case studies.
The stronger your internal network, the clearer your expertise appears to AI.
Each cluster reinforces the others, improving your entity authority over time.

4. Keep Schema Updated

Review your structured data quarterly.
Add new schema types like Speakable, HowTo, or Product where applicable.
Voice assistants rely heavily on these formats for delivering accurate spoken results.

5. Align Content with Real User Intent

AI systems are trained to prioritise user satisfaction.
Analyse query intent using HubSpot reports or Semrush.
Update old content to ensure it answers questions directly and provides actionable insight.

Discover how to structure content clusters that improve visibility across AI and answer engine ecosystems.

AEO Reporting Framework for B2B Teams

AEO success depends on collaboration across marketing, sales, and operations.
Create a shared reporting dashboard that combines both traditional and AI-focused metrics.

Core AEO Dashboard Metrics

HubSpot dashboards can be customised to integrate SEO analytics and content performance in one place.
This ensures your RevOps team tracks both visibility and revenue impact.

Common Challenges in Measuring AEO

1. Limited Tooling

AI search reporting is still developing.
Until measurement platforms mature, combine manual testing with available metrics from Search Console and schema validators.

2. Inconsistent AI Outputs

AI-generated results vary by prompt, region, and user history.
Test multiple phrasing variations to get a more accurate visibility picture.

3. Balancing SEO and AEO

Traditional SEO metrics still matter.
Continue tracking rankings and conversions while layering AEO measurements to capture emerging visibility channels.

Bringing It All Together

AEO is transforming how brands are discovered.
In 2025, visibility is about being part of the conversation, not just part of the search results.

By tracking answer visibility, entity strength, and schema accuracy, B2B marketers can understand how AI perceives their brand and improve it over time.

Digitalscouts helps B2B organisations align AEO strategy with RevOps outcomes.
From schema implementation to content optimisation and HubSpot reporting, we ensure your brand is visible, credible, and measurable across both search and AI-driven platforms.