Free audit
Answer Engine Optimization

Your customers now ask AI. Right now, it names someone else.

When people ask ChatGPT, Perplexity or Google's AI to recommend a business like yours, competitors get cited — and most companies are simply invisible. Mercatx fixes that.

Get a free visibility audit See how it works
ask ai ›best wedding photographer in Jaipur

Based on recent reviews and portfolios, a few names come up most often:

  • 1 Lens & Light Studio
  • 2 Frame Forty-Two
  • 3 Saffron Weddings Co.
you Your studio isn't mentioned anywhere in the answer.

// this is the moment a customer chooses a competitor

What changed

Search stopped sending clicks. AI started giving answers.

The old game was ranking on Google so people click through. The new game is being named inside the answer — because most people never click at all anymore.

~68%
of Google searches now end without a single click — the answer appears on the page itself.
SparkToro / Similarweb, 2026
−33%
drop in Google referral traffic to publishers year-on-year as AI answers absorb the click.
Reuters Institute / Chartbeat, 2026
+35%
more clicks for brands that are cited inside an AI answer versus those left out.
ALM Corp analysis, 2026
−50%
projected fall in traditional search volume by 2028 as AI assistants take over discovery.
Gartner forecast
How Mercatx works

Three steps to get your business into the answer.

STEP 01 — SEE

Audit your AI visibility

We ask the AI tools the exact questions your customers ask, and show you — on screen — where you're missing and who's being named instead.

STEP 02 — FIX

Make you citable

We restructure your content into clear answers, add the technical markup AI reads, and get you mentioned on the sources these tools trust and pull from.

STEP 03 — TRACK

Watch the answers change

We monitor how often you appear across ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini and Google's AI over time — so you can see your name start showing up.

Start with a free AI visibility audit.

Tell us your business and city. We'll run the questions your customers are asking and send you the answers — including exactly where you're invisible.

  • A real answer-engine report, not a generic PDF
  • The competitors currently being recommended over you
  • The three fastest fixes for your business
  • No obligation, no jargon
Questions

What businesses ask us.

What is Answer Engine Optimization (AEO)?

AEO is the practice of making your business appear inside the answers that AI tools like ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini and Google's AI give when someone asks for a recommendation. Where SEO aimed to rank a link, AEO aims to get your brand named and cited in the answer itself.

How is this different from SEO?

SEO earns clicks by ranking on a results page. But roughly two-thirds of searches now end with no click, because the answer is shown directly. AEO shares some groundwork with good SEO, but the goal is different: be the source the AI quotes, not the tenth blue link nobody sees.

How do you know if my business is invisible to AI?

We ask the AI tools the real questions your customers use — "best [your service] in [your city]", "cheapest [your product]", and so on — and record whether you appear, who does, and why. That audit is free and takes us a day or two.

How long until I show up in AI answers?

It varies by how the models refresh and how competitive your category is. Some changes surface within weeks; broader authority takes a few months. We track it monthly so progress is visible rather than promised.

What kind of businesses is this for?

Any business whose customers used to find them through Google — local services, clinics, D2C brands, B2B and software companies. If people are starting to ask AI for recommendations in your field, this is for you.