What an AI SEO agency does

What an AI SEO agency does

An AI SEO agency gets a brand named, cited and recommended in the answers ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, Claude and Google AI Overviews write, and keeps it findable in the Google results buyers still use to confirm the name. At Plate Lunch Collective that work has four parts.

  • A record AI can verify

    Before an AI assistant names a business it checks who that business is, across your site, listings, reviews and coverage. We make every source tell the same story.

    Entity SEO
  • Passages an AI assistant can lift

    Assistants answer with passages, not whole pages. We write and structure yours so one section answers one buyer question completely, with the specifics that get it quoted.

    Citation-ready content
  • Social, where buyers also search

    TikTok, YouTube, Reddit and Instagram are search engines now, and AI reads them for consensus. We make your presence there findable as well as active.

    Social search optimization
  • A monthly check of what AI says

    We ask the AI assistants what your customers ask and show you the answers, named or not named, with the sources behind each one. Every cycle starts from that read.

    AI Search Game Plan

What buyers hear

The answer names one business

A buyer asks a specific question. The AI assistant reads everything it can find and names the business it can describe. The rest aren't ranked lower. They're absent.

  • The question carries the budget, the place and what's already been ruled out.
  • The AI assistant answers with a name and a reason, and more and more it books it.
  • If the name isn't yours, nothing in your analytics tells you the call was lost.
How AI search works
ChatGPTSimulated example
ChatGPT, we’re coming to Hawaii in March with two kids under 8. Which snorkel tour is calm enough for them?
Reef Hour Snorkel in Kailua Bay. Morning trips only, flotation gear for kids 4 and up, no more than 10 people per guide.
Message

Fictional business and question, shown to illustrate the format.

How it works

Three steps to being named

We work as an ongoing partner in quarterly cycles. The first one starts from what an AI assistant says about you today.

  1. 1

    Find

    Every place online that describes your business, and what an AI assistant says when a buyer asks about your category.

  2. 2

    Sort

    What matters and what's noise. Which facts are missing, contradicted, or sitting somewhere a model can't read.

  3. 3

    Fix

    You tell us what's true. We publish it where it's read, connect it to the record, and re-test the same questions.

Monthly AI checkSample

Kaimana Tile & Stone · October

  • Tile installer in Honolulu who does lanai and pool decks

    Named
  • Porcelain tile supplier on Oahu with contractor pricing

    Named
  • Who can regrout a shower in Kailua this month

    Not named
  • Natural stone countertop installers near Kapolei

    Named
  • Tile shop on Oahu that delivers to Maui job sites

    Not named

Fictional business and questions, shown to illustrate the format.

3 of 5named this month

Measured in two client accounts

AI search impressions you can count

Google Search Console now reports impressions from its generative AI features. Across two Plate Lunch Collective client accounts, that report showed 338,775 impressions in 140 days, from 18 May to 4 October 2026. About 2,420 a day.

338,775
AI search impressions, two client accounts, 140 days
2,420
a day, on average, over the same window

Impressions are appearances in an answer or an overview, not clicks or calls. They're the number this report lets us show without naming a client.

Google Search Console, Performance on Search, Generative AI features report, Search type Web, 18 May to 4 October 2026, both accounts combined.

Why Plate Lunch Collective

An AI SEO company built for this work, from Hawaii and Canada

Plate Lunch Collective was founded in March 2025 to do AI search optimization from the first engagement, on search engine optimization work that began in 2004. Hayden works from Aiea, Hawaii. Ben works from LaSalle, Ontario, and serves all of Canada.

  • You work with the two people who do the work, and you own everything produced.
  • Each quarterly cycle is scoped by what's blocking your AI visibility right now, as one continuing partnership.
  • Old-school SEO is still part of the work. Rankings are where a buyer confirms the name an AI assistant gave them, and we do that work too.
See how we work

Two offices

  • Aiea, HawaiiHayden Bond, founder. Headquarters.
  • LaSalle, OntarioBen Puzzuoli, partner and director of business development. Serves all of Canada.

Founded March 2025 on 22 years of search engine optimization experience.

Services

Every service, built for how AI answers

Ongoing execution and strategic counsel in quarterly cycles, across search engines, social search and AI. Each service below is one piece of the same practice.

  • AI SEO & Generative Engine Optimization

    The full practice

    Getting your brand named when buyers ask, across AI answers and the search results that confirm them. Traditional SEO, AEO and GEO in one program.

    AI SEO & GEO
  • Answer Engine Optimization

    Google's answer features

    Content structured at the passage level to be selected as the answer in AI Overviews, voice assistants and direct-answer features.

    AEO
  • Entity SEO

    The record AI verifies

    Your brand's presence across knowledge graphs, structured data and the sources models read, so they recognize and recommend you.

    Entity SEO
  • Social Search Optimization

    TikTok, YouTube, Reddit, Instagram

    A social presence structured for the people searching those platforms and for the AI systems that mine them for consensus.

    Social search
  • Citation-Ready Content

    Passages built to be quoted

    Content where every section stands alone as a complete, checkable answer an AI system can retrieve, cite and attribute to you.

    Citation-ready content
  • AI Search Game Plan

    Where the money is

    The searches that bring in buyers, the brands that keep getting named, and your moves, in order. From $1,500.

    AI Search Game Plan
  • Fractional CMO

    A marketing lead with AI search fluency

    A senior marketing leader who makes decisions, manages vendors and owns outcomes, with AI search built into the plan.

    Fractional CMO

All services

Who and where

Who we work with, and where

Different buyers ask different questions. A hotel guest and a parts buyer get different answers, and so do a Honolulu resident and a Canadian planning a trip.

Industries

Hospitality, manufacturing, tourism, local business, e-commerce, SaaS, skincare, and surf and fitness brands, among other fields. Each has its own retrieval problem and its own fix.

Where we work

The United States, Canada, the Caribbean and Central America, with on-island depth in Hawaii: Oahu, Maui, Kauai and Hawaii Island.

Research

Research we publish and keep current

Original reports on AI search tools, platform behavior and citation patterns, with every figure labeled by source.

  • AI Search Market Share and Referral Traffic Report

    AI assistant usage and referral traffic by platform, with every figure labeled by source. Updated quarterly.

    Read the report
  • AI Visibility Tools, Compared

    55 AI visibility tools for GEO and AEO, compared by type, budget and fit: pricing, coverage and method. Verified Oct 2026.

    Compare the tools

FAQ

Questions buyers ask Plate Lunch Collective about AI SEO

AI SEO here means getting brands named when buyers ask, in search, on social, and in AI. Short answers below. The long ones live on the service pages.

Google says AEO and GEO are still just SEO. Is that true?

On Google's own surfaces, that is accurate. Google's guidance on AI features reflects how their system retrieves and cites content. But Google does not control ChatGPT, Perplexity, Claude, or Siri. Each of those platforms has its own retrieval architecture, its own citation logic, and its own ranking signals. Optimizing for Google's AI features using traditional SEO practices will not make your brand visible on the platforms where AI-referred traffic converts at 6x the rate of organic search. They are separate channels that require separate work.

Google's guidance on AI features

Is GEO a real thing or just a buzzword?

It is real. Generative engine optimization is the practice of building the signals that get your brand cited in AI-generated responses from ChatGPT, Perplexity, Google AI Overviews, and other AI search surfaces. The term is new. The underlying mechanics, how retrieval systems find, evaluate, and cite content, are well documented. We have been doing this work since before the term existed. Our AI SEO and GEO service is the full practice across every AI surface where your buyers are searching.

AI SEO & GEO

Is AEO just SEO with a new name?

No. Traditional SEO gets your page ranked on a list. Answer engine optimization gets your content selected as the answer. AI systems decompose a buyer's question into sub-queries, retrieve passages that answer each one, and assemble a response. Your content has to be structured at the passage level for that selection process. That is different work than optimizing for Google's ranked list. Our AEO service builds content specifically for how AI systems decompose and answer questions.

Answer engine optimization

How do you measure AI search visibility? My rank tracker doesn't show it.

Rank trackers measure where you sit on Google's list. They do not measure whether AI systems are retrieving, citing, or recommending your brand. We track AI visibility across dimensions that rank trackers were not built for: whether your brand is recognized as an entity, whether your content retrieves against the sub-queries models actually generate, and whether you appear in AI responses across platforms. Our AI Search Game Plan is the place to start if you want to see where you stand, and who gets named instead.

AI Search Game Plan

I'm ranking well on Google but invisible in AI answers. Why?

Because Google rankings and AI citations are driven by different factors. Google ranks pages. AI systems retrieve passages. A page ranking first on Google may never appear in a ChatGPT response if no individual passage on that page cleanly answers one of the sub-queries the model generated. The factors that drive AI citation, entity recognition, passage-level structure, parametric presence in training data, are not the same factors that drive Google rank. That gap is exactly what our AI SEO and GEO practice addresses.

AI SEO & GEO

How do I find out what AI is saying about my brand?

Ask it. Open ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Gemini and ask about your brand in a way that does not prompt a web search. What comes back is your parametric presence, what the model already believes about you from training data. Then ask questions a buyer would ask and see if your brand appears in the answer. That gives you a rough baseline. Our AI Search Game Plan does this properly: it asks the questions your buyers ask, twice, a week apart, then shows who keeps getting named, why, and what to do first.

AI Search Game Plan

How do I create content that AI actually cites?

Structure it so each section answers one specific question completely enough to stand on its own. AI systems do not retrieve whole pages. They retrieve passages. A passage that answers one question with specificity and attribution will get cited. A passage that covers three topics in flowing prose will not. Every claim needs a named source. Every section needs a clear semantic center. That is what we mean by citation-ready content, and it is a structural discipline, not a volume play.

Citation-ready content

How is social search optimization different from social media management?

Social media management is about engagement, posting cadence, and audience growth on a platform. Social search optimization is about making your social presence findable and usable by both human searchers and AI retrieval systems. When someone searches TikTok, YouTube, or Reddit for a recommendation, and when AI systems mine those platforms for consensus about your brand, your social presence needs to be structured for discovery, not just engagement. Our social search optimization service builds that structure.

Social search optimization

Do you also do traditional SEO?

Yes. AI search optimization does not replace traditional SEO. It extends it. Search engines still matter. They are how your buyer confirms what AI recommended. When AI tells your buyer to check you out, they Google your name. You need to be there. We do traditional search engine optimization alongside AI search optimization because both surfaces need to tell the same story about your brand. Our Entity SEO service addresses both.

Entity SEO

What does a fractional CMO do that a marketing consultant doesn't?

A consultant delivers recommendations. A fractional CMO makes decisions, manages vendors, and owns outcomes. The engagement is executional, not advisory. Our fractional CMO service has AI search fluency built in, which means the person making your marketing decisions understands how retrieval systems, parametric presence, and entity signals work, not just traditional marketing channels.

Fractional CMO
Limestone cliffs and pines above clear lake water in Canada at evening

Work with us

Find out who AI is sending your customers to

Tell us a bit about your brand and what you're trying to figure out. Hayden reads it in Aiea, Ben reads it in LaSalle, and one of us comes back within one business day with a time to talk. Before we do, we'll ask an AI assistant about your category, so the first call starts with something specific. If we're not the right fit, we'll say so and point you somewhere better.

Or get your game plan

Tell us a bit about your brand