
The AI SEO agency for the new word of mouth
When your customers ask ChatGPT and Google's AI who to call, the answers name a handful of businesses, and people pick the names they know. Plate Lunch Collective is an AI SEO agency that gets brands named when buyers ask, in search, on social, and in AI. SEO is still the foundation of the work. AI search is built on top of it, and SEO on its own isn't enough anymore.
Making sure you're part of the conversation
- ChatGPT
- Perplexity
- Claude
- Gemini
- Google AI Overviews
- Meta AI
- Copilot
- DeepSeek
- Grok
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.
- Entity SEO
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.
- Citation-ready content
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.
- Social search optimization
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.
- How we measure the work
A monthly check of what AI says
We ask what your customers ask, in ChatGPT, Gemini and Google's AI answers, plus Claude for software companies, and show you every answer, named or not named, with the sources behind it. Each quarter, the report adds your business numbers to the picture.
What buyers hear when they ask AI
A buyer asks ChatGPT, or Googles it and reads the AI answer at the top, and gets business names back with a reason for each.
- The question carries the budget, the place and what's already been ruled out.
- What it says about each business comes from what's written about that business online.
Fictional business and question, shown to illustrate the format.
Three steps to being named
We work as an ongoing partner in 90-day cycles. The first cycle starts with a record of where your calls and bookings come from today, so every later report has a starting point.
- 1
Find
Every place online that describes your business, and what an AI assistant says when a buyer asks about your category.
- 2
Sort
What matters and what's noise. Which facts are missing, contradicted, or sitting somewhere a model can't read.
- 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
NamedPorcelain tile supplier on Oahu with contractor pricing
NamedWho can regrout a shower in Kailua this month
Not namedNatural stone countertop installers near Kapolei
NamedTile shop on Oahu that delivers to Maui job sites
Not named
Fictional business and questions, shown to illustrate the format.
AI search impressions you can count
Google Search Console now counts how often a site shows up in Google's AI answers. Across two Plate Lunch Collective client accounts, that count was 338,775 in 140 days, from 18 May to 4 October 2026. About 2,420 a day.
- 338,775
- times two client sites showed up in Google's AI answers, in 140 days
- 2,420
- a day, on average, over the same window
These are appearances in Google's AI answers, 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.
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. We work from Aiea, Hawaii, and from LaSalle, Ontario, in Windsor-Essex, which serves all of Canada.
- You work with the two people who do the work, and you own everything produced.
- It's one continuing partnership, scoped each quarter to whatever's holding your business back in search and AI.
- Old-school SEO stays at the heart of the work, because Google is still where people go to look a business up.
Two offices
- Aiea, HawaiiHeadquarters.
- LaSalle, OntarioIn Windsor-Essex, serving all of Canada.
Founded March 2025 on 22 years of search engine optimization experience.
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 & GEOAnswer 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.
AEOEntity 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 SEOSocial 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 searchCitation-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 contentAI Search Game Plan
What your customers ask
Where you stand in search and AI answers, who comes up instead, and your first moves. From $1,500.
AI Search Game PlanFractional 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
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 we publish and keep current
Original reports on AI search tools, platform behavior and citation patterns, with every figure labeled by source.
- Read the report
AI Search Market Share and Referral Traffic Report
AI assistant usage and referral traffic by platform, with every figure labeled by source. Updated quarterly.
- Compare the tools
AI Visibility Tools, Compared
56 AI visibility tools for GEO and AEO, compared by type, budget and fit: pricing, coverage and method. Verified Oct 2026.
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?
For Google, yes. Google's guidance on AI features says SEO best practices still apply to its AI answers, with no extra requirements. ChatGPT, Perplexity and Claude are run by other companies, and ChatGPT, for one, can search the web on its own. So we do the SEO, then check what each AI assistant says about you and fix what's wrong or missing.
Google's guidance on AI featuresIs 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. Our AI SEO and GEO service is the full practice across every AI surface where your buyers are searching.
AI SEO & GEOIs AEO just SEO with a new name?
It's part of SEO. SEO gets a page found and ranked, and answer engine optimization sets up that page so a section answers a buyer's question in a few plain sentences. We do the two together, and our AEO service handles the second part.
Answer engine optimizationHow 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 PlanI'm ranking well on Google but invisible in AI answers. Why?
Ranking well means Google can find and trust your pages. A page can rank and still be missing three things: a short, plain answer to the buyer's exact question, business details that agree from one listing to the next, and other sites that talk about you. Our AI SEO and GEO practice works on those, on top of your rankings.
AI SEO & GEOHow 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 runs the searches and asks the AI questions your buyers ask, the AI ones twice, a week apart, then shows who keeps getting named, why, and what to do first.
AI Search Game PlanHow do I create content that AI actually cites?
Write it so each section answers one specific question well enough to stand on its own, on a page Google can find and rank. An AI answer can quote a single passage, and a passage that answers one question plainly, with a named source, gives it something to quote. No format guarantees a citation, and studies of what moves citations disagree. That's what we mean by citation-ready content.
Citation-ready contentHow 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 optimizationDo you also do traditional SEO?
Yes. SEO is still the foundation of the work. AI search is built on top of it, and SEO on its own isn't enough anymore. Google still matters. When AI tells your buyer to check you out, they Google your name, and you need to be there. We do both, so Google and the AI assistants tell the same story about your business. Our Entity SEO service addresses both.
Entity SEOWhat 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 CMOFrom the blog
Marketing for Manufacturers in Windsor-Essex: What ChatGPT Cites for SuppliersWe asked ChatGPT where to find suppliers around Windsor-Essex, then searched its picks by name on Google. What came back, and what a shop can check this week.Read
Vacation Rental Marketing on Maui: What ChatGPT Names and What Google Shows NextWe asked ChatGPT where to stay on Maui, then searched its picks on Google. What came back, and what a hotel, resort or rental owner can check this week.Read
AI Search Has Six Buyer Paths. Your AI Referral Traffic Shows One.AI search can send a buyer down six paths, and only one shows up as AI referral traffic. Here's what the other five leave behind.Read

Find out who AI is sending your customers to
Send us your website, and we'll come back within one business day with a time to talk. Before we do, we'll ask ChatGPT and check the AI answer at the top of Google for 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.