How to Optimise for Perplexity & Google AI Mode (UK 2026)

What Are Perplexity and Google AI Mode?

Both are "answer engines" — you ask a question and get a written answer with cited sources, rather than a list of links.

Perplexity is a standalone AI search engine that answers almost every query with numbered citations and links to its sources. It is citation-heavy by design, which makes it one of the biggest AI referral-traffic drivers for businesses that get quoted.

Google AI Mode is Google's fully conversational search experience — a step beyond AI Overviews — where the entire results page becomes an AI dialogue grounded in Google's live index. It draws on the same signals that power ranking and AI Overviews, so classic search strength carries over.

Optimising for both is part of GEO (Generative Engine Optimisation) and builds on the same foundations as AEO.

How Do These Engines Choose Their Sources?

They pull from a live index at the moment you ask (retrieval), then generate an answer and cite what they used. To be selected you need three things:

1. You rank / are indexed for the query. Perplexity leans on top-ranking, well-structured pages; Google AI Mode is grounded in Google's index. Strong SEO is the entry ticket.

2. Your answer is cleanly extractable — a direct response, near the top, in language that can be quoted verbatim.

3. You are trusted and corroborated — E-E-A-T signals plus other reputable sources saying the same thing about you.

Get all three right and you become a default citation; miss any one and you are invisible to the engine.

How to Optimise Specifically for Perplexity

Perplexity rewards clarity and structure more than almost any other engine:

Lead with the answer. Perplexity extracts the passage that most directly answers the query — put it in the first sentence under a question heading.

Rank well on Google and Bing. Perplexity's retrieval favours pages already ranking, so traditional SEO and clean technical SEO directly improve your Perplexity citations.

Use lists, tables and clear headings. Perplexity frequently quotes structured content and comparisons.

Publish specifics. Numbers, dates, prices and named examples get cited far more than vague advice.

Build authority off-site. Perplexity weighs source reputation; mentions and links from trusted sites raise your odds of being the cited one. This is where digital PR pays off.

How to Optimise for Google AI Mode

Because AI Mode is grounded in Google's index, your existing Google strength is your biggest lever:

Win the rankings that matter. Pages that already rank and are marked up well are the ones AI Mode pulls into its answers — so a strong SEO programme is foundational.

Add structured data. FAQPage, Article and Organisation schema help Google understand and attribute your content. Our technical SEO service implements this.

Answer follow-up questions too. AI Mode is conversational, so it rewards content that covers a topic in depth — the main question and the natural follow-ups. Cluster your content around a topic rather than a single keyword.

Strengthen E-E-A-T. Named authors, credentials, original data and third-party trust signals decide whether Google is confident enough to feature you. See our companion guide, how to rank in Google AI Overviews.

The Shared Checklist (Works for Both)

The overlap is large — do these and you improve on every AI engine at once, including ChatGPT and Gemini:

• Answer-first content under question-style headings.
• Structured formatting — short paragraphs, lists, tables, FAQ and Article schema.
• Genuine expertise — named authors, credentials, first-hand experience.
• Original, specific information an AI cannot generate itself.
• Off-site authority — reviews, press and mentions on trusted sources.
• Technical health — fast, crawlable, correctly indexed.
• Freshness — updated content with a visible date.

For the platform-by-platform detail, see how to get cited by ChatGPT, Perplexity and Gemini.

How Do You Measure Results?

Both engines send measurable signals:

• AI referral traffic — Perplexity in particular appears as a referral source in GA4; watch it grow.
• Citation tracking — run your priority questions through Perplexity and Google AI Mode on a schedule and log whether you are cited and linked.
• Share of answer — how often you appear versus competitors for your key questions.
• Branded search lift — AI recommendations drive people to search your name directly.

We bake this monitoring into our GEO service and can baseline where you currently stand in a free visibility report.