The first attempt failed.
Here's what came out of it.
The honest version of how I got here - and why it matters if you're thinking about working with me.
I've watched this happen once already
The year is 2001. I'm running a growing business and I've just noticed something. The companies showing up at the top of Google search results are getting an overwhelming share of the traffic. Not the second page - the first three results. The businesses below them might as well not exist.
I went deep on it. Same way I go deep on everything. Learned how search engines actually worked. What they actually rewarded. Why most businesses were invisible because they were optimising for things that didn't matter.
By the time the rest of the market understood SEO, I'd already built the advantage. I watched what that early positioning was worth. First-mover advantage in a structural shift isn't a small edge. It compounds for years.
Twenty years later, I watched the same thing start to happen again. Different technology. Same mechanics. Same window. Except this time the window closes faster.
I made a decision in 2001 that I've never had to regret: I would never be late to a structural shift again.
Why I'm Not Just Another AI Consultant
Most people talking about AI systems in 2025 weren't building operational infrastructure in 2005. I was.
100 People & Vans Across the UK
I had a service business large enough to require real systems management. Not spreadsheets. Not a project management app. Custom algorithmic database infrastructure I built myself to route jobs, manage teams, and surface the numbers that actually mattered, in real time.
That Is Not a Brag. It's Context.
It explains why, when AI arrived, I didn't see a chat tool. I saw the next layer of infrastructure. It's the only lens I've ever used.
Systems Thinking Before AI
When I say I build systems - I mean I have been building systems since before most AI consultants started paying attention to the problem. That history matters. It's the difference between someone who learned systems thinking from AI, and someone who brought systems thinking to AI.
The first attempt failed. Badly.
I want to be honest about this. When I first tried to build an AEO service, it didn't work.
The methodology didn't exist. Nobody knew what the actual signals were for AI recommendation - because nobody had tested it rigorously enough to find out. I included myself in that. I applied what I knew from SEO and content marketing and assumed the same principles would transfer.
They didn't. Not directly. The results were poor. The approach was wrong. And I had to make a choice: accept that AEO was an emerging field and move on, or go deep the way I'd gone deep on SEO twenty years earlier.
I went deep. 18 months. Not reading articles. Building things, running tests, watching what changed and what didn't. Identifying the actual signals that AI platforms used to evaluate which businesses to recommend. Finding where the SEO logic held and where it broke completely.
What came out of those 18 months has a name.
What 18 months of testing actually produces
CITE - Coverage, Indexability, Trust, Entity Clarity - is the framework that replaced the failed first approach. Not borrowed. Not an SEO framework with a new name. Built from the ground up, from testing, from watching what actually changed AI responses and what didn't.
Coverage
AI platforms don't just evaluate your website. They're looking across everything - directories, review platforms, professional associations, publications, industry databases. If your presence lives mostly on your own domain, you're thin in the places AI looks to verify who you are. Coverage is how you fix that.
Indexability
AI engines need to be able to extract your information cleanly - your specialty, your location, your specific service areas, the problems you solve. If that information is buried in PDFs, or locked in long paragraphs, or inconsistent across platforms, the engine can't build a clear picture of you. Indexability is how you fix that.
Trust
The authority markers that tell AI you're legitimate: credentials, certifications, reviews, awards, case studies, professional body memberships. Not all of these carry equal weight. 18 months of testing taught me which ones actually move the needle and which ones are noise.
Entity Clarity
This is the one most businesses are missing. AI needs to know precisely what you are, who you serve, and what makes you different from everyone else in your category. "Comprehensive wealth management" is noise. "Fee-only fiduciary specialising in retirement planning for pre-retirees transitioning out of equity compensation" is a signal. The more precisely you can be described, the more reliably you get recommended to exactly the right person.
Three Things. One Through Line.
The AEO Engine
The first automated AEO platform. Generates 30–150 citation-optimised articles per month per client, built to the CITE framework, human-reviewed before publication. The productised version of what I spent 18 months developing. For service businesses in healthcare, wealth management, legal, and professional services who want to be recommended by AI - not just listed when someone already knows their name.
See The AEO Engine ↗AI Buildrs
Custom AI infrastructure for businesses that want more than visibility. The operational systems: the N8N workflows, the automated morning intelligence briefs, the custom dashboards, the full-stack automation of what currently requires people doing repetitive things. This is not off-the-shelf. This is built around how your business actually works. The goal is a team that operates at the output of something five times its size.
See AI Buildrs ↗Advisory
For founders, managing partners, and practice owners who want direct access to the thinking - not the productised version of it. Strategy sessions, ongoing advisory, speaking engagements. Limited by design - this is direct access, not a programme.
Talk About This ↗What Clients Say
Within 90 days our practice was appearing in AI responses we had never optimised for. Patients now tell us they found us through ChatGPT. Nothing else in our marketing comes close.
Jerry doesn't just understand AI - he understands how businesses grow. His AEO work transformed our firm's digital presence entirely.
The Specifics, For Anyone Who Wants Them
Ready to find out where you stand?
The Gap Check is the right first step for most businesses. 15 minutes. We run 25 AI queries in your specific market. You'll see exactly where you appear, where your competitors appear, and what the gap between those two positions is costing you. No commitment on the other end.