The meeting is called “AEO alignment”. Seven people arrive with eight definitions. Somebody has prepared a slide showing an answer engine, a funnel and a very confident arrow. Nobody has identified the customer question the business needs to answer.
Here is the one-page brief I would put on the table before discussing a programme of work. It is a working template, not a promise of citations.
The decision at the top
Which customer question are we trying to answer more accurately and make easier to discover?
Write one real question in ordinary language. “Improve AI authority” is a programme ambition. “Can this service handle a small repair without replacing the entire unit?” is something a page can explain and a colleague can verify.
Record where the question came from: authorised enquiry patterns, customer research or an existing search review. Do not put a private customer's message into a widely circulated brief when a plain-language summary will do.
The verified answer
State what the business can honestly say, including the boundary. Name the person who can approve the facts. If the answer depends on a condition, include the condition instead of hoping the writer will discover it halfway through production.
An open point belongs here too. “We have not confirmed coverage outside this area” is useful information. It becomes more useful when someone owns the check and the team knows what cannot be published until it is complete.
The home of the answer
Choose the appropriate existing page or explain why a new one is needed. List the routes that should lead to it. Identify any older page that would contradict the new explanation.
The brief should also say who maintains the answer after launch. A fact without a maintenance owner has a surprisingly short journey from approved copy to historical fiction.
The discovery work
Separate clear content and ordinary technical checks from hypotheses about answer-engine visibility. Google's guidance on AI features says there is no special additional schema or AI text file required for those Search features. The brief should therefore describe the actual work rather than purchase a mysterious markup ritual.
Other engines have their own systems and controls. Avoid turning one provider's guidance into a universal rule for the whole internet.
The observation plan
If you are sampling AI answers, record the prompt, engine, date and relevant context. Decide what counts as a mention and what counts as a citation. Keep those observations separate from visits, enquiries and sales.
We can care about more than one outcome without pretending they are interchangeable. A small sample may suggest a question for further investigation rather than settle it.
The people and the handover
Name the writer, fact checker, technical implementer and person making the next decision. One person may fill several roles. The point is to prevent each role from assuming another one exists.
groas's agency model is an example of delivery working behind a client-facing team. An arrangement like that benefits from the same explicit handover: which facts are approved, which work is authorised and who handles changes to the offer.
The meeting's exit
Leave with one of three decisions: ready to produce, blocked on a named fact, or insufficient reason to begin this particular piece. Record the next action and date.
That last option is respectable. An AEO meeting does not have to manufacture an article to prove that it took place. A short brief that prevents the wrong work can do a damn good afternoon's service.
A thought worth keeping?
