Best GEO Agency: Eight Picks, What The Work Really Is, And How The Models Behind Generative Engines Score

The best GEO agency on my list is Goldie Agency, and I'm telling you upfront that it's my own agency so you can weigh my bias.

A GEO agency is a team that works to get your brand used, cited and recommended inside the answers that generative AI tools write, such as ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini and Google's AI Overviews.

My other seven picks are Exposure Ninja, Foundation, Graphite, Rise at Seven, Nectiv, Minuttia and Avenue Z, and I checked each one on its own site on 17 October 2026.

If you want my team to look at your brand first, you can book a free SEO strategy session and get a custom AI visibility plan.

In this post I'll explain what GEO is, what a GEO agency actually does and how to choose one.

Near the end, I'll show you how the AI models behind those generative engines score on this leaderboard, and what that does and doesn't tell you.

What is GEO?

GEO stands for generative engine optimisation, which is the work of getting your content used and cited inside AI-written answers.

The term comes from a research paper called GEO: Generative Engine Optimization by Pranjal Aggarwal and colleagues, first posted on arXiv on 16 November 2023.

The paper introduced a benchmark called GEO-bench, and in its own experiments it reported visibility gains of up to 40% in generative engine responses.

It also found that the methods worked differently across domains, so a good agency adapts the plan to your market.

The two overlap heavily, and Google's AI features guide says AI Overviews and AI Mode have no additional requirements beyond normal SEO.

What a GEO agency actually does

Here are the five jobs, in the order I'd run them.

1. A baseline of AI answers

The agency agrees buyer questions with you, asks each one in every AI tool your buyers use and saves the answers with dates and cited sources.

2. Brand facts

The agency makes sure your name, services and proof say the same thing on your site, your profiles and your listings.

3. Trusted-source coverage

My strategy session page says AI platforms don't recommend brands simply because those brands publish more on their own websites.

It says they look for consistent signals across the wider web, which is why the work is bylines, reviews, comparisons and research-led coverage.

4. Citation-worthy pages

Key pages open with a direct answer and back it up with statistics, quotes and named sources, which an AI tool can lift and cite.

5. Technical access

OpenAI's crawler page recommends allowing OAI-SearchBot, and Perplexity's crawler page recommends allowing PerplexityBot.

Google says you don't need special schema or AI text files for AI Overviews or AI Mode.

📞 Want to see which of the five jobs your brand needs first? Book a free SEO strategy session and my team will show you your AI visibility, a competitor gap analysis and a roadmap you keep either way.

The 8 best GEO agencies in 2026

I avoided the agencies already compared in my AI SEO optimization agency and best Claude SEO agency posts, so these are fresh options.

1. Goldie Agency

Goldie Agency is the SEO and link building agency I started on my own, and it now has 70+ people.

It's my company, so this is the most biased entry on the page.

The session page lists a custom visibility plan, an AI visibility roadmap, a competitor gap analysis and a plan for traffic, mentions and leads.

The agency site also lists link building with manual outreach and no PBNs, a Complete Site Audit and AI Automation.

2. Exposure Ninja

Exposure Ninja's site describes its AI Search Strategy as a GEO plan showing where you appear in AI answers today and how to earn more of them.

3. Foundation

Foundation's site says it helps B2B brands get cited across ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude, Perplexity and AI Overviews.

4. Graphite

Graphite's site says its AI research team identifies the strategies that drive impact, and it names Ethan Smith as CEO.

5. Rise at Seven

Rise at Seven describes itself as a search-first content agency for SEO, social, PR, AI and LLM search.

6. Nectiv

Nectiv's site lists AI Search for visibility across ChatGPT, Perplexity and AI Mode, plus AI tracking across the major engines.

7. Minuttia

Minuttia's site says its AI-first content is always reviewed and approved by humans.

8. Avenue Z

Avenue Z's site offers an AEO readiness quiz and lists an AI visibility report.

I haven't hired these seven agencies, so I'm describing what each one says about itself.

I haven't listed prices, because agencies quote after a call and I won't guess.

How to choose a GEO agency

Use this table on every sales call.

• Walk away from any agency that guarantees ChatGPT, Gemini or Google's AI will recommend you.
• Walk away from anyone who sells special schema or an AI text file as the secret, because Google says neither is needed.
• Walk away from any plan built on thousands of AI pages with no human review.

What the first 90 days with a GEO agency should look like

A real engagement leaves a trail you can inspect long before the answers change.

Google says AI Overviews and AI Mode traffic is counted in the "Web" search type of the Search Console Performance report, so check it next to the agency's own report.

If a proposal has none of these deliverables, you're buying a label and not a service.

If you'd like a second opinion on a proposal you've already got, book a free SEO strategy session and bring it with you.

Nobody can guarantee what a model says

Nobody can guarantee what a model says, and that includes me and Goldie Agency.

None of the companies behind ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini or Claude publishes a formula for which brands get recommended.

An agency controls the footprint a model reads and the honesty of its reporting, and it doesn't control the answer.

📞 Want a straight answer about your own brand? Grab a free SEO strategy session with my team, and we'll show you why competitors get mentioned more often and where you can build a stronger presence.

Which AI models sit behind generative engines, and how do they score on GoldieBench?

Now for the GoldieBench part, and I need to be clear about what it measures.

GoldieBench scores models on one-shot builds such as landing pages, apps, games and visuals, on a 0 to 10 scale.

It doesn't measure which brands an AI recommends, and it doesn't measure SEO or GEO results.

A GEO agency doesn't ship its own model, and none of the agencies above has a model on the board.

Generative engines are built on models from a handful of makers, so this is how those makers' models score on their live pages today.

Claude Opus 5 leads this group at 8.27, with GPT-5.6 Sol at 8.16 and Grok at 8.09.

Meta's Muse Spark 1.2 averages 7.55, and Gemini 3.6 Flash averages 7.08 as the only Gemini model on the board.

Perplexity has no model on GoldieBench, so I can't give you a score for it.

The board also can't tell you which exact model a consumer app runs at any moment, because the makers change that themselves.

So please don't read these scores as a ranking of which AI is easiest to get cited in.

What the model scores mean when you hire a GEO agency

The scores matter when an agency uses AI to produce the work, such as drafting answer-first pages or summarising your baseline.

A model that follows a detailed brief well first time leaves fewer mistakes for a human editor to catch.

Even so, the system around the model matters more than the model itself.

A cheaper model with a clear brief, a source of truth and a human editor can produce very good pages.

A top model with no fact checking still produces confident mistakes, and confident mistakes are the last thing you want an AI tool to quote.

So ask every agency what it does before and after the model writes, and not just which model it uses.

Related reading on GoldieBench

My King of AEO post looks at answer engine optimisation from the model side.

In the same batch as this post, I also ranked the best AEO consultant picks and wrote a free GEO audit guide.

If you'd like my team to look at your brand, you can book a free SEO strategy session and leave with a plan for traffic, mentions and leads.

Also On Our Network

• Agent Operatorshow to hire a GEO agency and run the first 90 days
• AI Income Deskwhich GEO agency fits your type of business
• AI Tool Verdicteight GEO agencies compared on what they really offer
• agentos.guidea five-step quick start for hiring one from your Agent OS
• aiprofitboardroom.comwhy AI SEO agencies are replacing the traditional kind

Record your baseline, insist on all five jobs, judge the system around the model, and you'll be ready to choose the best GEO agency.