Article
Oct 23, 2025
Guilherme Hortinha
How to Rank Your Brand in AI Overviews? (Updated October 2025)
As AI Overviews reshape how people search, ranking your brand inside them has become the new frontier of visibility. To rank your brand in AI Overviews like those on ChatGPT, Gemini, or Perplexity, you must optimise across three essential pillars:
Make your website technically readable to AI models.
Build deep topical authority through structured content.
Get your brand mentioned on the external sources that AI trusts most.
These three pillars form the foundation of Generative Engine Optimisation (GEO), also known as AI SEO optimisation, the emerging practice of ensuring that AI systems can see, trust, and cite your brand when answering user queries.
Why Ranking in AI Overviews Matters Now
Over the last 18 months, the search landscape has transformed faster than ever before. Google’s AI Overviews now appear on over 60% of search results according to Semrush research from June 2025, while ChatGPT’s browsing model and Perplexity’s Pro answers are increasingly replacing traditional clicks with direct recommendations.
Gartner predicts that by 2027, 80% of consumer queries will be handled by AI interfaces that never send users to a traditional website. That means if your brand isn’t visible to AI, you’re effectively invisible online.
AI models don’t just index keywords; they synthesise context. They pull from structured data, citations, and high-authority mentions to determine which brands are most relevant to a user’s question. In other words: AI doesn’t rank websites but rather recommends entities.
The Three Pillars of AI Visibility (a.k.a. Generative Engine Optimisation)
1. Technical Optimisation: Let AI Crawlers In
If your site isn’t technically accessible to AI crawlers, nothing else matters. This is where AI SEO technical optimisation begins.
Most businesses unknowingly block AI models from reading their content via outdated robots.txt files or firewalls. According to Cloudflare’s 2025 update, over 28% of websites are still unintentionally preventing AI bots from accessing their information — the digital equivalent of closing your store blinds.
The key is to guide AI models clearly using structured signals like llms.txt (which acts as a directory for AI crawlers), schema markup, and clean internal linking.
Element | Purpose | Example or Action |
|---|---|---|
| Tells AI crawlers what data they can use | Add |
Schema markup | Helps AI understand entities, FAQs, reviews | Implement FAQ + LocalBusiness schema |
Clean internal links | Builds context across topics | Link related blogs and services |
Open robots.txt | Allows trusted AI bots | Permit models like GPTBot, PerplexityBot |
💡 Quick action: Audit your website’s crawlability today. At Indexed Lab, our AI Visibility Audit scans your site for hidden blocks that could be preventing AI access — often a 30-minute fix with massive visibility upside.
2. Authority-Building Content: Become the Source AI Trusts
AI systems prioritise expertise and consistency. The brands they cite most often aren’t necessarily the biggest — they’re the ones that answer questions comprehensively and coherently.
“AI models reward structured, encyclopaedic content that clearly explains a topic rather than vaguely mentioning it,” said Rand Fishkin, founder of SparkToro.
This is where AI SEO content strategy differs from traditional SEO. Instead of chasing keywords, the goal is to cover entire themes connected to your brand’s unique selling points. That means mapping every customer question you can think of, and turning each into an answer-structured article that’s easy for AI to parse.
🧭 Real-world example: Wandr’s AI visibility breakthrough
When Wandr, a healthy restaurant in Dubai, partnered with Indexed Lab, they were struggling to appear in local Google searches despite stellar reviews. Within weeks of implementing structured content and schema markup, Wandr began appearing directly in Gemini’s recommendations for “healthy restaurants in Dubai.”
“Our visibility completely changed, we started showing up where people actually search now,” said Anki Ram, founder of Wandr
According to Google’s own Search Central, structured data and consistent entity linking are key to helping AI models “understand the relationship between your content and the user’s intent.”
💡 Quick action: Start by identifying your top 10 customer questions and publishing one detailed answer per week. Over time, this creates a web of AI-friendly content that boosts your authority signal exponentially.
3. Web Dissemination: Be Mentioned Where AI Looks
Even the best content won’t help if your brand isn’t discussed beyond your website. AI models rely heavily on third-party citations to validate trust.
A 2025 Perplexity Transparency Report revealed that its top information sources are Wikipedia, Reddit, Quora, LinkedIn, Medium, and high-authority niche blogs. The same applies to ChatGPT and Gemini, which blend proprietary web data with trusted open sources.
Source Type | Citation Likelihood | Example Platforms |
|---|---|---|
High (AI reads & cites) | 9/10 | Wikipedia, Medium, LinkedIn, Quora |
Medium | 6/10 | Local directories, review sites, press releases |
Low | 2/10 | Private communities, gated content |
💡 Quick action: Republish your top articles on open platforms like Medium and LinkedIn Articles with canonical tags, and engage in discussions on Quora or Reddit around your niche. These mentions dramatically increase your citation footprint across generative models.
How Indexed Lab Helps Businesses Rank in AI Overviews
At Indexed Lab, we specialise in bridging the gap between SEO and AI discovery. Our 3-pillar framework, Technical Foundation, Authority Content, and Web Dissemination, has helped brands like Wandr and Flash Facial go from invisible to AI-visible in less than 45 days.
We don’t just optimise your website; we optimise how AI perceives your brand across the web. Through a blend of AI Visibility Audits, structured data implementation, and citation mapping, Indexed Lab ensures your business gets recognised, trusted, and recommended by today’s leading AI systems.
👉 Want to see how visible your brand is to AI?
Try our free AI Visibility Checker on ChatGPT or book a visibility audit with our team.
Frequently Asked Questions
1. How long does it take to appear in AI Overviews?
Most brands see early signals of AI visibility within 30–60 days after implementing all three pillars. However, full inclusion in AI Overviews or ChatGPT recommendations depends on crawl cycles and data retraining frequency (typically every few weeks).
2. Is AI SEO different from traditional SEO?
Yes. Traditional SEO optimises for search engine ranking, while AI SEO (Generative Engine Optimisation) optimises for entity visibility within AI-generated answers. It’s about being the trusted reference, not just the top result.
3. Can small businesses rank in AI models like ChatGPT or Gemini?
Absolutely. AI models value relevance and authority, not size. If your brand clearly answers user intent and is mentioned in trusted online sources, you can appear alongside much larger competitors.
Conclusion
To rank your brand in AI Overviews, focus on the three pillars that matter most:
Technical optimisation: make your data accessible.
Authority-building content: make your answers count.
Web dissemination: make your name appear where AI looks.
As AI continues to reshape online discovery, visibility is no longer about chasing algorithms but rather about teaching machines who you are and why you matter. The sooner you adapt, the sooner you’ll be cited by ChatGPT, Gemini, and every generative engine that defines the future of search.