A free AEO report is a written snapshot of how AI answer engines like ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini and Google's AI features talk about your brand, and you can build one yourself today for nothing but your time.
AEO stands for answer engine optimisation, which is the work of getting your brand named and cited when people ask AI tools a question.
The report is the scoreboard for that work, because it shows where you appear, who gets cited instead of you and what the AI gets wrong.
This page walks you through the exact seven steps I'd use to build one, with the section list, the metrics, five copy-paste prompts and a template you can steal.
If you'd rather go through your AI visibility with my team, you can book a free strategy session and get a custom AI visibility plan.
I'll be straight about what that session is, too, because it's a live conversation that leaves you with a plan, a roadmap and a competitor gap analysis rather than a written report.
What A Free AEO Report Actually Is
A free AEO report is a document you can hand to anyone on your team that answers one question clearly.
That question is what AI tools say about your brand when a real buyer asks them for help.
A normal SEO report shows rankings and clicks, while an AEO report looks at the written answer, the brands named in it and the sources cited under it.
Google says traffic from AI Overviews and AI Mode is counted inside the "Web" search type of the Search Console Performance report, so your normal reports already hide part of the picture.
The AEO report pulls that hidden part out into the open.
You don't need a paid platform to build one, because the raw material is just answers you collect yourself.
The 9 Sections Every Free AEO Report Needs
Here's the structure I'd use, and you can copy it straight into a doc or a spreadsheet.
| Section | What it answers | Where the data comes from |
|---|---|---|
| 1. Summary | It tells the reader the three biggest findings and the three fixes in plain words. | You write it last from the sections below. |
| 2. Prompt set | It lists the buyer questions you tested and groups them by intent. | You write the prompts with help from an AI assistant. |
| 3. Share of answers | It shows how often your brand is named across all the runs. | Your saved answers from each AI tool. |
| 4. Citation sources | It shows which pages and websites the answers cite. | The source links shown under each answer. |
| 5. Accuracy | It shows which facts the AI gets right, wrong or out of date. | Your answers checked against your own fact sheet. |
| 6. Sentiment | It shows whether the AI describes you positively, neutrally or negatively. | Your answers, plus a free grader if you want a second view. |
| 7. Competitor share | It shows which competitors get named when you don't. | Your saved answers. |
| 8. Crawl access | It shows whether AI search crawlers are allowed to read your site. | Your robots.txt file and your CDN settings. |
| 9. Gaps and priority fixes | It lists the prompts you lose and what to do first. | Everything above, ranked by impact and effort. |
The order matters, because a reader who only reads section one should still know what to do next.
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The Metrics That Go Inside The Report
Every number in the report should be simple enough to check with a calculator.
| Metric | How to calculate it | What a weak result looks like |
|---|---|---|
| Share of answers | Divide the runs that name your brand by the total number of runs. | Your brand is missing from most buying questions in your own category. |
| Citation rate | Divide the runs that cite a page on your domain by the total number of runs. | The AI names you but always cites someone else's page about you. |
| Third-party citation mix | Count the outside websites that are cited when you are named. | The same one or two outside sites carry your whole reputation. |
| Accuracy score | Divide the correct facts by all the facts the AI stated about you. | The AI gives old prices, old locations or services you don't offer. |
| Sentiment split | Count positive, neutral and negative descriptions. | Neutral or negative descriptions dominate your brand questions. |
| Competitor share | Calculate share of answers for each named competitor. | One competitor appears in most answers where you don't. |
| Crawl access | Mark each AI search crawler as allowed or blocked. | A crawler you want is blocked in robots.txt or by your CDN. |
| Gap count | Count the prompts where competitors are named and you aren't. | The gap list is long and full of high-intent prompts. |
I always run each prompt at least three times, because AI answers change from one chat to the next.
📞 Want a strategist to read your numbers with you? Book a free strategy session with Goldie Agency and we'll turn your report into a custom visibility plan, a clear AI visibility roadmap and a competitor gap analysis. → Claim your free strategy session
How I Build A Free AEO Report In 7 Steps
This is the operator version, so every step tells you exactly what to do and what to save.
Step 1: Write your brand fact sheet
Start with a one-page list of the facts that should be true about your business.
Include your name, what you sell, who you serve, where you operate, your proof and anything people often get wrong.
This sheet is the answer key for the accuracy section.
Step 2: Generate 20 to 50 buyer prompts
Real buyers ask best-of questions, comparison questions, problem questions and questions about your brand by name.
Use this prompt in any AI assistant to get a first draft, and then cut anything a real customer wouldn't type.
Prompt 1 (prompt set):
I am building an AEO report for [BRAND], a [CATEGORY] business serving [CUSTOMER] in [LOCATION].
List 30 questions a real buyer would type into ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini or Google before choosing a company like mine.
Group them under four headings: best-of questions, comparison questions, problem questions and questions that use my brand name.
Write each question exactly the way a buyer would type it, and do not mention my brand in the first three groups.
Step 3: Run every prompt and save the answers
Ask each prompt in the AI tools your buyers actually use, which for most businesses means ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini and Google's AI Overviews and AI Mode.
Use a fresh chat for every run, then copy the full answer and the source links into one text file per tool, with the date at the top.
I use whichever plans I already pay for, and Claude's own pricing page lists a free plan if you want to add it.
Step 4: Turn the raw answers into a table
This is where an AI assistant saves you hours, because it can read every answer and fill in the columns.
Prompt 2 (tabulation):
Below are raw answers I saved from [AI TOOL] on [DATE] for the prompts listed at the top.
For each answer, return one row of a table with these columns: prompt, run number, my brand named (yes or no), position of first mention, competitors named, URLs cited, facts stated about my brand, tone (positive, neutral or negative).
Use only what the text says, and write "not stated" when something is missing.
Do not guess, summarise or add information that is not in the answers.
Check five random rows by hand before you trust the rest, because a model can still misread a long answer.
Step 5: Check accuracy against your fact sheet
Feed the facts column and your fact sheet into one more prompt.
Prompt 3 (accuracy check):
Here is my brand fact sheet, followed by every statement AI tools made about my brand.
Mark each statement as correct, wrong or out of date.
For every wrong or out-of-date statement, quote the line from my fact sheet that proves it and name the URL the AI cited, if there was one.
Return the result as a table.
The cited URLs tell you where the wrong fact probably lives, which is the page or profile you need to fix.
Step 6: Check crawl access
Open yourdomain.com/robots.txt in a browser and look for rules that block the crawlers you care about.
OpenAI's documentation says sites that opt out of OAI-SearchBot won't be shown in ChatGPT search answers, and it recommends allowing OAI-SearchBot if you want to appear.
Perplexity's documentation recommends allowing PerplexityBot in robots.txt if you want to appear in its search results.
Google says a page must be indexed and eligible to show with a snippet to appear as a supporting link in AI Overviews or AI Mode.
Ask whoever runs your hosting whether a firewall or CDN rule blocks these crawlers, because robots.txt isn't the only thing that can shut them out.
Step 7: Calculate, rank the gaps and write the summary
The last two prompts turn your table into decisions.
Prompt 4 (gaps and priorities):
Using the table below, calculate share of answers for my brand and for each competitor, per AI tool and overall.
List the ten domains cited most often, and list every prompt where a competitor is named and my brand is not.
Then suggest the five fixes with the biggest likely impact, ranked by impact and effort, with one sentence explaining each.
Do not promise any outcome and do not invent numbers.
Prompt 5 (summary):
Write a one-page summary of this AEO report for a busy business owner in plain UK English.
Cover what AI tools say about us today, the three biggest gaps, the three fixes for the next 30 days and the date we will re-test.
Use only the numbers in the table, and keep every sentence short.
Re-check the maths in a spreadsheet, because language models are better at reading than counting.
The Copy-Paste Free AEO Report Template
Paste this into a doc, fill in the brackets and you've got a report anyone can read in five minutes.
# AEO report for [BRAND], tested on [DATE]
| Section | Result | Evidence | Next action |
|---|---|---|---|
| Prompt set | [NUMBER] prompts, [NUMBER] runs each | Prompt list attached | Re-use the same prompts next month |
| Share of answers | [X]% overall | ChatGPT [X]%, Perplexity [X]%, Gemini [X]%, Google AI [X]% | Target the tool with the lowest share first |
| Citation rate | [X]% of runs cite our domain | Top cited page: [URL] | Strengthen the pages that already get cited |
| Third-party citations | [NUMBER] outside sites cite us | Top three: [SITES] | Earn coverage on the sites competitors get |
| Accuracy | [X] of [Y] facts correct | Wrong facts listed with source URLs | Fix the source pages and profiles |
| Sentiment | [X] positive, [X] neutral, [X] negative | Example quotes attached | Address the themes behind negative lines |
| Competitor share | [COMPETITOR] [X]%, [COMPETITOR] [X]% | Gap prompts listed | Build answers for the top gap prompts |
| Crawl access | OAI-SearchBot [OK/BLOCKED], PerplexityBot [OK/BLOCKED], Googlebot [OK/BLOCKED] | robots.txt checked on [DATE] | Unblock what you want to appear in |
| Priority fixes | Fix 1, fix 2, fix 3 | Ranked by impact and effort | Re-test on [DATE] |
Keep the raw answer files next to the report, because the evidence column is what makes people trust it.
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Free Tools That Feed Your AEO Report
You can build the whole report by hand, but three free tools add useful extra views.
I checked each one on its own page on 17 October 2026.
| Free tool | What it adds to the report | What to remember |
|---|---|---|
| HubSpot AI Search Grader | It gives a one-time score out of 100 across sentiment, presence quality, brand recognition, share of voice and market competition for ChatGPT, Perplexity and Gemini. | HubSpot says the check is based on the models' training data, so it can differ from live search answers. |
| Bing Webmaster Tools AI Performance | It shows how often your pages are cited in Microsoft Copilot and Bing's AI summaries, which pages get cited and the grounding queries behind them. | Microsoft launched it as a public preview in February 2026, so treat it as an early view. |
| Google Search Console | It shows your Google search traffic, and Google says AI Overviews and AI Mode traffic sits inside the "Web" search type. | It doesn't split AI traffic out on its own, so use it for the overall trend. |
HubSpot's page says no account is required, which makes it the quickest second opinion for your sentiment section.
How To Read Your Free AEO Report
A report only helps if you know which numbers deserve action first.
Fix crawl access before anything else, because a blocked crawler makes every other section pointless.
Fix wrong facts next, because the cited URL in your accuracy table points straight at the page or profile that needs changing.
Then study the citation sources, because Goldie Agency's strategy session page says AI platforms look for consistent signals across the wider web.
It names trusted publications, expert articles, independent reviews and comparisons as examples.
That's why a long list of outside sites citing your competitors is often the most useful line in the whole report.
Finally, compare share of answers by tool, because a brand can be strong in one assistant and invisible in another.
📞 Not sure which gap to fix first? Grab a free strategy session and get a competitor gap analysis that explains why competing brands appear more often and where your business can build a stronger presence. → Book your free session
What A Free AEO Report Can't Tell You
A free AEO report is a snapshot, so it can't predict what an AI tool will say next week.
It can't prove why a model chose a source, because none of the companies behind these tools publishes that formula.
It can't guarantee anything, and anyone who promises a fixed mention in ChatGPT or Gemini is promising something nobody controls.
What it can do is give you an honest baseline, so next month's report shows whether your work moved anything.
Related Reading
- My AEO audit walkthrough covers the full audit process that sits behind a report like this.
- How to get a free AEO audit explains the free routes if you'd rather have someone else look first.
- My free GEO audit guide adds the generative engine checks from the original GEO research.
- What an AI SEO optimization agency does shows the work that comes after the report.
Also On Our Network
- 🌐 How business owners, agencies and creators use a free AEO report
- 🌐 Every AEO report section and metric, rated one by one
- 🌐 A one-hour free AEO report run from your Agent OS
- 🌐 The AI models that read your AEO report data, scored on GoldieBench
FAQ: Free AEO Report
What is a free AEO report?
A free AEO report is a snapshot of how AI answer engines such as ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini and Google AI Overviews describe and cite your brand.
It covers share of answers, cited sources, accuracy, sentiment, crawl access, competitor gaps and a short list of priority fixes.
How do I make a free AEO report?
Write 20 to 50 buyer prompts, ask each one several times in the AI tools your buyers use and save every answer.
Then use an AI assistant to turn the saved answers into a table, and add a robots.txt check, an accuracy check and a ranked list of fixes.
Does the free strategy session give me a written AEO report?
No, because the free strategy session with Goldie Agency is a live conversation rather than a document.
You leave with a custom visibility plan, an AI visibility roadmap and a competitor gap analysis, so it works best if you bring your own report along.
Can an AEO report guarantee my brand will appear in ChatGPT?
No, because a report only measures what AI tools say today.
It shows you the gaps so you can improve the footprint the models read, and nobody can guarantee the answer.
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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
If you want a strategist to walk through yours, book a free strategy session and leave with a plan for traffic, mentions and leads, and bring the free AEO report you built today.
