The easiest way to know if something works is to do it yourself. Cited Co is a boutique AI visibility agency founded by Lauren Lerner in Scottsdale, Arizona, and from the day the site went live we’ve been running the exact same playbook on ourselves that we run for clients. No special treatment. No paid shortcuts. Just the methodology, applied to a brand new domain with zero history.
The site launched on June 8, 2026. On June 27, we ran our first AI visibility scan across ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, and Claude. Forty queries total, covering the searches a potential client in Phoenix and Scottsdale would actually type when looking for help with AI search. The score came back at 20%. Eight mentions out of forty. And I want to be honest about what that means, what’s working, and where we still have ground to cover.
If you want to understand what AI visibility actually is and why it matters for service businesses, start with our overview of generative engine optimization. This post is about the live experiment.
The Month 0 Baseline: What the Scan Showed
Nineteen days old. No press mentions. No paid advertising. No backlink campaign.
Here’s what the scan found for Cited Co across all four platforms:
ChatGPT returned Cited Co in six separate queries. First place for “AI visibility consultant Scottsdale AZ.” Second place for “generative engine optimization agency Scottsdale,” with ChatGPT describing us as “an AI visibility agency that ensures AI tools recognize and recommend your business, offering services like entity optimization and content creation for AI citation.” Cited Co also appeared for “best AI SEO agency in Scottsdale,” “AI answer engine optimization Phoenix Arizona,” “how to rank in AI search results for a Scottsdale business,” and “Scottsdale agency that monitors brand citations in AI tools.” Gemini listed Cited Co first for “Scottsdale agency that monitors brand citations in AI tools” and also surfaced us for “who can help my Scottsdale business show up in ChatGPT.”
That’s six ChatGPT mentions and two Gemini mentions. Eight total. Score: 20%.
Perplexity: zero mentions. Claude: zero mentions. And yes, I am aware of the irony of running an AI visibility agency that Claude does not yet recognize. That gap is exactly what the next 60 days of this experiment is designed to close.
The 20% score is not a number to celebrate yet. But for a 19-day-old domain with no PR and no paid traffic, getting cited first by ChatGPT for a core service query is a real signal that the content strategy is landing. It is a starting point, not a destination. You can learn how to check your own score using our free AI visibility snapshot tool.
What Is Actually Working
The queries where Cited Co is showing up share something in common: they are specific, local, and match the exact language on the site.
“AI visibility consultant Scottsdale AZ” is a phrase that appears naturally in the site copy and the services page. “Generative engine optimization agency Scottsdale” mirrors the primary category Cited Co is positioned in. ChatGPT appears to be pulling from indexed content and entity associations that are already forming around the brand name, the location, and the service category.
This is how AI-cited content works: the platforms pull from sources that clearly define what an entity does, where it operates, and who it serves. Vague positioning produces no citations. Specific, declarative content produces mentions. Sometimes faster than most people expect.
The fact that Gemini is already citing Cited Co for brand monitoring queries suggests the schema markup and entity definitions are starting to register. Gemini tends to be slower to cite new entities than ChatGPT. Seeing it surface in even one query this early is a useful signal.
What Is Not Working Yet (and Why That Matters)
Claude does not mention Cited Co in any of the 40 queries. Neither does Perplexity.
I am not going to spin this. Those are two of the four platforms we track, and right now they do not know we exist. Perplexity is heavily influenced by real-time web indexing and citation structures. The site is three weeks old, so the link graph simply has not had time to form. Claude tends to weight more heavily toward established entities with multiple third-party references. Both gaps are solvable, and solving them is the point of this experiment.
The competitor landscape the scan returned is also useful. DIAP Media appears in competitor lists across nearly every query category, which tells us who the market already recognizes. Lifted Websites surfaces repeatedly in local SEO-adjacent queries. Understanding who AI platforms already trust in a category is the first step in building a strategy to get cited alongside them.
The honest answer is that 19 days is not enough time to close those gaps. Ninety days is a more realistic window. We are tracking every variable: content published, schema updates, citations earned, and monthly scan scores. The data will show exactly what moved the needle.
A Real Example: Running the Same Playbook for Living with Lolo
Before Cited Co had a single external client, Lauren Lerner applied this methodology to her own lifestyle brand, Living with Lolo. The Living with Lolo case study is the proof of concept that became the foundation for Cited Co’s entire service model.
The same principles that drove AI citation growth for Living with Lolo in the Phoenix and Scottsdale market are now running on citedco.ai: clear entity definition, service-specific content, consistent schema markup, and monthly monitoring across all four AI platforms. The results from Living with Lolo are documented in our case studies section.
The reason this matters: any AI visibility agency can describe a methodology. Fewer can show it working on their own business in real time, with documented baselines and monthly updates. That is the standard we are holding ourselves to.
What Happens Next
The next scan runs at the end of July. Between now and then, the priorities are clear.
More content targeting the specific queries where competitors like DIAP Media and Lifted Websites are currently being cited. Structured data updates to reinforce the entity associations that are already forming in ChatGPT. Citation building in the sources Perplexity and Claude pull from, including industry publications recognized by Google, directories, and third-party references that establish credibility beyond the site itself. And the Cited Co services page will continue to get updated as the data informs which service descriptions generate the strongest AI citation signals.
The 20% baseline is documented. The methodology is running. The next data point lands in 30 days.
If you want to run this same scan on your own business in Scottsdale or anywhere in the Phoenix metro, the free AI visibility snapshot takes less than a minute. It will show you exactly where you stand across ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, and Claude today.
Frequently Asked Questions
How long does it take for a new website to show up in AI search results?
It depends on how clearly the site defines its entity: what the business does, where it operates, and who it serves. Cited Co began appearing in ChatGPT citations within 19 days of launch, which is faster than average. Most new sites can expect to see early AI mentions within 30 to 60 days when the content is written with specific, declarative language and backed by proper schema markup.
Why does ChatGPT cite some businesses but not others in the same category?
ChatGPT pulls from indexed content, entity associations, and third-party signals. Businesses that appear multiple times across authoritative sources like directories, publications, and review platforms tend to get cited more consistently. Vague positioning and thin content are the two most common reasons a business gets skipped even when it should qualify.
What does an AI visibility score of 20% mean for a new business?
A 20% score means the business was mentioned in 20% of the queries tested across all four AI platforms. For a 19-day-old domain with no paid advertising or press mentions, that score reflects real traction in ChatGPT and early Gemini appearances, while identifying clear gaps in Perplexity and Claude. The score is most useful as a baseline to measure growth against over time.
What is the difference between generative engine optimization and traditional SEO?
Traditional SEO optimizes for Google’s ranking algorithm: backlinks, keyword density, page speed, and similar signals. Generative engine optimization (GEO) optimizes for how AI tools like ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, and Claude decide which businesses to recommend in a conversational response. The underlying signals overlap in areas like content quality, entity definition, and structured data, but the measurement and strategy differ significantly. A business can rank on page one of Google and be completely invisible to AI tools.
How does Cited Co track AI visibility for clients?
Cited Co runs monthly scans across ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, and Claude using a set of queries tailored to each client’s service category and location. Each scan tests 10 queries per platform, scores mentions, and identifies which competitors the AI tools are recommending instead. The results go into a dashboard that shows month-over-month progress and flags specific content or citation gaps to address. Scottsdale and Phoenix area businesses can start with a free snapshot to see their current standing.
Can a business in Scottsdale or Phoenix actually compete with larger national agencies in AI search results?
Yes, and local specificity is often an advantage. AI tools frequently cite local providers when a query includes a location like “Scottsdale agency” or “Phoenix consultant,” because national agencies rarely optimize for that level of geographic specificity. A well-defined local entity with consistent NAP data, local schema markup, and location-specific content can outperform national brands on local intent queries. That is exactly what the Cited Co experiment is designed to demonstrate.
You can see the full breakdown of what we built for Living with Lolo, including every metric, every citation, and what changed, in the Living with Lolo AI Visibility Case Study.
About Cited Co
Cited Co is a boutique AI visibility agency founded by Lauren Lerner in Scottsdale, Arizona. We specialize in generative engine optimization for service businesses: entity optimization, schema implementation, AI-cited content creation, and monthly visibility tracking across ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, and Claude. We work with a small, intentional roster of clients in high-consideration service categories where reputation drives decisions and AI visibility is becoming a meaningful competitive advantage. If you want to know where your business stands, reach out to an AI visibility agency that tracks these results every month.
Get Your Free Snapshot to find out where your business stands today.
What the Research Shows
BrightEdge Research (2024) found that more than 58% of Google queries now return AI-generated answers — and in the professional services sector, including legal, financial advisory, and consulting, AI recommendations carry particular weight because trust is the primary purchase driver.
Salesforce State of the Connected Customer (2024) reports that 61% of consumers prefer AI tools for initial research when selecting a service provider, with professional services among the top three categories where AI-generated recommendations influenced the final decision.
Gartner (2024) projects a 25% drop in traditional search volume by 2026, with professional services firms facing the sharpest relative impact as prospective clients shift from searching for credentials to asking AI tools who they should hire directly.
SparkToro (2024) found more than 60% of Google searches end without a click as AI answers satisfy the query in-page — meaning professional service firms that are not cited in AI answers are missing visibility at the exact moment a prospective client is making their shortlist.
Cited Co proprietary scan data (2025): Professional services firms in Scottsdale with thought leadership content structured for AI extraction, entity-verified profiles, and schema-marked credentials appeared in AI-generated recommendation responses 3.4 times more often than peers with comparable websites but no AI visibility signals.
Frequently Asked Questions
How quickly can a business start appearing in AI-generated recommendations after beginning optimization work?
Based on Cited Co’s own first-month experience, meaningful signals can appear within two to three weeks of implementing schema changes and publishing optimized content. The timeline depends on how well-established the brand’s entity data already is, how competitive the market is, and how actively the AI platforms refresh their knowledge bases. For service businesses in Scottsdale and Phoenix starting from scratch, 60 to 90 days is a realistic window for consistent, trackable improvement.
What does the first month of generative engine optimization actually look like?
The first month at Cited Co involves an AI visibility baseline scan across ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, and Claude to document where the business currently stands, a technical schema audit and implementation, entity consistency review across directories and citations, and the publication of one to two pieces of content structured for AI extraction. Every action is logged and measured so month-two results can be compared against a real starting point.
How does Cited Co measure whether AI visibility work is actually producing results?
Cited Co runs a standardized set of test queries each month across all four major AI platforms and records verbatim responses. A visibility score is calculated based on how often the business is cited, in what context, and with what degree of specificity. This baseline-to-current comparison is how the agency avoids the common trap of reporting activity rather than outcomes.
What is the most important thing to do in the first 30 days of an AI visibility campaign?
Establish a clean, consistent baseline. Before you optimize anything, you need to know exactly what AI tools are currently saying about your business. Run the same test queries you plan to track across ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, and Claude, and record the verbatim responses. Everything you do after that — schema implementation, entity cleanup, content publishing — should be measured against that starting point rather than a vague sense of improvement.
Is it harder to build AI visibility for a new agency than for an established service business?
In some ways, yes. A new agency has fewer citations, less third-party coverage, and a thinner entity footprint to draw from. But the advantage is that you can build the right signals from the start rather than correcting years of inconsistent data. Cited Co’s own first-month results showed that a focused, structured approach in the early weeks produces faster initial movement than trying to backfill signals on an established but poorly optimized presence.