AI engine optimization (AEO) has become an opportunity for managed service providers looking to get a leg up on the competition, but there’s no easy button for it.
IT buyers are increasingly using LLMs to find and vet vendors. Forrester found this month that 95% of B2B buyers will use generative AI in a future purchase. The trend is already evident in the MSP market, as marketers report that customer leads from AI search are catching up to Google search leads.
“We know for a fact it’s almost neck and neck now,” Ntiva VP of Marketing Aaron Lyles told Channel Dive.
The balance is shifting in favor of AI search, considering that many potential customers tell Ntiva they Googled the company after an LLM surfaced it.
“We've seen a massive change in how people are finding us,” Lyles said.
MSPs notoriously struggle with sales and marketing, and standing out in their local markets on Google search was already a challenge. It’s a similarly crowded market on the LLMs. When AI optimization company SourceRank AI queried LLMs about the best MSP for a 200-person customer, 152 distinct companies surfaced across the results. Most of other 21 industries explored had fewer named firms, including managed detection and response companies with 42.
What lands you in AI search?
SourceRank AI’s MSP query spanned 12 questions across five LLMs: ChatGPT, Gemini, Microsoft Copilot, Google AI Mode and Google AI Overviews.
Questions included “Best managed IT service provider for a 200-person company in the US?” and “Which MSP should a mid-size company use for 24/7 helpdesk and network management?”
Although 152 total MSPs surfaced across the results, a few rose to the top. Maryland-based Dataprise was a top result across all five engines. It tied with Ntiva in ChatGPT, Google AI Mode and Google AI Overviews and Corsica Technologies in Copilot. Thrive, Integris, NexusTek, Synoptek, All Covered, Accenture and Net at Work rounded out the top 10.
It’s only one snapshot of how MSPs are showing up on AI models and not a definitive ranking, but the findings are worth noting.
Ntiva and Dataprise’s results on search engines did not match their strong performance on the chatbots, according to SourceRank Founder Frederik Jakobsen, who ran the search. The overlap between companies appearing on LLMs and companies appearing on Google search was around 20% to 30%, Jakobsen said. What data LLMs use to run queries is a major factor. If an MSP has a good number of reviews on Google Maps, that doesn’t matter for a Microsoft Copilot search, which pulls data from Bing Maps.
That doesn’t mean you should throw SEO out the window.
“If you rank well with SEO, you're definitely more likely to also rank well with AEO,” Jakobsen said. “But in general, it's not a given that just because you rank on Google that the AI mode will actually recommend you.”
Lyles believes SEO remains the foundation of AI engine optimization. Those who do well at AEO were already doing well at SEO, he said.
“You've just got to focus on the fundamentals,” said Lyles, who worked as an SEO strategist prior to Ntiva. “Publish regularly, but most importantly, publish relevant content for the buyer. There are some tactical little tips and things you can do, but really, if you just are publishing relevant content on a regular basis, it's going to get you like 80% there.”
Third party reviews and directories — in this case, Clutch and Technology Match — were the third most cited source for the LLMs. Those sites play a double role for MSPs, BuzzTheory Senior Partner and Chief Content Officer Khali Henderson told Channel Dive in an email.
“They can help you get named in AI search, which is the focus here, but they also help you survive AI-assisted vetting,” said Henderson, who also leads the AI Revenue Institute. “That second role may be even more significant because buyers vet providers regardless of how they discover them.”
Being mentioned by third parties is paramount. SourceRank found that LLMs’ top 12 sources included MSPs Zazz, Cortavo and CompassMSP, which published their own lists of top MSPs. Yet none of those MSPs cracked the top 12 most recommended firms in the LLM query.
Key sources for AI engines
Many MSPs are now investing in public relations firms more than they ever did, Lyles said. It’s one strategy for getting baked into LLMs’ training.
“In that regular SEO world, you didn't need as much of that,” Lyles said. “It helped, but it wasn't as important.”
One of the clearest calls to action is to publish highly specific content that demonstrates an MSP’s expertise with particular geographical areas, verticals, customer segments and technologies.
“This needs to be razor sharp,” Abacus President Jonathan Bohrer said. “You put really good collateral out there because AI can comb much better. It can look for blog posts that you put out there. It can look for opinion articles.”
Lyles didn’t spill Ntiva’s special sauce for getting traction in AI searches. He said he expects continually shifting sands in AEO that make a silver bullet impossible. For example, he’s skeptical how long review sites and directories like Clutch, which was the most commonly cited source for LLMs in SourceRank AI’s query, will have such a weighted influence. Lyles said many companies moved to put content on Reddit before ChatGPT’s citations of the website cratered.
“There's so much variability in this, which makes it an opportunity for people who are selling snake oil because you can't really ever nail it down,” Lyles said.
