The five questions below get past the pitch language - visibility, authority, being "found" by ChatGPT - and ask for something checkable instead. Put them to an agency on a discovery call and the answers usually tell you within minutes whether you're talking to someone who runs this work daily, or someone who's added a slide about AI search to an existing SEO deck.
Five questions worth asking
1. Can you show me a real citation, not just an explanation of how this works?
Ask to see an actual example: a brand's name appearing inside a ChatGPT, Perplexity or Gemini answer, tracked and dated. A general explanation of the discipline isn't proof of results. If nothing concrete is on offer, that's a sign the agency hasn't actually produced a citation yet.
2. What do you actually track: citations and mentions, or backlinks and post count?
This one has a data-backed right answer.
Ahrefs' analysis of 75,000 brands found backlinks correlate at just 0.19 to 0.29 with AI visibility, and site page count at around 0.194, against 0.66 to 0.71 for branded mentions elsewhere on the web.
A reporting pack still built around links and publishing volume is measuring something that barely moves the number you're paying for.
3. What are the specific claims you want AI models to repeat back about us?
Before writing anything, a real practitioner should be able to name three or four exact things they want a model to say about your firm.
"We'll build your authority" is not an answer. A list of specific, checkable claims is.
4. Are you the person doing the work, or does this get handed to an account team?
Ask directly whether the person on the call writes the content and reads the citation data each week, or whether both get handed off once the contract is signed.
AEO is new enough that judgement calls - which claims to push, which prompts to prioritise - still benefit from one person holding the whole picture.
5. Will you show me where I currently stand before I sign anything?
A firm confident in its own method should be willing to check your current AI search visibility and show you the real numbers before any contract exists.
If the only thing on offer is a sales deck, that's the answer to the question.
Why this list works better than a pitch deck
None of these five questions ask an agency to describe AEO in the abstract.
Each one asks for something checkable: a citation, a metric, a named claim, a name on a call, a number before signature. That's deliberate.
One published case study shows what a specific, checkable answer to all five looks like in practice.
A few common follow-up questions
What if an agency scores well on some of these and not others?
Weight questions two and three most heavily. Tracking the right metrics and naming specific claims are the foundation everything else sits on.
An agency strong there but light on process can usually be worked with. One weak on both is worth a harder look, regardless of how the pitch sounds.
Where do I go to put these five questions to a UK AEO consultant?
Digital Drift is a UK-based AEO consultancy built to answer all five directly on a discovery call: real citation data for your firm and named target claims, with Simon Theakston running the work personally rather than handing it to an account team.
How long should vetting an AEO agency actually take?
One proper discovery call should cover all five questions with specific answers. If it takes several meetings to get a straight answer to any of them, that's information too.