ChatGPT
Tracking answers across
ChatGPT
AI Overviews
Gemini
PerplexityThe category
What is Answer Engine Optimization?
Answer Engine Optimization (AEO), also called Generative Engine Optimization (GEO), is the work of making a brand show up accurately and favourably inside AI answers on ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity and Google AI Overviews. SEO earns you a ranking on a results page. AEO earns you the recommendation inside the answer itself.
Structured, well-cited pages earn up to 40% more AI citations.(Princeton GEO study, KDD 2024)
The metrics
Three numbers decide it. Whether AI recommends you comes down to how often you’re mentioned, where you rank, and how warmly the answer talks about you.
Visibility
The share of AI answers that mention you at all.
Position
Where you land when AI ranks the options.
Sentiment
How warmly the answer talks about you once you’re in it.
What are the best natural skincare brands in India?
AI answer
Great skincare in India comes down to clean ingredients, skin type and value. Here are the homegrown brands buyers rate highest in 2026:
Clean, clinically-tested formulations with a fast-growing D2C following across metros and tier-2 cities.
MamaearthVis.58%Sent.72Pos.#1Toxin-free, nature-inspired personal care with wide availability across marketplaces and quick commerce.
MinimalistVis.44%Sent.85Pos.#3Ingredient-first, transparent formulations at accessible prices. A favourite with actives-savvy buyers.
For D2C brands
AI recommends products by name and price. When a buyer asks for “a body balm under ₹3,000”, the answer names a product. Depra tracks product-level buying prompts, so you see which answers name your products and which name a rival’s instead.
Built for D2C: suggested prompts in English and Hinglish, plus any prompt you write.
₹2,900
₹2,900
₹950Concentrate Body BalmValueRejuvenate Body BalmPackagingToothpasteListicleThe audit
Start with the free audit. Depra runs the buying questions your customers actually ask across ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity and Google AI Overviews, then sends you a report of where you show up, where you don’t, and who gets named instead.
If AI already recommends you, the report says so. If it doesn’t, you’ll know exactly why before you spend a rupee.
Where you appear
ChatGPTAI OverviewsGeminiPerplexitySources shaping your answers
mamaearth.inCompetitor39%
reddit.comUGC32%
wikipedia.orgReference31%How it works
The report, the plan, the re-run
Three steps, each ending in a document you can open.
vs. 14 competitorsThe report
Your visibility mapped across every major AI engine: the prompts, the answers, and the competitors named ahead of you.
The plan
Every gap becomes a ranked move: schema, site structure, answer-ready pages, citations to earn. Ship it with your team or hand it to ours.
reddit.com+2 mentions
yourstory.comFeature placedwikipedia.orgCitation earnedThe re-run
The same prompts run again daily. Your visibility line moves against named competitors, and the next set of moves comes with it.
The platform
Turn AI answers into new customers
Find the prompts that matter, watch your rankings, and act before your competitors do.
Set up prompts
Suggested buying questions for your category, plus any prompt you write yourself.
What’s the best natural skincare brand for oily skin?
2 tags · India · Rising position · Positive sentiment
Tags
Problem-awareMid-marketLocation
India
Language
English
Prompts in the language buyers type
Suggested buying prompts in English and romanised Hinglish, the way Indian buyers actually ask.
Your own prompts
Add your competitors
See who’s being named instead of you, in one shared board.
Brands (5)
Mamaearth+3mamaearth.in+ Start tracking
Plumplumgoodness.comChoose AI models
Track the engines your buyers use. Checked daily.
Find key sources
See the exact citations shaping your visibility, and where your competitors are being pulled from.
reddit.comUGC32%3.2wikipedia.orgReference31%1.4mamaearth.inCompetitor39%1.1yourstory.comEditorial45%2.4Act on insights
Every insight becomes a ranked move your team can ship this sprint, or hand to ours.
The action plan
AI doesn’t guess. It names brands it can read, verify and cross-reference. Your plan covers the six things that decide whether that’s you.
Site structure
Clean headings, crawlable pages and internal links that let AI parse what you do and for whom.
Schema & entities
Structured data and consistent entity signals, so models know exactly who you are.
Answer-ready content
Pages written to answer the questions buyers actually ask.
Citations & mentions
Placements on the lists, comparisons and reviews AI already leans on for answers.
Brand consistency
Same name, same claims, same facts everywhere AI looks: site, directories, socials.
Ongoing monitoring
Your prompt set re-run daily, with movement tracked against competitors.
The delta
Same prompt. Three months apart.
One buying prompt from a real audit shape: month 0, then the re-run after the plan shipped.
For a body balm under ₹3,000, the strongest picks are Mamaearth and Plum. Both are easy to find on marketplaces and hold up well for daily use.
MamaearthPlumACME absent. No citation from acme.in.
ACME’s Concentrate Body Balm is the strongest pick under ₹3,000, with clinically tested claims on its site. Mamaearth and Plum are solid alternatives.
MamaearthNamed first. Cited: acme.in/body-balm
Reports & exports
Reports your team will actually read
Every report and every scheduled re-run lands in the formats your team already uses.
The report
A clear, ranked document: where you stand, what to fix first, and what moved since last month.
Visibility
47%+4.5%
Sources cited
128+12
Looker Studio
A live dashboard your whole team can open. Visibility, sources and movement, refreshed daily.
Clean exports
CSV or Sheets on request. Take the raw data into the tools you already run.
Delivered where you work.
The report, the dashboard and the exports, sent where your team already talks.
AI is the new search engine.
Track the buying prompts that decide who gets recommended.
Gartner expects traditional search volume to fall 25% by 2026 as buyers move to AI assistants. (Gartner, 2024)
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We asked AI the same buying question in English and in Hinglish. It recommended different brands.
Ten buying prompts, each asked both ways, run eight times against ChatGPT, Gemini and Perplexity in India. Because engines never answer identically twice, we measured each engine against its own rerun noise first. The language gap beat that noise on all three. Every response, script and seed is public so you can check the numbers yourself.
A deliberately small, deep study: 10 prompts in two categories, one fieldwork window. Limitations are stated in full in the report.
Client words
“The free audit was the first time anyone showed us how AI actually talks about our brand. Clear, specific, and no jargon.”
Find out what AI istelling your customers
The audit is free. The gaps are already there. You may as well see them.
7-day free trial. Cancel before it ends and you are not charged.
FAQs
Answer Engine Optimization and Generative Engine Optimization: the work of making your brand show up, accurately and favourably, inside AI answers on ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity and Google AI Overviews. Think SEO, but for the answer instead of the link.
They describe the same discipline. AEO (Answer Engine Optimization) is the common industry term for earning placement inside AI answers. GEO (Generative Engine Optimization) is the label from the 2024 Princeton study that measured which tactics actually move citation rates. We use both because buyers search for both.
You add a card, then get 7 days of the full Solo plan. Nothing is charged during the trial, and first results arrive within minutes of signup: where you appear, where you don’t, and who gets named instead. On day 7 the card is charged ₹2,359 (₹1,999 + 18% GST) and the plan continues monthly. Cancel any time before day 7 and you are not charged at all.
Depra suggests buying prompts for your category in English and romanised Hinglish, the way Indian buyers actually type them (“sabse accha protein powder”). Hinglish stays in Latin script, so it matches what people put in the box. Use the suggestions as they are, edit them, or write your own from scratch.
Three things decide it: a site AI can parse (structure, schema, answer-ready pages), consistent facts about your brand everywhere AI looks, and mentions on the sources AI leans on, like review platforms, Reddit and comparison articles. The audit shows which of these you are missing. The plan ranks the fixes.
Yes, through prompts. Add product-level buying prompts like “best body balm under ₹3,000” and Depra records whether the answer names your product, a rival’s, or neither. Track a prompt for every SKU that matters to you.
Four: ChatGPT, Google AI Overviews, Gemini and Perplexity, tracked daily on paid plans (Perplexity weekly). Coverage follows where your buyers actually ask, and engines are added as usage shifts.
Pricing is public at depra.ai/pricing: a free plan, then ₹1,999/month (Solo), ₹7,499 (Growth) and ₹12,499 (Agency), excluding GST. Tiers differ by prompts, projects, competitors and reporting features. No sales call needed.
A visibility score across ChatGPT, Google AI Overviews, Gemini and Perplexity, competitor benchmarks, the sources shaping your answers, and a ranked list of fixes, refreshed daily so you can see movement. Everything is self-serve in your dashboard from the moment you sign up.
Every category moves differently. On-site fixes ship in weeks. Citations build over months. Depra re-runs the same prompt set daily and tracks movement against real answers.
They overlap. Good SEO helps, but AI answers weigh structure, entities and third-party citations differently. The audit shows the gap between your rankings and your AI visibility.
Both. Your team can run the action plan with our tracking and playbooks behind it, or we execute it end-to-end with you.
India, working with Indian and global brands. Everything happens over email, WhatsApp and calls.