The short answerYes. Across 2,322 answers from ChatGPT, Perplexity and Google AI Overviews (20 September to 1 November 2026), only 4 of the 10 agencies named most for 'SEO agency' questions also made the top 10 for 'AI search agency' questions. iPullRank was named in 59.8% of AI search answers and 1 of 1,032 SEO answers.
| Agency | Share of SEO agency answers naming it | Share of AI search agency answers naming it |
|---|---|---|
| Omniscient Digital | 73.3% | 41.7% |
| SimpleTiger | 50.1% | 0.4% |
| Skale | 49.6% | 9.2% |
| Grow and Convert | 35.9% | 0% |
| Directive Consulting | 29.6% | 18.2% |
| Siege Media | 29.3% | 39.3% |
| Animalz | 28.3% | 13.8% |
| iPullRank | 0.1% | 59.8% |
| First Page Sage | 9.7% | 38.3% |
| NoGood | 1.5% | 28.5% |
If you ask an AI engine for "the best SEO agency for B2B SaaS", you get one market. Ask it for "the best GEO agencies" and you get a mostly different one. Omniscient Digital (first for SEO, second for AI search) and Siege Media (sixth and third) rank high on both lists, but six of the ten names on each list are missing from the other. A founder who wants SEO and AI search from one partner, and asks for only one of them, sees mostly one side of that split.
How we ran the study
We track buyer questions for LoudFace in Peec AI. Peec runs each question on ChatGPT, Perplexity and Google AI Overviews every day and records the answer, the sources it cites, the searches the engine ran and the brands it names.
For this study we took 18 tracked questions where LoudFace was named in under 10% of answers in the 30 days before we pulled the data on 2 November 2026, and grouped them by the service the buyer asks for. Sixteen are short requests for a firm; the two that ask for both services are longer, multi-sentence requests. Over the full 43-day study window, one of the 18, "Agency for SaaS organic revenue growth", names LoudFace in 15.5% of answers (20 of 129); the other 17 stay under 10%.
8 SEO agency questions. "Best SEO agency for B2B SaaS companies", "Boutique SEO agency for B2B SaaS brands", "Best agency for growing SaaS organic traffic", "Best agency for B2B SaaS content and SEO", "Top B2B SaaS SEO agencies in 2026", "Who are the best B2B SaaS marketing agencies for organic growth", "Which agency is best for SaaS organic traffic growth" and "Agency for SaaS organic revenue growth".
8 AI search agency questions. "Best GEO agencies", "Best agency for getting cited in ChatGPT", "Best agency for getting mentioned in Perplexity and ChatGPT", "Best agency for ChatGPT and Perplexity citations", "Best AI search agencies", "Best AI visibility agencies", "Which agencies will help us show up in ChatGPT answers?" and "Top AEO consultants 2026".
2 questions that ask for both. "I want an agency that will run our organic growth end to end: SEO, content, and AI search. Who are the top options for SaaS?" and "I'm looking for an SEO agency that can help us get more recommendations from AI. What are some of the best ones?"
GEO here means generative engine optimization, the work of getting a brand named in AI answers. It has nothing to do with geo-targeted local SEO.
The window runs 43 days, 20 September to 1 November 2026, and every question was tracked from the first day. We kept one answer per question, engine and day, which dropped 18 repeats and left 2,322 answers: 774 per engine, 1,032 for each of the two main groups and 258 for the two questions that ask for both.
What counts as named. We use the same unit as Peec's visibility metric, which "measures the percentage of AI responses that mention your brand". An agency is named in an answer when Peec's brand detection lists it. Peec tracks 53 brands in our project. We left out LoudFace, because we publish this, and GEO Agency, because its name is the phrase several questions use. That leaves 51, which we call tracked agencies.
We also ran a second count that does not depend on Peec's list: a firm counts when its name is the whole label of a bold name or link in the answer, matched against 113 agencies and consultancies we found across all 2,322 answers.
Both groups get agency names; they get different ones
Neither kind of question left the engines short of names. 93.1% of SEO agency answers named at least one tracked agency, and 82.8% of AI search agency answers did.
| Engine | SEO agency answers naming a tracked agency | AI search agency answers naming a tracked agency | Tracked agencies per answer (SEO vs AI search) |
|---|---|---|---|
| ChatGPT | 97.4% | 95.1% | 4.9 vs 4.7 |
| Perplexity | 84.9% | 68.9% | 3.1 vs 2.4 |
| Google AI Overviews | 97.1% | 84.3% | 4.2 vs 2.8 |
The top of each list looks like this:
| # | SEO agency questions (1,032 answers) | Share | AI search agency questions (1,032 answers) | Share |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Omniscient Digital | 73.3% | iPullRank | 59.8% |
| 2 | SimpleTiger | 50.1% | Omniscient Digital | 41.7% |
| 3 | Skale | 49.6% | Siege Media | 39.3% |
| 4 | Grow and Convert | 35.9% | First Page Sage | 38.3% |
| 5 | Directive Consulting | 29.6% | NoGood | 28.5% |
| 6 | Siege Media | 29.3% | Directive Consulting | 18.2% |
| 7 | Animalz | 28.3% | Animalz | 13.8% |
| 8 | Powered by Search | 18.2% | Graphite | 13.0% |
| 9 | Breaking B2B | 13.5% | Optimist | 10.9% |
| 10 | MADX Digital | 12.7% | Onely | 10.7% |
Four agencies sit in both top tens: Omniscient Digital, Siege Media, Directive Consulting and Animalz. SimpleTiger, Skale, Grow and Convert, Powered by Search, Breaking B2B and MADX Digital appear only on the SEO side. iPullRank, First Page Sage, NoGood, Graphite, Optimist and Onely appear only on the AI search side. Widen it to the top twenty and 11 names are shared.
The second count, which reads bold names and link labels against our own list of 113 firms, gives the same answer: its two top tens share exactly Omniscient Digital, Siege Media, Directive and Animalz.
The agencies named almost only on one side
Some firms are close to invisible on the other side of the split.
| Agency | SEO agency answers naming it (of 1,032) | AI search agency answers naming it (of 1,032) |
|---|---|---|
| iPullRank | 1 | 617 |
| NoGood | 15 | 294 |
| Graphite | 5 | 134 |
| Onely | 5 | 110 |
| SimpleTiger | 517 | 4 |
| Grow and Convert | 370 | 0 |
| Powered by Search | 188 | 0 |
| Breaking B2B | 139 | 5 |
iPullRank leads the AI search answers on all three engines (ChatGPT 79.9%, Perplexity 46.8%, Google AI Overviews 52.6%) and appeared in one SEO answer in 43 days: a ChatGPT shortlist of eight agencies on 23 October, where it sat seventh as "Best for enterprise technical SEO". Grow and Convert, named in more than a third of SEO answers, never appeared in an AI search answer.
Most firms that cross over still lean one way. Skale is named in 49.6% of SEO answers and 9.2% of AI search answers. First Page Sage goes the other direction, 9.7% against 38.3%. A few hold both. Omniscient Digital leads the SEO answers on every engine (ChatGPT 84.9%, Perplexity 66.6%, Google AI Overviews 68.3%) and is second on the AI search side at 41.7%. Siege Media is named in 29.3% of SEO answers and 39.3% of AI search answers, and Directive Consulting in 29.6% and 18.2%.
Each engine splits the market its own way
Per engine, agencies in both top tens:
| Engine | Shared names in the two top tens | Which ones |
|---|---|---|
| ChatGPT | 6 of 10 | Omniscient Digital, Skale, Animalz, Siege Media, Directive Consulting, First Page Sage |
| Perplexity | 3 of 10, or 4 counting a tie | Omniscient Digital, Siege Media, Directive Consulting, plus First Page Sage if the tie counts |
| Google AI Overviews | 3 of 10 | Omniscient Digital, Skale, Siege Media |
Perplexity's SEO list has Animalz and First Page Sage tied at 10th, and First Page Sage is 4th in Perplexity's AI search list, so its count is 3 or 4 depending on how the tie is broken. No other tie changes a count here, including the all-engine figure of 4.
We also compared the two groups on the same engine and the same day. For each day we took every tracked agency the engine named across both groups and measured the share it named in both. Averaged over 43 days that was 34.1% on ChatGPT, 25.1% on Perplexity and 21.1% on Google AI Overviews. On an average day, most of the agencies an engine names appear for only one of the two kinds of question.
ChatGPT keeps the most overlap. Perplexity and Google AI Overviews keep much less.
Results question by question
Each question has 129 answers, 43 per engine. "Named" is the share of answers naming at least one tracked agency.
| Question | Group | Named | Most named (share of answers) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Top B2B SaaS SEO agencies in 2026 | SEO | 96.9% | Omniscient Digital 91.5%, Directive Consulting 82.9%, Skale 77.5% |
| Best agency for B2B SaaS content and SEO | SEO | 96.9% | Omniscient Digital 89.9%, Animalz 68.2%, Grow and Convert 65.1% |
| Who are the best B2B SaaS marketing agencies for organic growth | SEO | 96.1% | Omniscient Digital 86.8%, SimpleTiger 66.7%, Animalz 48.8% |
| Best agency for growing SaaS organic traffic | SEO | 96.1% | Omniscient Digital 79.8%, Skale 62.8%, SimpleTiger 53.5% |
| Best SEO agency for B2B SaaS companies | SEO | 97.7% | Omniscient Digital 76.7%, Directive Consulting 68.2%, SimpleTiger 60.5% |
| Which agency is best for SaaS organic traffic growth | SEO | 96.9% | Omniscient Digital 72.9%, Skale 53.5%, Siege Media and SimpleTiger 41.9% each |
| Boutique SEO agency for B2B SaaS brands | SEO | 79.8% | SimpleTiger 51.9%, Omniscient Digital 38.8%, Breaking B2B 24.8% |
| Agency for SaaS organic revenue growth | SEO | 84.5% | Omniscient Digital 49.6%, Skale 41.9%, SimpleTiger 26.4% |
| Top AEO consultants 2026 | AI search | 96.1% | iPullRank 93.0%, First Page Sage 69.0%, Omniscient Digital 61.2% |
| Best GEO agencies | AI search | 95.3% | Siege Media 83.7%, iPullRank 73.6%, Omniscient Digital 68.2% |
| Best AI search agencies | AI search | 94.6% | iPullRank 79.8%, NoGood 56.6%, Siege Media 52.7% |
| Best AI visibility agencies | AI search | 94.6% | iPullRank 72.1%, Omniscient Digital 65.1%, NoGood 58.1% |
| Best agency for getting cited in ChatGPT | AI search | 82.2% | iPullRank 61.2%, First Page Sage 33.3%, Omniscient Digital 28.7% |
| Best agency for getting mentioned in Perplexity and ChatGPT | AI search | 89.1% | iPullRank 42.6%, Omniscient Digital 34.1%, First Page Sage and Siege Media 26.4% each |
| Best agency for ChatGPT and Perplexity citations | AI search | 62.8% | iPullRank 19.4%, Omniscient Digital 17.1%, Siege Media 16.3% |
| Which agencies will help us show up in ChatGPT answers? | AI search | 47.3% | iPullRank 36.4%, Siege Media 25.6%, Omniscient Digital 24.8% |
The split holds question by question. iPullRank leads seven of the eight AI search questions and none of the SEO questions. SimpleTiger, Skale or Grow and Convert sits in the top three of every SEO question and of no AI search question.
When a buyer asks for both
The two questions that ask for both services came out on opposite sides.
| Question | Most named (share of 129 answers) |
|---|---|
| I want an agency that will run our organic growth end to end: SEO, content, and AI search... | Omniscient Digital 88.4%, Skale 69.8%, SimpleTiger 43.4%, Directive Consulting 31.0%, Siege Media 26.4% |
| I'm looking for an SEO agency that can help us get more recommendations from AI... | iPullRank 78.3%, Omniscient Digital 68.2%, Siege Media 59.7%, First Page Sage 34.1%, Optimist 33.3% |
We sorted every agency with 20 or more mentions across the two groups by where its mentions come from: SEO-leaning when at least two thirds of its per-answer rate comes from the SEO questions, AI-leaning when at most one third does, and both otherwise. The end-to-end question drew 44.3% of its agency mentions from SEO-leaning firms and 9.2% from AI-leaning ones. The "SEO agency that can help us get more recommendations from AI" question drew 16.1% from SEO-leaning firms and 42.5% from AI-leaning ones.
The second question opens with "SEO agency" and still got the AI search list. Two questions cannot show which words drove this, so we read it as a pattern worth testing.
What ChatGPT searched for on each kind of question
Google says that AI Overviews and AI Mode may use a "query fan-out" technique, which it describes as "issuing multiple related searches across subtopics and data sources". We have written more on how fan-out queries work.
Peec records the searches ChatGPT ran for each answer, so for ChatGPT we can see what it looked for:
- SEO agency questions: 602 searches across 244 ChatGPT answers that searched. 565 (93.9%) contained "SEO" and none of the AI search terms we checked (GEO, AEO, generative engine, answer engine, AI search, AI visibility, LLM, ChatGPT, Perplexity, AI Overview, AI citation, AI answer). One did. The most frequent: "best b2b saas marketing agencies organic growth seo content marketing 2026".
- AI search agency questions: 604 searches across 242 ChatGPT answers that searched. 602 (99.7%) used AI search vocabulary, and none were SEO-only. One of the most frequent: "best ai visibility agencies geo generative engine optimization agencies 2026".
Perplexity recorded 59 searches for the SEO questions and 48 for the AI search questions, and Google AI Overviews none, so this view is mostly ChatGPT.
The cited sources split the same way. Share of answers citing each domain:
| SEO agency questions | Share of answers | AI search agency questions | Share of answers |
|---|---|---|---|
| beomniscient.com | 26.6% | youtube.com | 17.6% |
| growandconvert.com | 18.9% | linkedin.com | 16.5% |
| breakingb2b.com | 15.4% | reddit.com | 13.1% |
| scalerrs.co | 15.1% | thriveagency.com | 13.1% |
| youtube.com | 13.4% | thedigitalelevator.com | 10.7% |
Only one domain, youtube.com, is in both groups' 10 most-cited domains. The SEO answers cite agency websites most (beomniscient.com, growandconvert.com, breakingb2b.com, scalerrs.co). The AI search answers cite YouTube and LinkedIn most, then Reddit and thriveagency.com, tied at 13.1% of answers, then thedigitalelevator.com.
Our read, which the data does not prove: the engine translates the buyer's words into searches, the searches return a different set of pages, and the answer names the agencies on those pages. The three move together in our data. That shows a pattern; it does not prove a cause.
What this means if you are choosing an agency
This is our read of the data; the study did not test advice.
- Ask for both services, by name. If you want SEO and AI search from one partner, put both in the question. In our data the SEO questions named iPullRank in 1 of 1,032 answers, and the AI search questions named SimpleTiger in 4 of 1,032 and Grow and Convert in none.
- Say what you want to happen. One of our two mixed questions asked for an "SEO agency" that could get "more recommendations from AI", and its answers named iPullRank most often (78.3%). One pair of questions cannot show that the outcome wording caused this, so treat it as something to try.
- Ask more than one engine. ChatGPT's two lists shared 6 of 10 names; Perplexity's shared 3 or 4, depending on a tie at 10th, and Google AI Overviews' shared 3.
- Check the firm's own evidence. A name in an AI answer tells you which pages the engine read. Open the agency's case studies and see whether they show results in the channel you are buying.
For a plain-language guide to the terms, see AEO vs GEO vs SEO. LoudFace runs SEO, AEO and GEO, content, and CRO as one program for B2B SaaS; see how our organic growth program works.
Our other studies of agency answers cut the same data by the way the buyer asks, by funding stage and by engine.
Limitations
- The tracked set. The main count sees 51 agencies that Peec tracks for our project. The second count reads bold names and link labels against 113 firms. Both find the same four shared names.
- The detector. Peec under-records Thrive Agency and The Digital Elevator. By text match, "Thrive" appears in 10.7% of AI search answers and 0.7% of SEO answers, and "Digital Elevator" in 8.5% and 0%. Both lean to the AI search side, so counting them would widen the split, not close it.
- The questions. The AI search questions vary more in wording than the SEO questions do (from "Best GEO agencies" to "Top AEO consultants 2026"). The per-question table shows the split on every question, not only on average.
- The mixed questions. Two questions are too few to say how buyers who ask for both are treated in general.
- The window. 43 days, one answer per question per engine per day.
If you want the engines to name you for both
In this data an agency named for one service was usually not named for the other, and the two kinds of answer cited mostly different sites: of each group's 10 most-cited domains, only youtube.com was in both. Our read is that work on the pages the SEO answers cite is unlikely to carry over to the AI search answers on its own, and the reverse. Our position, which the data does not prove: an agency that wants to be named for both should earn a place on both sets of pages.
