AEO 101Single source of truth on AEO · Updated May 13, 2026Read it

For consumer mobile and web apps

Be the app AI recommends when users ask for the best one.

Users ask AI 'what's the best app for X' before they ever open the App Store. If you're not in the recommendation, you're invisible. App Store SEO won't fix it.

§01 Why AI search is reshaping consumer apps

The discovery question moved out of the App Store.

ChatGPT now serves more than 800 million weekly users, and a meaningful share of them are asking it which apps to install before they ever open the App Store or Play Store. The question used to be where you ranked in a category browse. Now it is whether you are in the two or three apps AI names by brand inside its answer.

For consumer apps, the consequence is sharper than for almost any other category. App Store SEO continues to matter for the user who has already decided to install, but the deciding moment is upstream of that, and it is happening on a surface where ranking position does not exist. There are only the apps AI names and the apps it does not.

The work is curating the prompts your users actually run, engineering the third-party source pool AI cites, and managing recommendation rate against your named competitors on a weekly cadence.

§02 What we do for consumer apps

Five lines of work, run weekly, owned by us.

We sit alongside your growth and marketing functions. App Store optimisation, paid acquisition, and product marketing stay with you. The AI visibility layer is our remit, delivered as an outcome on a fixed cadence.

01

App category prompt curation, owned and maintained

Your category has a working set of 60 to 150 prompts that decide download intent. We curate the list with you on day one and re-run it weekly against ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Perplexity, and AI Overviews. The prompt set becomes the source of truth for every downstream measurement.

02

AI recommendation surfacing for category queries

The metric that matters is not whether AI mentions your app. It is whether AI names your app inside the recommended set for queries like best meditation app for sleep or best budgeting app for couples. We engineer the third-party validation that moves recommendation rate week over week.

03

Reviews and sentiment as source-pool levers

AI weighs review density and sentiment from third-party review sites, App Store and Play Store snippets, and Reddit threads in your category. We work each of these surfaces as a source-pool input, then track which review themes are being pulled into AI answers about your app.

04

Comparison page work for your top competitors

Users ask AI questions like Calm vs Headspace, Notion vs Obsidian, Mint alternatives 2026. The answer pool for those queries is decided by a handful of comparison pages and Reddit threads. We engineer the comparison content that gets cited, on the surfaces AI actually reads.

05

Weekly competitive monitoring against your top five

Apps move fast. A competitor launches a feature, a publication runs a review, a Reddit thread goes hot, and AI answers re-sort within days. We monitor the curated prompt set every week against your named top five competitors and flag movement before it becomes the default answer.

§03 The outcomes we commit to

Named results, written into the engagement letter.

We deliver results, not dashboards. The pilot pricing is built around it. You pay €500 per month for tools and APIs plus your direct media spend. We carry the team. At the end of the 90-day pilot, if we hit the goal we agreed on day one, the engagement converts on a €6,000 success fee and a €2,500 per month retainer thereafter. If we miss, you walk. No further obligation.

Recommendation rate on category prompts

The metric the App Store cannot give you. We commit to a measurable lift in the rate at which AI names your app as a recommendation on a fixed prompt set.

Citation share across the five AI surfaces

Documented mention rate on ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Perplexity, and AI Overviews for your curated category prompt set.

Inclusion in cited best-of listicles

Most best app queries draw from the same five to fifteen editorial listicles per category. We commit to inclusion in the listicles AI actually cites for your category.

Reddit and forum source-pool position

Reddit is one of the top weighted sources for consumer app queries. We commit to documented presence in the threads AI cites for your category, on platform-compliant terms.

§04 Who this is for

Growth and marketing leaders at apps watching organic acquisition shift away from ranked surfaces.

The typical engagement is a Head of Growth, VP Marketing, or founder at a consumer app running between fifty thousand and ten million monthly active users. Your ASO program is mature. Paid acquisition is dialled in. The new pressure is on the surfaces upstream of install, where ASO does not reach.

You usually come to us because of one of three triggers. A competitor with worse reviews keeps showing up in AI answers and you cannot explain why. Organic installs are flat or declining despite stable ranking position. Or your investor or board has started asking what your AI visibility looks like, and the team does not have an honest read.

§05 How we work

One framework, applied weekly. The methodology is public.

The work runs on the CITE framework. We comprehend the prompt set, influence the source pool, track recommendation rate movement on a weekly cadence, and evolve the program as platforms shift. The research underneath is published openly.

§06 FAQ

The questions consumer app buyers ask before they engage.

Does ChatGPT use App Store data?
Indirectly, and less than most teams assume. Models do retrieve and cite App Store pages and Play Store pages on some queries, but the bulk of AI's recommendation logic comes from independent review sites, editorial roundups, Reddit and forum threads, and credible publication coverage. App Store SEO continues to matter for in-store discovery, but it is not what decides whether AI names your app in an answer. The two disciplines have to be run in parallel.
Why does AI recommend my competitor even though we have better reviews?
Review count and star rating are inputs, not the deciding factor. AI weighs the recency and breadth of cited coverage, the structure and quote-readiness of the pages that mention your app, the sentiment patterns inside Reddit and forum discussion, and the presence of editorial reviews from publications AI reads heavily. A competitor with worse star ratings but stronger placement in a Wirecutter, NYT, Verge, or category-specialist piece will frequently win the AI recommendation. The fix is changing the composition of the source pool, not the App Store metrics.
How do I get my app into 'best X app' AI answers?
Listicle inclusion is one of the most reliable paths. Roughly five to fifteen editorial listicles decide most best app queries in a given category. We identify which listicles AI is currently citing for your category, work the editorial relationships to get the app added or repositioned, and engineer the structural elements (clean description, named differentiator, supporting screenshots) that AI extracts. Direct outreach to the editorial line works when it is paired with a credible reason for the slot.
Does TikTok virality help with AI citations?
Less than you might expect. AI surfaces rarely cite TikTok or short-form video as primary sources, though virality often creates a secondary wave of written coverage that does get cited. The implication for app marketing is that TikTok is a top-of-funnel discovery channel, not an AI citation channel. The work to translate viral attention into AI visibility is in capturing the wave with earned media and Reddit threads while it is hot.
What is the role of Reddit in app discovery?
Reddit is one of the most heavily weighted sources across major LLMs for consumer app queries. A live thread in r/productivity, r/personalfinance, r/getmotivated, or a niche category sub frequently shows up in cited AI answers within days of the thread reaching critical mass. We treat Reddit as a primary distribution channel rather than an afterthought, following platform rules and avoiding the patterns that get a brand banned. Authentic presence by named team members usually outperforms anonymous brand pushes.

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