How to Choose an AI SEO Agency in Australia: 10 Questions to Ask

Quick answer: Choose an AI SEO agency that can tell you exactly what it will change on your site, will not guarantee citations or rankings, measures results in tools you can check yourself, earns mentions and reviews honestly, and puts the scope, price and terms in writing. The 10 questions below test each of those. Several come straight from Google's advice on hiring an SEO, and the rest draw on Google's spam policies, the AI companies' crawler documentation and business.gov.au.

AI SEO, also sold as AEO or GEO, is the work of getting a business recommended by ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity and Google's AI Overviews. If the terms are unfamiliar, start with AEO vs GEO vs AI SEO. Many Australian SEO agencies and AI SEO companies now offer it, and the sales pages often read alike. The questions below are how you tell them apart.

10 questions to ask an AI SEO agency

1. What exactly will you change on our website?

A good agency can list the changes: crawler settings, service pages to rewrite, business details to correct, structured data to add. Google's list of questions to ask an SEO includes "Will you share with me all the changes you make to my site", and it warns: "Be careful if a company is secretive or won't clearly explain what they intend to do." A proprietary framework is fine. A framework you are not allowed to see is not.

2. Do you guarantee citations or rankings?

The right answer is no. Google says "no one can guarantee a #1 ranking on Google" and tells businesses to beware of SEOs that "claim to guarantee rankings, allege a 'special relationship' with Google". AI answers are even less predictable than rankings, because they change with the question and the day. An agency that guarantees ChatGPT will name you is overselling.

3. How will you measure results, and can we check them ourselves?

Ask which numbers will appear in the monthly report and where they come from. You can verify three of them for free:

• Google: Search Console's generative AI report counts how many times "links to your site were shown to a user in a generative AI feature on Google Search", meaning AI Overviews and AI Mode.
• Microsoft: Bing Webmaster Tools reports citations "across Microsoft Copilot, AI-generated summaries in Bing, and select partner integrations".
• ChatGPT: many visits from ChatGPT show in Google Analytics with the source chatgpt.com, though some arrive without a source and are counted as direct.

Enquiries and sales matter more than any of these. Ask how the agency will connect AI visibility to leads, and when you should expect to see movement: Google's own list includes "What kind of results do you expect to see, and in what timeframe?"

4. Which questions will you track, and why those?

AI visibility tools check what AI tools say in answer to a fixed set of questions, often called prompts. The questions decide the result. Ask to see the list before work starts, and check that it reflects what your buyers actually ask, not only easy questions that include your brand name.

5. Can AI tools read our site today?

This is a quick technical check, and a good agency will have done it before the first meeting. OpenAI and Anthropic each run a search crawler (OAI-SearchBot, Claude-SearchBot) separate from their training crawler (GPTBot, ClaudeBot). OpenAI says sites that block its search crawler "will not be shown in ChatGPT search answers". Perplexity says PerplexityBot "is designed to surface and link websites in search results". Anthropic says blocking Claude-SearchBot "may reduce your site's visibility" in Claude's search results. Blocking a training crawler is a separate decision from blocking a search crawler, and the agency should explain which is which. Our guide to ChatGPT SEO in Australia covers the crawler settings in detail.

6. Are you charging for llms.txt or special AI schema?

It should not be a major line item. Google says "there are no additional requirements to appear in AI Overviews or AI Mode, nor other special optimizations necessary", and that you do not need "new machine readable files, AI text files, or markup" to appear in them. An llms.txt file takes minutes to write. If it is a headline deliverable in a proposal, ask what else you are paying for.

7. How will you earn mentions and reviews?

AI answers can draw on what other sites say about you, not only your own pages, so mentions and reviews matter. How they are earned matters more. Google's spam policies define link spam as "creating links to or from a site primarily for the purpose of manipulating search rankings", including buying links. In Australia, "it's illegal to create or arrange for a fake or misleading review", and any incentive for a review has to be disclosed. Ask the agency to describe exactly how it gets mentions, and walk away from anything involving paid reviews.

8. Will you publish AI-written content in bulk?

Some AI SEO offers are, at heart, large volumes of generated pages. Google's spam policies name "using generative AI tools or other similar tools to generate many pages without adding value for users" as scaled content abuse. AI-assisted writing is fine. Hundreds of near-identical pages are a risk to the whole site.

9. Can you show previous AI SEO work and results?

Google suggests asking "Can you show me examples of your previous work and share some success stories?" and "What's your experience in my industry?" Read the answers closely. Many case studies show organic traffic growth, which is useful, but is not the same as AI visibility. Ask which figures are AI-specific and where they were measured.

10. What does it cost, what is included, and what are the terms?

Get the scope, the monthly price, GST, the minimum term and the notice period in writing. Ask who owns the content, the Google Business Profile, Search Console and the analytics accounts: the answer should be you. Our guide to how much AI SEO costs in Australia shows the prices agencies publish, so you can tell whether a quote is in the normal range.

Good answers and red-flag answers at a glance

Question	A good answer	A red-flag answer
What will you change?	A written list of changes	A method they will not show you
Do you guarantee results?	No	Guaranteed citations or rankings
How will you measure it?	Search Console, Bing Webmaster Tools, analytics and leads	Only screenshots or a score you cannot check
Which questions will you track?	A list you approve, based on what buyers ask	Mostly questions containing your brand name
Can AI tools read our site?	Already checked, with crawler names	"We will look at that later"
llms.txt or AI schema?	A minor task, if included at all	A headline deliverable
How do you earn mentions?	PR, partnerships, genuine customer reviews	Paid reviews or link packages
Will you publish AI content in bulk?	Fewer pages, each useful	Hundreds of generated pages
Can you show AI results?	AI-specific figures and where they were measured	Organic traffic charts labelled as AI
Cost and terms?	Written scope, price with GST, notice period, accounts in your name	Long lock-in, agency owns the accounts

Red flags in an AI SEO pitch

• Guaranteed citations, rankings or a "special relationship" with Google or OpenAI.
• A secret method they will not explain.
• llms.txt, "AI schema" or special files sold as essential.
• Cold emails promising to get you into ChatGPT. Google says to "be wary of SEO firms and web consultants or agencies that email you out of the blue".
• Reviews or links offered for a fee.
• Large volumes of AI-generated pages.
• Statistics with no source, and reports you cannot check yourself.

About "best AI SEO agency" lists

When we searched Google Australia for the best AI SEO agency in October 2026, page one was mostly ranked lists. Several were published by agencies, and some placed their own business near the top. Treat them as a starting list of names, not a verdict, and put each agency on the list through the 10 questions above.

The short version

• Ask what will change, how it will be measured and what it costs, and get it in writing.
• Reject guarantees, secret methods, paid reviews and bulk AI pages.
• Check results yourself in Search Console, Bing Webmaster Tools and your analytics.
• Make sure every account and every piece of content stays in your name.

We are happy to be asked all 10. Our AI SEO agency page sets out what we change, how we measure it and what we will not promise, and the AI SEO for business guide covers what results to expect. If you would like a straight answer for your business, get in touch.