Free AEO Audit: How To Get One, What It Can't Tell You, And Which Free Models Can Help

A free AEO audit is a no-cost check of whether AI tools like ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini and Google's AI Overviews name your brand, cite your pages and get your facts right.

My short answer to "is it worth it?" is yes, as long as you know what a free audit can't tell you.

The quickest way to get one with an expert is to book a free SEO strategy session with my team, which works like a free AEO audit conversation.

AEO stands for answer engine optimisation, which is the work of getting your brand named and cited in AI-written answers.

In this post I'll explain how a free AEO audit works, the free routes I checked today and where a free audit stops being enough.

Near the end, I'll show you which free and open models score well on this leaderboard, in case you want an AI to help you sort through the results.

What is a free AEO audit?

A free AEO audit is a first look at your AI visibility that costs you nothing but time.

It answers whether AI tools mention you for the questions your buyers ask, which competitors they name instead and which websites they cite.

A free audit isn't a piece of software with its own AI model, because the answers it records come from the AI tools themselves.

The free routes to an AEO audit

I checked each of these on its own page on 17 October 2026.

Microsoft introduced the AI Performance report in public preview on 10 February 2026.

How to run a free AEO audit yourself

This is the shortest version that still gives you a useful baseline.

1. Check the crawlers

Open your robots.txt file and make sure OAI-SearchBot, PerplexityBot and Googlebot aren't blocked on your key pages.

OpenAI says OAI-SearchBot surfaces websites in ChatGPT's search features, and Perplexity says PerplexityBot surfaces and links websites in its search results.

I read OpenAI's crawler page and Perplexity's crawler page on 17 October 2026.

2. Write ten buyer prompts

Write ten questions a buyer would ask before choosing a business like yours, mixing best-of, comparison, problem, brand and alternatives questions.

3. Ask them in three AI tools

Ask each one in a fresh chat in the three AI tools your buyers use most, and run each one twice if you have time.

4. Log what you see

Write down whether you were named, who else was named, which websites were cited and whether your facts were right.

5. Pick three fixes

Fix crawler blocks first, wrong facts second, and make the most-cited missing source your first coverage goal.

📞 Want an expert to read your free audit with you? Book a free SEO strategy session and my team will show you why competing brands appear more often and give you a clear AI visibility roadmap.

What a free AEO audit can't tell you

This is the part that decides whether a free audit is enough for you.

Google also says you don't need new machine-readable files, AI text files or special schema.org markup to appear in AI Overviews or AI Mode.

So if a free audit ends by selling you one of those as the fix, be careful.

When is a free AEO audit worth it, and when isn't it?

A free audit is worth it for almost everyone as a first step, because it costs nothing and gives you a dated baseline.

It's enough on its own when you have one main service, a short list of competitors and the time to re-run your prompts every month.

It stops being enough when you sell in several markets, when the competitor gap is large or when the fix is third-party coverage.

My strategy session page explains why coverage matters, because it 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, such as trusted publications, expert articles, independent reviews, comparisons and credible third-party references.

Earning that coverage takes relationships and time, and that's usually where people want help.

📞 Think your gap is bigger than a free audit can fix? Grab a free SEO strategy session with my team and we'll map the bylines, reviews, comparisons and research that fit your market.

Free AEO audit vs a full AEO audit

The free version is a first pass, and the full version goes wider on every axis.

I'd always start free, because the first pass tells you whether the full version is worth your time.

How different businesses should use a free AEO audit

The method is the same for everyone, but the questions that matter change with the business.

A local service business should focus on "best [service] in [town]" questions, because those are the ones closest to a call.

A software company should focus on comparison and alternatives questions, because buyers use them to build a shortlist.

An online shop should focus on product facts, because a wrong price or spec in an AI answer puts buyers off.

A consultant should test their own name and "best [expert] for [problem]" questions, because bylines and reviews are the kind of third-party references my strategy session page says AI platforms look for.

An agency should run a free audit for every new client, because the dated log becomes the baseline for every report that follows.

How to keep a free AEO audit repeatable

A free audit is only useful if you can run it again in the same way next month.

Save your prompts word for word, because a small change in wording can change the answer.

Write the date on every row, because the trend matters more than any single result.

Keep a column for the AI tool and the mode you used, such as Google AI Overviews or Google AI Mode, because Google says they can use different models and techniques.

Copy the cited URLs in full, because the domains that keep appearing are your map for earning coverage.

Re-check your robots.txt file every month too, because a security or CDN change can block a crawler without anyone noticing.

Which free models can help you analyse a free AEO audit?

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 how well a model sorts an audit log, and it doesn't measure which brands an AI recommends.

A free AEO audit doesn't ship its own model, but you might want a model to help you tidy hundreds of logged answers or draft answer-first rewrites.

If you want that step to stay free, these are the free or open models on the board, next to the paid models behind the big assistants for reference.

GLM-5.2 is the highest-scoring free option in that table at 7.77, which puts it above Gemini 3.6 Flash's 7.08.

Qwable 5 27B Coder averages 7.14 and runs on your own machine, which suits a private audit log you'd rather not upload.

You can see more models that run offline on the local models board.

The paid frontier models still score higher, with Claude Opus 5 at 8.27 and GPT-5.6 Sol at 8.16.

What the model scores mean for a free AEO audit

The scores don't change how you run the audit, because you always test the AI tools your buyers actually use.

They matter only for the helper step, where a model sorts your log or drafts rewrites for you.

For that step, the brief you give the model matters more than the model, because a clear fact file and a human check catch most mistakes.

A free local model with a good brief can be enough for sorting a spreadsheet of answers.

I'd still have a person approve every rewrite before it goes live, whichever model drafted it.

Related reading on GoldieBench

My sibling post on the full AEO audit explains every step and the models behind the answers.

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

In the same batch, I also wrote about the free AEO report, which shows how to write up what you find.

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

Also On Our Network

• Agent Operatorsmy 30-minute DIY method for a free AEO audit
• AI Income Deskfour ways a business can get a free AEO audit
• AI Tool Verdictsix free AEO audit options rated side by side
• agentos.guidea free weekly AEO audit that runs inside your Agent OS
• agentos.guidehow my Agent OS runs answer engine optimisation

Run the free version first, know its limits and add expert help only where the gap is real, and a free AEO audit will be worth every minute.