From not mentioned to the answer.
Same diner, same craving, same prompt — typed into ChatGPT instead of Google.
You're not in the answer
AI names two competitors. Your kitchen isn't on its radar.
You're cited first
AI names YOU first — menu, opening hours and area all surfaced.
Illustrative example — real AI citation results depend on cuisine, area and competitor density, and AI engines update their behaviour every few months.
What is AI Search (AEO and GEO) for restaurants?
AI Search is the umbrella term for two related disciplines that share one goal: getting an AI engine to cite your restaurant inside its answer to a diner's question. AEO (Answer Engine Optimisation) covers the on-site structure — schema, dietary tags, direct-answer paragraphs — that lets an engine read your site. GEO (Generative Engine Optimisation) covers the off-site signals — entity anchors, citations, freshness — that make the engine trust you enough to name you.
From your menu to cited in the answer.
The whole thing is four steps. None of them need you to touch a line of code — that’s our job.
- Step 1
Your menu, structured
We wire your menu, hours, dietary tags and reviews into machine-readable schema.
- Step 2
AI engines read it
ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini and Google AI Overviews crawl your site and your llms.txt manifest.
- Step 3
A diner asks AI
Someone types ‘halal biryani near me’ into ChatGPT instead of opening Google Maps.
- Step 4
You're the answer
AI names your restaurant in its reply — the new top of search, in front of the new top of customer.
How do ChatGPT, Perplexity and Google AI Overviews decide what to cite?
AI engines pick citations using three layered signals: extractability (can they read your menu, hours and dietary tags as structured data), authority (do your facts match Google Business Profile, Bing Places, Wikidata and Companies House), and freshness (was the page updated within the last 90 days). Pages that hit all three get cited. Pages missing any one are quietly skipped.
AI Search vs Local SEO vs Just Eat — what's different?
AI Search puts you inside the answer. Local SEO puts you at the top of Google Maps. Just Eat puts you on a marketplace that charges 14–30% commission and owns the customer. Each is a separate channel with separate rules — AI Search is the youngest, has the lowest competition, and is the cheapest to win an early position in.
| Channel | Where you appear | Compounds | Cost per order | Customer relationship |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| AI Search | Inside the AI answer | Yes | Falls fast | Yours |
| Local SEO | Google Maps / Local Pack | Yes | Falls over time | Yours |
| Just Eat / Deliveroo | Marketplace listing | No | 14–30% commission | Theirs |
We optimise for every engine your diners use — not just Google.
- ChatGPT
- Perplexity
- Google AI Overviews
- Gemini
- Claude
- Bing Copilot
- Apple Intelligence
- DuckAssist
- ChatGPT
- Perplexity
- Google AI Overviews
- Gemini
- Claude
- Bing Copilot
- Apple Intelligence
- DuckAssist
Each engine reads your site slightly differently. We test against all of them, every quarter, so you stay visible as their behaviour changes.
Will I show up in Apple Intelligence and Bing Copilot too?
Yes — but through different routes. Apple Intelligence and Siri pull restaurant data almost exclusively from Apple Business Connect. Bing Copilot and Microsoft Edge's AI sidebar use Bing's index, which also powers ChatGPT search's source list. So claiming Apple Business Connect and Bing Places — both free, both 30-minute tasks — opens up Apple's and Microsoft's AI surfaces in addition to ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini and Google AI Overviews.
When will I see my first AI citation?
Most restaurants we audit have zero AI citations at the start. After the technical rebuild — schema, /llms.txt, direct-answer blocks, entity anchors — the first citations typically land between week 4 and week 8 as AI engines re-crawl. Brand-name queries (people typing your restaurant's name) work first; "best [cuisine] in [city]" queries take longer because they're contested. We re-run the same prompts every quarter and you get a one-page report showing every citation we earned.