I help enterprise teams win clients with AEO
Your buyers ask ChatGPT which vendors to evaluate. Storyline gets your products into those answers, accurately, across every product line and brand.
Where enterprise buyers search
Definition
What is AEO for enterprise?
Answer engine optimization (AEO) for enterprise is the discipline of making sure AI assistants describe your products accurately — and recommend them — when your buyers research with tools like ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Google AI Overviews. At enterprise scale, that spans multiple products, brands, regions, and sites.
Enterprise AEO combines entity architecture across your site footprint, governed citable content that survives brand and legal review, and measurement that shows leadership how AI visibility translates to pipeline influence.
Also known as
- GEO (Generative Engine Optimization)
- AI Search Optimization
- LLMO (Large Language Model Optimization)
- ChatGPT SEO
How enterprise AEO is different
Standard AEO is about rewriting a homepage so ChatGPT can read it. Enterprise AEO is an exercise in governance—untangling acquired brands, standardizing claims across regional sites, and producing citable content that legal will actually approve.
The new reality
Why AI search is harder at enterprise scale
Buying committees now ask ChatGPT and Perplexity who belongs on the shortlist — and the answers about your company are stitched together from outdated pages, conflicting subdomains, and half-remembered acquisitions. At enterprise scale, no one owns fixing that: SEO is measured on Google, product marketing owns messaging, and the AI answer falls in the gap.
AI hallucinates your complex product lines
One answer mixes the old company name with the new. Another invents a feature you killed in 2022. The .com and the docs site disagree, so the model averages them. Nobody’s job is to fix that.
Your in-house SEO team is already drowning
They are measured on rankings and traffic. Then someone forwards a ChatGPT screenshot in Slack and asks why you are not in it. There is no headcount, no tool, and no quarter to fix the AI answers.
No good answers for the executive C-suite
“Are we showing up in AI search?” lands in the same meeting as pipeline reviews. You can talk about impressions, but you cannot say how often you appear for the queries that start deals.
AEO vs SEO
AEO vs SEO for enterprise teams
Keep doing SEO. Rankings on the .com, the product docs, and the regional sites still matter. AEO is for the part SEO never owned: the buyer who pastes three vendor names into ChatGPT before ever talking to sales.
Dimension
SEO
AEO
Job to be done
SEO
Get your domain found in search engines
AEO
Get recommended when committees ask AI to evaluate vendors
Where buyers look
SEO
Blue links, one researcher at a time
AEO
ChatGPT, Perplexity, AI Overviews — before the RFP
The daily work
SEO
Pages, links, and technical fixes across multiple CMSs
AEO
One consistent, citable story per product line and acquired brand
Mike Hinckley
Founder, Storyline
Background
Operator, advisor, and investor with experience across Airbnb, leading AI tools, and more than 150 YC startups.
Built on experience at
Founder-led, by design
Enterprise experience. Founder speed.
I help enterprise teams sharpen how AI systems understand and recommend their company, find the buyer queries that can unlock the next growth motion, and carry the AEO strategy through execution, without adding a slow agency layer.
About me
Top AEO, GEO, and SEO expert
Built my last company on organic search and was among the first to advertise in ChatGPT. Firsthand experiments show me what works in practice.
Former growth leader at Airbnb
Built product & growth systems inside one of the world’s most defining tech startups, navigating global scale, organizational complexity, and rapid growth.
Partner to 150+ YC companies
Investor and advisor to 150+ YC founders, which gives me pattern recognition across tons of early GTM motions and business models across categories.
How I work
Founder speed
Unlike traditional agencies, I move at "founder speed" so we get results
Top 1% AI native
I use AI to give me insane leverage, not for AI slop
Direct access
When you hire me, I personally lead and own your strategy
The Storyline Method
How I fix enterprise AI visibility
I diagnose what AI believes about your company, identify why it believes it, and systematically reshape the sources influencing that understanding.
Enterprise AEO means untangling the web footprint — legacy docs, acquired brands, overlapping product lines — that makes AI hallucinate your capabilities.
The Storyline Difference
How I approach enterprise AEO differently
Most agencies chase the tip — buying queries. I start with the mass underneath: the complex architecture that shapes what AI believes about your business.
What I map
- Legacy docs
- Acquired brands
- Regional sites
- Product lines
- Security specs
- Abandoned microsites
- Overlapping products
- Support portals
Next step
Ready to capture your buyers in AI search?
Book a short intro to discuss your footprint, stakeholders, and how we can help your enterprise team.
No obligation · Founder chat
FAQ
Common questions about enterprise AEO
How does enterprise AEO differ from standard AEO?
Scale and governance. Enterprise AEO must reconcile entity signals across multiple products, brands, and regional sites so answer engines do not confuse or fragment your identity. It also requires content workflows that clear brand, legal, and subject-matter review — and reporting that stands up in front of leadership.
How do you measure AI search visibility at enterprise scale?
We baseline how major answer engines respond to your priority buying queries across products and regions, then track mentions, citations, sentiment, and share of shortlist over time — alongside classic organic metrics — and tie movement to pipeline influence in language executives can act on.
Can AEO work within enterprise brand and legal constraints?
Yes. Citable content does not require risky claims — it requires clarity, structure, and evidence. We design drafts for review-friendly approval: sourced facts, precise language, and structured data that legal teams can verify rather than veto.
Want an enterprise AEO visibility review?
Book a short intro. We will discuss your site footprint, stakeholders, and where Storyline can help.