Shoppers ask AI before they buy. If AI skips your brand, you lose the order.
"Which brand should I buy?" — more and more shoppers hand that decision to ChatGPT, Perplexity and Gemini. MaxAEO shows e-commerce and DTC brands exactly how these engines answer: are you mentioned, where do you rank, how are you framed, and which content earned your competitors their recommendation.
Enter a domain or brand name · report in ~60s · no signup
E-commerce brands are quietly losing buyers to AI answers
Decisions moved into the chat box
Shoppers no longer open ten tabs to compare. They ask ChatGPT, Perplexity or Gemini "which brand should I buy for X" — and the shortlist in that one answer decides who makes the consideration set before anyone reaches your store.
You can't see what you're missing
Traffic dashboards show clicks, but an AI recommendation is a one-off conversation that leaves no trace. Competitors get named again and again while you're absent — and nothing in your analytics looks wrong until conversions slip.
Being mentioned ≠ being recommended
AI may mention your brand but frame it as "pricier than alternatives" or "mixed reviews on support". Mention rate, ranking position and sentiment can each drift — and every mismatch quietly costs orders.
See how AI talks about your brand, then decide how to play
Category mention rate
We run real purchase-intent prompts for your category across ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, Copilot and more, and measure how often — and where in the list — your brand shows up in the answers.
Competitor benchmarking
Your brand and your main competitors run through the same prompt set, side by side: who gets named more, who ranks higher, who gets the positive framing — and exactly where the gap is closable.
Sentiment & framing
We break down whether AI's take on you is positive, neutral or negative, and surface the recurring negatives (price, shipping, support) so vague "reputation" becomes a concrete content and PR checklist.
Citation sources (where to publish)
We track which sources AI cites when recommending competitors — review sites, Reddit threads, rankings, press, brand sites — so you know exactly where to place content to get cited in the next answer.
E-commerce AEO in four steps
Step 1 · Audit where you stand
Enter your domain or brand name and get a diagnostic report across major AI engines in about 60 seconds: category mention rate, ranking, sentiment and citations — how AI sees you today.
Step 2 · Decode competitor wins
Read how AI phrases competitor recommendations and which sources it cites, reverse-engineering which page or review earned them the spot — turning their playbook into your template.
Step 3 · Fix and publish content
Counter negative framing and missing selling points by upgrading product pages, FAQs, reviews and listicles — prioritising the channels AI cites most, so it has better material next time.
Step 4 · Monitor continuously
Mention rate, ranking and sentiment shift with every model update. Continuous monitoring tracks the impact of each content push and flags drops before peak season, making AEO a measurable loop.
Why e-commerce brands need dedicated AEO
Focused on buying decisions in AI
Your shoppers increasingly shortlist via ChatGPT, Perplexity and Gemini. We monitor how these engines mention and recommend brands — right where modern purchase decisions actually happen.
Built around conversion, not vanity reach
Metrics map to the consideration set — category mention rate, competitor ranking, sentiment labels, citation sources — "did we make the shortlist", not impressions with no link to sales.
From diagnosis straight to action
Reports don't stop at scores: they point to which content to fix and which channels to publish on, so marketing and content teams can act on it the same week.
FAQ
Traditional SEO optimises your page ranking in search results, where users still click through and compare. AEO (AI engine optimisation / answer engine optimisation) is about the shortlist AI gives directly in a conversation — whether you're mentioned, where you rank in the answer, and how you're described. For e-commerce brands, being written into AI's recommended answer increasingly matters more than which page of search results you sit on.
For international e-commerce, we focus on ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, Copilot, DeepSeek and other major engines, tracking brand mention rate, ranking, sentiment and citation sources. Coverage evolves with the product — run a free check to see the engines included in your current report.
Enter your domain or brand name and get a diagnostic report in about 60 seconds: your category mention rate across monitored engines, approximate ranking, sentiment, and a competitor benchmarking view — enough to judge your current position in AI's shopping shortlist.
They're the sources AI references when recommending a brand — review articles, Reddit and Q&A threads, rankings, press coverage, brand sites. Their value: they show which channels earned competitors their citations, so you know where to place product content, reviews and selling points to get picked up in the next answer.
Even more so. A low mention rate means you have no seat in AI's shortlist yet, while this part of demand keeps growing. Start by studying how competitors earn recommendations and which sources get cited, then publish targeted content to those channels. The prerequisite is seeing your baseline clearly and tracking changes over time.
AI answers shift with model updates and how quickly new content gets indexed, so no fixed timeline can be promised. We recommend continuous monitoring: record how mention rate, ranking and sentiment move after each content push, and let the data show which channels actually moved the needle.
See how AI talks about your brand right now
Enter a domain or brand name · report in ~60s · no signup
ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, Copilot, DeepSeek and other names mentioned are trademarks of their respective owners. This product is not affiliated with or endorsed by these platforms.