A free AEO report shows you what AI answer engines like ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini and Google's AI features say about your business, and you can put one together yourself without paying for software.
AEO means answer engine optimisation, which is the work of getting your brand named and cited when buyers ask AI tools for advice.
The report matters because more buyers now ask an AI who to hire or what to buy before they ever visit a website.
If the AI names three competitors and leaves you out, you never even get the chance to pitch.
This post shows you how four different kinds of business actually use a free AEO report, which sections each one should care about and how to make one in an afternoon.
If you'd like my team to look at your AI visibility live, you can book a free strategy session and see where your brand stands in AI search.
What Goes In A Free AEO Report
Before we get to the use cases, here's the short version of what the report contains.
- The prompt set lists the real buyer questions you tested, such as "best accountant for small businesses in Leeds".
- The share of answers shows how often your business is named across every run of every prompt.
- The citation sources list the websites the AI pointed to when it answered.
- The accuracy check compares what the AI said about you with what's actually true.
- The sentiment check records whether the AI describes you positively, neutrally or negatively.
- The competitor share shows who gets named when you don't.
- The crawl access check confirms that AI search crawlers are allowed to read your site.
- The priority list ranks the fixes by how much they matter and how hard they are.
Every business needs all eight sections, but each type of business leans on different ones.
Use Case 1: A Local Service Business Checking Its Facts
Picture a plumber, a dental clinic or a law firm that gets most of its work from people nearby.
The section that matters most here is accuracy, because a wrong phone number or an old service list costs real calls.
The owner tests prompts like "emergency plumber open now near [town]" and "who is the best family dentist in [town]".
Then they check every fact the AI states against their own fact sheet.
Google's guidance on its AI features tells site owners to keep their Merchant Center and Business Profile information up to date, which is exactly where many wrong local facts start.
A local business usually gets the fastest win by fixing those profiles first.
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Use Case 2: A B2B Company Fighting For The Shortlist
A software company or a B2B service firm lives and dies by comparison questions.
Its buyers ask things like "best payroll software for a 50-person company" or "[competitor] alternatives".
The sections that matter most here are competitor share and citation sources.
If the same review sites and comparison articles keep appearing under answers that name competitors, those sites are where the company needs coverage.
Goldie Agency's strategy session page makes the same point, 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, including trusted publications, expert articles, independent reviews and comparisons.
Use Case 3: An Agency Building A Client Baseline
An agency can use a free AEO report as the first document in a new client relationship.
The report gives both sides a dated baseline, so nobody has to argue later about whether the work moved anything.
The sections that matter most here are the prompt set and the share of answers, because they become the agreed scoreboard.
The honest way to present it is as a snapshot, because AI answers change and nobody can promise what a model will say next month.
I'd never attach a guarantee to it, and I'd walk away from any agency that does.
Use Case 4: A Creator Or Personal Brand Checking Its Reputation
Creators, coaches and consultants are often asked about by name.
Their buyers type prompts like "is [name] legit" or "what does [name] teach".
The sections that matter most here are sentiment and accuracy, because a single outdated description can follow a personal brand for months.
A creator should also check which videos, posts and interviews the AI cites, because those are the sources shaping the answer.
I publish on YouTube every day partly for this reason, because my own content is one of the places people can learn what I actually do.
Which Report Sections Matter Most For Your Business
| Business type | Section to read first | Example prompt to test | What to fix first |
|---|---|---|---|
| Local service business | Accuracy | "Best [service] near [town]" | Wrong facts on your site, Business Profile and listings. |
| B2B company | Competitor share | "[Competitor] alternatives for [use case]" | Missing coverage on the review and comparison sites that get cited. |
| Agency | Prompt set and share of answers | "Best [client category] in [market]" | An agreed prompt list and a dated baseline before any work starts. |
| Creator or personal brand | Sentiment | "Is [name] worth following?" | Outdated or negative descriptions and the sources behind them. |
📞 Want someone to tell you which section to fix first? Book a free strategy session with Goldie Agency and leave with a custom visibility plan built around your business, plus a competitor gap analysis. → Claim your free strategy session
How To Make A Free AEO Report In One Afternoon
You don't need a developer or a paid platform for this.
Start by writing a short fact sheet that lists your name, services, locations, prices if you publish them and any facts people often get wrong.
Then use this prompt to draft your buyer questions.
Prompt A (buyer questions):
I run [BUSINESS TYPE] in [LOCATION] for [CUSTOMER TYPE].
Write 25 questions my potential customers would ask an AI assistant before choosing a business like mine.
Include best-of questions, comparison questions, problem questions and five questions that mention [BRAND] by name.
Use the exact plain words a customer would type, not marketing language.
Ask each question three times in ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini and Google, using a fresh chat each time, and paste every answer into one file per tool.
Then use this prompt to turn the pile of answers into a table.
Prompt B (answer table):
Read the AI answers below, which I saved on [DATE].
Make a table with one row per answer and these columns: question, run, [BRAND] named (yes or no), competitors named, websites cited, facts stated about [BRAND], tone.
Only use information that appears in the answers, and write "not stated" if something is missing.
Finally, use this prompt to turn the table into a page your team will actually read.
Prompt C (owner summary):
Using this table and my fact sheet, write a one-page AEO report for the owner of the business.
Include the share of answers for us and each competitor, the five most cited websites, every wrong fact with its source, the overall tone and three fixes for the next 30 days.
Write in plain UK English, use only numbers from the table and do not promise any results.
Check the percentages in a spreadsheet afterwards, because AI assistants are better at reading than counting.
Don't forget the crawl check, which takes two minutes.
Open your robots.txt file and make sure you aren't blocking OAI-SearchBot, which OpenAI recommends allowing if you want to appear in ChatGPT search, or PerplexityBot, which Perplexity recommends allowing if you want to appear in its results.
Free Tools That Make The Report Better
Three free tools add a useful second view, and I checked each one on its own page on 17 October 2026.
HubSpot's AI Search Grader is a free, one-time check that needs no account.
It scores how ChatGPT, Perplexity and Gemini represent a brand across sentiment, presence quality, brand recognition, share of voice and market competition, with an overall score out of 100.
HubSpot says that check is based on the models' training data, so treat it as a reputation view rather than a live search test.
Bing Webmaster Tools has an AI Performance report that shows how often your pages are cited in Microsoft Copilot and Bing's AI summaries.
It also lists the grounding queries behind those citations and which of your pages get cited most.
Google Search Console is free, and Google says AI Overviews and AI Mode traffic is counted inside its "Web" search type.
That means Search Console shows the overall trend, but it won't split the AI traffic out for you.
🔥 Want the AI workflows that build this report for you? Inside the AI Profit Boardroom, I share my AI SEO trainings, the Claude workflows I use every day and the installable Agent OS. You'll be alongside 3,400+ members, with four coaching calls a week where you can ask about your own business. → Get access here
How To Turn The Report Into Business Decisions
A report that sits in a folder is worth nothing, so here's how I'd turn each finding into a decision.
| What the report shows | What it usually means | The decision to make |
|---|---|---|
| AI search crawlers are blocked | AI tools may not be able to read your pages at all. | Ask your web person to unblock the crawlers you want to appear in. |
| The AI states wrong facts | An old page, profile or listing is feeding it bad information. | Fix the source the AI cited, then re-test. |
| Competitors win comparison prompts | Outside sites cover them and not you. | Budget for reviews, comparisons, bylines and research-led coverage. |
| You're named but never cited | Other websites describe you better than your own site does. | Rewrite key pages so they answer the buyer's question in the first sentence. |
| Tone is neutral or negative | The sources describing you are thin or out of date. | Earn fresh, credible coverage and update your own proof. |
The coverage column comes straight from the kind of work Goldie Agency's strategy session page describes, which is bylines, reviews, comparisons, research and authority placements.
I've written more about who does this work in my post on what an AI SEO optimization agency does.
📞 Want a roadmap built from your report? Grab a free strategy session and get a clear AI visibility roadmap that explains why competing brands appear more often and where your business can build a stronger presence. → Book your free session
What The Free Strategy Session Is, And What It Isn't
I want to be precise here, because people searching for a free AEO report deserve a straight answer.
The free strategy session with Goldie Agency is a live conversation with an experienced strategist, and it's 100% free with no obligation.
The page says you leave with a custom visibility plan, a clear AI visibility roadmap, a strategy built around your brand, a competitor gap analysis and a plan for traffic, mentions and leads.
It is not a written or PDF report, and it isn't an automated audit tool either.
The best way to use it is to build the free report on this page first and bring it to the call.
The Honest Limits Of A Free AEO Report
A free AEO report is a snapshot of what AI tools say on the day you test.
It can't predict next month's answers, and it can't explain exactly why a model picked one source over another.
None of the companies behind ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini or Claude publishes that formula.
It can't guarantee customers either, so anyone selling you a guaranteed AI mention is selling something nobody controls.
What it does give you is a fair baseline and a short list of fixes, which is more than most businesses have today.
Related Reading
- My AEO audit guide walks through the full audit that sits behind a report like this.
- How to get a free AEO audit covers the free routes if you want someone else to look first.
- My free GEO audit guide adds the checks that come from the original GEO research.
- My King of AEO breakdown explains the answer-first content I publish every day.
Also On Our Network
- 🌐 The seven-step operator walkthrough for building a free AEO report
- 🌐 Each AEO report section and free data source, rated
- 🌐 How my Agent OS produces a free AEO report every month
- 🌐 Which AI models are best at reading AEO report data, on GoldieBench
FAQ: Free AEO Report For Your Business
What should a free AEO report show my business?
It should show how often AI tools name your business for real buyer questions and which websites they cite.
It should also show which facts they get wrong, how they describe you, which competitors appear instead and whether AI search crawlers can read your site.
Who should use a free AEO report?
Local service businesses, B2B companies, agencies and creators can all use one.
Each one focuses on different sections, such as accuracy for local businesses and sentiment for personal brands.
How long does a free AEO report take to make?
A small business can make a useful first report in an afternoon with 20 to 30 buyer prompts and three runs per prompt.
Larger prompt sets take longer, but the method stays the same.
Is the free strategy session the same as a free AEO report?
No, because the free strategy session is a live conversation rather than a written report.
You leave with a custom visibility plan, an AI visibility roadmap and a competitor gap analysis, so bring your own report to the call.
Will fixing my AEO report guarantee more customers?
No, because nobody can guarantee what an AI model says or how many customers follow.
The report shows where you're missing or misdescribed so you can work on the footprint AI tools read.
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About Julian
I'm Julian Goldie, an SEO entrepreneur, author and founder of the AI Profit Boardroom, which has 3,400+ members.
I help business owners scale with AI agents, automation and SEO.
- I started Goldie Agency on my own, and it is now a 7-figure SEO and link-building agency with 70+ people.
- I've grown my YouTube channel to 400,000+ subscribers.
- I wrote "Link Building Mastery".
- My Udemy courses have taught 29,000+ students.
→ Get my best AI training inside the AI Profit Boardroom
Build yours this week, then book a free strategy session to turn it into a plan for traffic, mentions and leads, because that's how a free AEO report turns into real action.
