AI Optimisation Audit · Sydney, Australia
Your brand exists in AI answers.
The question is how.
An AI optimisation audit is a structured review of where your brand appears — or doesn't — inside ChatGPT, Perplexity, Google AI Overviews, Claude and Grok. Not a dashboard or an automated score. A written, query-by-query analysis with competitive benchmarks and a clear action plan you can brief a team from immediately.
01 / What It Is
What is an AI optimisation audit?
Traditional SEO measures where you rank in a list of links. An AI optimisation audit measures something different: whether your brand makes it into the answer itself. As AI-powered platforms become the first point of research for buyers, the answer is increasingly the only touchpoint they have — most AI search sessions end without a click to any website, making the AI answer itself often the only touchpoint a buyer has (Pixis, 2025).
There are two distinct types of AI optimisation audit, and they address entirely different questions. The word "audit" covers both in the market — and confusing the two leads to briefing the wrong provider for the wrong problem. Here is how they differ, and where this service sits.
02 / Two Types of AI Audit
AI governance audit vs. AEO & GEO audit: what's the difference?
The term "AI optimisation audit" covers two fundamentally different services with different scopes, different providers, and different outcomes. Understanding which one you need is the right first step.
| Feature | AI Governance & Readiness Audit | AEO / GEO Audit — AI Search Visibility |
|---|---|---|
| Core question | Are your internal AI systems compliant, ethical, and well-governed? | Does your brand appear in the AI-generated answers your buyers are already reading? |
| Who it's for | Organisations deploying AI tools internally — operations, HR, finance, compliance | Businesses that want to be discovered and recommended by AI search platforms |
| Focus areas | Model risk, data governance, bias testing, ISO 42001 compliance, internal control frameworks | Brand presence, citation share of voice, content structure, schema readiness, competitor benchmarking |
| Platforms | Internal AI systems, ML models, automated decision-making tools | ChatGPT, Perplexity, Google AI Overviews, Gemini, Claude, Grok, Microsoft Copilot |
| Standards | ISO 42001, ANAO AI policy, NSW Audit Office AI framework, ISACA AAIA certification | E-E-A-T, entity authority, structured data (schema.org), content accessibility for AI crawlers |
| Providers | Big 4 firms, AI governance boutiques (Daimon Legal, Trusenta, AI Strategy Co., AuditCo) | Roxane Pinault — specialist AEO and GEO consultant, Sydney |
| Deliverable | Compliance report, risk register, governance framework, ISO certification | Written query snapshots per engine, competitor visibility map, priority action plan |
If you need ISO 42001 certification or internal AI governance compliance, you need a governance specialist. If you want to know whether buyers are finding your brand in AI-generated answers — and what to do about it — this is the audit you are looking for.
AI Platforms Covered
03 / Do You Need One
Five signs your business is invisible in AI search.
Most businesses have three visibility gaps they do not know exist: content that is not being extracted, authority that is weaker than competitors across trusted third-party sources, and pages that work for humans but are not machine-readable enough for AI systems to confidently cite. These are the signals that indicate an audit is overdue.
You have never tested how your brand appears in ChatGPT, Perplexity, or Google AI Overviews.
If you do not know whether you are present or absent, you cannot improve. An audit establishes the baseline that everything else is measured against.
Competitors appear in AI answers for queries where you would expect to be recommended.
AI systems are not neutral. They cite brands with stronger authority signals, better content structure, and wider third-party presence. If competitors are appearing and you are not, there is a structural reason — and it is fixable.
Your organic traffic has declined without a clear explanation in Google Search Console.
AI Overviews and direct AI answers reduce click-through rates even for pages that still rank. Traffic loss that cannot be explained by ranking changes is often an AI visibility issue, not an SEO issue.
Your site is heavy with JavaScript, thin on structured data, or difficult for crawlers to parse.
AI systems need clean, semantically structured content to confidently cite a source. Sites that rely on client-side rendering or lack schema markup are at a systematic disadvantage against competitors who have invested in this.
You are entering a new market, launching a product, or repositioning your brand.
AI systems form an understanding of brands over time. Establishing a strong, accurate AI presence early is significantly easier than correcting a weak or inaccurate one after it has formed and been reinforced.
If two or more of these apply, an audit is the right starting point.
04 / The Process
How an AI optimisation audit works: five steps.
This audit is not a dashboard, an automated report, or a traffic-light summary. It is evidence-based — written, engine by engine, query by query. Each platform behaves differently, and the recommendations reflect that.
Query selection and scoping
Define the queries your buyers are actually using across AI platforms.
Identify the 25 or 50 priority queries that reflect how your buyers actually search for your category, products, or services across AI platforms. Query selection is collaborative and informed by your existing keyword data, buyer research, and category analysis.
Engine-by-engine visibility testing
Document exactly what appears for each query — platform by platform.
Each query is run across ChatGPT, Perplexity, Claude and Grok. Results are documented in full: whether your brand appears, how it is described, which competitors are named, which sources are cited, and how sentiment compares between platforms.
Technical readiness review
Assess whether AI crawlers can access, parse, and trust your content.
Assess whether AI crawlers can access, parse, and confidently extract content from your site. Covers structured data implementation, schema markup gaps, crawlability, content architecture, and JavaScript rendering issues that prevent AI extraction.
Competitive benchmark and share of voice
Map why AI systems are citing competitors over you.
Map which competitors appear most frequently across all four engines and for which query types. Identify the content structures, entity signals, and third-party citations they hold that your site currently lacks — and the specific reasons AI systems are preferring them.
Written recommendations and priority matrix
A 90-day plan you can act on immediately or brief a team from.
Each query receives its own written snapshot with specific, actionable changes ranked by expected impact. The engagement closes with an executive summary, a cross-query competitor recurrence map, and a 90-day priority plan you can act on immediately or brief a content or development team from.
05 / The Deliverable
One document per query. Evidence, not a dashboard.
Every query receives its own written snapshot. No aggregate score. No traffic-light system. No automated summary. Each document covers what appeared on each platform, what it means for your visibility, and what to do about it in a language you can act on without needing an SEO interpreter.
Written query snapshots
One document per query, per engine. What appeared, how your brand was described, which sources were cited, which competitors were named, and how results varied across platforms.
Competitor visibility map
A cross-query view of which competitors appear most frequently and why — covering the content structure, authority signals, and third-party citations giving them the advantage.
Technical readiness assessment
A review of your schema implementation, content structure, crawlability, and AI-extraction readiness — with specific fixes prioritised by effort and impact.
Engine-specific recommendations
ChatGPT, Perplexity, Claude and Grok each behave differently. Recommendations are specific to what each platform responds to — not a single generic list applied to all four.
Executive summary
A high-level overview of findings by platform and query type — suitable for sharing with leadership, a marketing team, or an agency being briefed on implementation.
90-day priority action plan
Changes ordered by expected impact with clear ownership. Usable as a monitoring baseline from day one, with no ambiguity about where to start.
06 / Packages & Pricing
Two packages. No retainer required.
Both are standalone, one-off engagements. Most clients follow the initial audit with a monthly monitoring retainer once findings are reviewed — but there is no obligation and no lock-in contract.
25-Query Audit
One-off · No retainer required · Timeline confirmed at scoping
- 25 written query snapshots
- Four engines per query: ChatGPT, Perplexity, Claude, Grok
- Per-engine competitor visibility analysis
- Engine-specific action recommendations
- Technical readiness review
- Executive summary and priority matrix
- Delivery review call included
50-Query Audit
One-off · No retainer required · Timeline confirmed at scoping
- 50 written query snapshots
- Four engines per query
- Cross-query competitor recurrence mapping
- Detailed engine-specific recommendations
- Technical readiness review
- Strategic action plan by impact priority
- Stronger base for ongoing monthly monitoring
- Delivery review call included
Not sure which package fits? The free 15-minute triage call will give you a clear recommendation before you commit to anything. Roxane works with two to five clients at a time — capacity is limited.
About
Roxane Pinault.
Senior-level strategy. No junior handoffs.
Roxane Pinault is a Senior SEO and AIO Consultant based in Sydney, NSW. She works as a Fractional Head of SEO for a selective group of two to five clients at a time — which means every engagement is run at senior level from start to finish. No account managers. No templated outputs. No handoffs to junior analysts after the pitch.
She has 8+ years of experience driving organic revenue growth for premium brands across finance, e-commerce, non-profit, and construction tech. She specialises in AIO, GEO and entity-based authority strategy for Australian businesses and French-speaking brands internationally.
She publishes The AIO SEO Strategy Brief weekly on Medium and shares AI search strategy on LinkedIn. She was ranked as the number one AIO SEO Consultant in Sydney within seven days of establishing her practice — a result of the same structured entity and content approach she uses for clients.
Read the full case study →
07 / FAQ
Common questions about AI optimisation audits.
What is an AI optimisation audit?
An AI optimisation audit is a structured analysis of how your brand, products, or services appear inside AI-generated answers across platforms like ChatGPT, Perplexity, Google AI Overviews, Gemini, Claude, and Microsoft Copilot. It moves beyond traditional SEO by measuring not where you rank in a list of links, but whether you are cited in the answer itself, how you are described, and whether AI systems trust your content enough to use it. The outcome is a documented snapshot of your current AI visibility, a competitive benchmark against named competitors, and a prioritised list of changes most likely to improve your presence across the platforms your buyers are already using.
What is the difference between an AI governance audit and an AEO or GEO audit?
An AI governance audit assesses the internal systems, data, and compliance frameworks a business uses when deploying AI tools — covering model risk, bias testing, and standards like ISO 42001. Providers for this type of audit include Big 4 firms and AI governance boutiques. An AEO (Answer Engine Optimisation) or GEO (Generative Engine Optimisation) audit is a different service entirely — it assesses how a business appears in AI-generated search answers from the outside, measuring brand visibility, citation share of voice, and content structure across platforms like ChatGPT and Perplexity. This service covers the AEO and GEO type, not governance or compliance.
What is AEO and how is it different from SEO?
AEO stands for Answer Engine Optimisation. It is the practice of structuring content so that AI-powered answer engines — ChatGPT, Perplexity, Google AI Overviews — select and cite your brand in their responses. Unlike traditional SEO, which focuses on ranking in a list of links, AEO focuses on being included in the direct AI-generated answer, where no click to a website may ever occur. In Australia, 47% of searches now trigger a Google AI Overview, making AEO a critical layer of any search strategy that cannot be addressed through traditional ranking tactics alone.
What is GEO — Generative Engine Optimisation?
GEO stands for Generative Engine Optimisation. It is the process of optimising content for generative AI platforms specifically — ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, Claude, and Grok. GEO focuses on entity recognition, citation likelihood, and structured content that AI models can confidently extract and attribute to your brand. GEO and AEO are closely related: GEO focuses on generative model platforms, while AEO covers answer engines more broadly including Google AI Overviews. Both are addressed in this audit.
How do I know if my brand currently appears in AI-generated answers?
The most direct method is manual testing: run category and brand-relevant queries across ChatGPT, Perplexity, Google AI Overviews, Claude, and Grok, and document what appears. Most businesses that do this for the first time discover significant gaps — either complete absence from answers they expected to appear in, or inaccurate framing of their brand that they have no control over. A structured audit does this systematically across 25 or 50 priority queries with consistent methodology, giving you a reliable baseline you can monitor against over time rather than a one-off spot check.
How long does an AI optimisation audit take?
Timelines are confirmed at scoping, as they depend on query complexity and current capacity. Both packages include a review call on delivery to walk through the priority matrix, answer questions, and clarify implementation priorities before you brief your team or agency. To get a timeline estimate for your project, book the free 15-minute triage call.
How much does an AI optimisation audit cost in Sydney?
Two standalone packages are available: a 25-query audit at A$3,500 and a 50-query audit at A$6,500. Both are one-off engagements with no retainer required. Pricing is transparent and fixed — there are no hidden fees or upsells at the review call. Most clients follow the initial audit with a monthly monitoring retainer once findings are reviewed, but there is no obligation to do so.
Which AI platforms does the audit cover?
The audit covers ChatGPT, Perplexity, Claude, and Grok — the four AI platforms Australian buyers are most actively using in 2026. Google AI Overviews visibility is assessed as part of the technical readiness and structured data review. If there are specific platforms particularly relevant to your category or audience, query selection can be discussed and adapted in the initial scoping conversation.
Can a small Sydney business benefit from an AI visibility audit?
Yes. AI-driven search affects businesses of all sizes. A small business in a competitive category — professional services, finance, health, legal, e-commerce — can lose meaningful visibility to larger competitors in AI answers even if it ranks well in traditional search. For a smaller business, the audit is often more actionable than for a large enterprise: the changes required are structural, not budget-dependent, and a clear priority plan with a defined scope is often the most efficient starting point.
A clear view of where you stand in AI search.
Book a free 15-minute triage call. No commitment, no pitch deck — just a conversation about whether an audit makes sense for your business right now, and which package fits best.
To enquire by email, write to hello@roxanepinault.com.au with the subject line AEO Audit Enquiry — include your website URL and one sentence about your primary category. A scoping response within 48 hours.
Capacity is limited. Roxane works with two to five clients at a time. Senior-level delivery on every engagement — no junior handoffs.
Book your free 15-minute triage call