Right now, AI is recommending someone else.
Citabld is an AI search (AEO) company. We help you build content and content strategy that gets your company named and cited in AI answers. Your buyers ask ChatGPT one question. The engine quietly asks eight, pulls answers from whoever wrote them best, and hands back a shortlist. You're either on it or you don't exist. We get you on it by mapping the hidden questions in your category and writing the content the engines actually quote, so you get named, cited, and clicked.
- →You're being left out of AI answers your competitors show up in.
- →You want content that gets quoted, not content that gets buried.
- →You want AI search sending real buyers to your site, not zero-click silence.
AI Query Architecture
#AI Query Architecture is how we get your company named in the answers AI tools give your buyers. When someone asks ChatGPT or Google AI for a recommendation, the tool breaks that one question into several smaller questions behind the scenes, pulls the best answer for each, and reads back a short list. We map all those smaller questions for your category and write the content the tools actually quote, so your company shows up on the list. The business result is simple: buyers discover you, shortlist you, click through, and buy.
One question becomes eight. One fragment gets cited.
A buyer asks one question. The engine expands it into subqueries, selects a passage for each, and cites the winner. This is the selection event, shown in real time.
This is exactly how your category looks across nine AI tools. Browse real fan-out examples by industry to see your own questions.
So what does getting cited actually get you?
Money, eventually. But the money only arrives at the end of a chain: first you get seen, then you get discovered, then you get shortlisted, then you get the click, then you get the deal. Everything else on this site is just the method for starting that chain.
AI visibility
Your company shows up inside the AI’s answer, named by name, on the questions your buyers actually ask ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, Copilot, Claude, Grok, and Google AI.
Discovery
Buyers who had never heard of you meet you at the moment they are describing their problem, not after they already know which vendors to search for.
Shortlisting
When someone asks the AI “who are the best options for X,” you are one of the three to five names it gives back, with the specifics that make you a good fit stated correctly.
Website traffic
AI answers include links. The visits that come from them are serious: the buyer has already read a summary of what you do and clicked because they want detail or a quote.
Revenue
More qualified pipeline from buyers who arrive pre-educated and pre-shortlisted, and fewer deals lost to a competitor the AI named while you were invisible.
Why this matters now
#Buyers are swapping search results for AI answers. An AI answer names a few companies and leaves out everyone else, so the shortlist is set before a buyer ever visits a website. If the AI can\u2019t pull a clear answer from your content, it names a competitor instead, and you never even hear about the lost deal.
The chain starts with a map. See what each engagement costs and what you get at each step.
What is query fan-out?
When you ask an AI a question, it doesn\u2019t just answer that one question. Behind the scenes it splits your question into several smaller questions, pulls a separate answer for each, and combines them into the reply you see. Google says its AI Mode runs several related searches per question; independent measurement finds the searches ChatGPT runs share only about 13% of their words with what you typed, and 91% of them change between runs.[src] The question you see is not the question being answered.
more likely to get quoted: pages that answer the smaller behind-the-scenes questions, versus pages that only target the question the buyer typed.
of AI answers don’t name any company at all. When a company does get named, it’s at the moment the buyer is deciding, so that’s where your content has to be.
single question to win. The AI changes the smaller questions based on who’s asking and what came before, so there’s a whole set of them to cover, not one list.
Your buyers' real questions are eight, not one. The map is how we capture all of them.
You cannot optimize a page for a question the engine never asks.
The question your buyer types is just a starting point. The AI pulls its answer from the smaller questions behind it, and covering those is the only thing you can actually build.
How is this different from SEO?
Old SEO targets the words a person types and fights for a spot on a links page. AI Query Architecture targets the smaller questions the AI builds from those words and fights to get quoted inside the answer the AI writes back. It isn\u2019t a new name for SEO. What you target, what you compete for, and how you measure success all change.
| dimension | old seo | ai query architecture |
|---|---|---|
| What you target | The words a person types | The smaller questions the AI builds from those words |
| What you compete for | A spot on a links page | Getting quoted inside the answer the AI writes back |
| How you measure success | Where you rank on the page | How often the AI names you |
| Who you write for | One page for everyone | Different answers depending on who’s asking |
| How the content reads | Long build-up before the point | The answer first, so it works pulled out on its own |
| How much you can win | Ten spots on one page | Thousands of small questions, many AI tools |
Old SEO targets words. This targets the questions the AI actually asks. Walk through the full method.
What is actually inside a Query Map?
A keyword list is one thing and a number: the phrase and how many people search it. A Query Map carries six things on every row, because the AI's choice of what to quote depends on more than the phrase. Six values per row is what turns a list into something you can actually plan and prioritize.
- "crm software" · 40,500/mo
- "best crm" · 22,200/mo
- "crm pricing" · 8,100/mo
Two fields. No AI tool, no buyer type, no label for how we know, and no link to what the AI actually searched for.
- subquery: "crm migration downtime mid-market"
- engine: Perplexity
- persona: technical evaluator
- stage: objection
- provenance: MEASURED
- theme: switching risk · coverage: absent
Six fields plus a coverage score. You can question this row, prioritize it, assign it, and check it later.
Each AI tool rewrites the same question differently. A question that wins on Perplexity may never even get asked by Copilot.
The AI changes the smaller questions based on who's asking. The same buyer question fans out differently for each buyer role.
Getting named happens at decision moments. Stage tells you which questions are worth your budget and which just look good.
Every row says how we know it, so you can judge how much to trust it before you spend on it.
Questions aren't handled one at a time. They group into themes, and a theme is the real unit of content you pay for.
The scored state of your current content for each theme. This is what turns a library into a to-do list.
How does Citabld work?
Map
We learn your category the way the AI sees it: the words it uses, the brands it keeps naming, and the sources it trusts. The real questions come from sales calls, support tickets, and online communities, not keyword tools.
read the map page →Library
For every question your buyers ask, we work out all the smaller questions the AI asks behind the scenes across nine AI tools and the different types of buyer you sell to. That’s 500+ smaller questions, grouped into the 30 to 60 themes that actually decide who gets quoted. Every one is labeled.
read the library page →Score
We score every theme: what you already cover well, what your competitors own, what you can’t win, and what to build first. The math is published, not hidden.
read the score page →Produce
We write the content: full pages, short answer blocks, comparisons, posts, and product feeds, all in your voice and shaped so the AI can lift a clean answer out of them. Each piece goes where it’s most likely to get quoted.
read the produce page →Step one ends when you approve the scored plan. Then we run the content operation: we draft, source, edit, and ship every piece ourselves, in your voice, working down the priority list in two-week sprints.
Four phases, one approved plan, then content shipped every two weeks. See which AI tools we cover and what it costs.
Which AI tools does Citabld cover?
Citabld covers nine AI tools: ChatGPT, Google AI Mode, Google AI Overviews, Perplexity, Gemini, Microsoft Copilot, Claude, Grok, and Meta AI. Each one rewrites questions in its own way, so each gets its own profile in your library. Every row is labeled with how we know what that tool does.
Who is Citabld for?
Citabld is for companies whose buyers research and shortlist using AI: B2B software and services, technical and regulated products, and challenger brands the AI knows about but rarely picks. If one company shows up in every answer in your space, the map tells you that before you spend anything.
B2B software and services
Long buying cycles, teams that decide together, and buyers who ask an AI for a shortlist before they ever visit a vendor site.
Considered consumer purchases
Purchases where the question is “is this worth it for me” rather than “what’s cheapest,” and the buyer reads an AI summary instead of clicking around.
Challengers, not leaders
Brands the AI already knows about but doesn’t pick by default. This is where covering the different buyer types moves you onto the list.
Regulated and technical categories
Where getting your own facts exactly right decides whether the AI will risk naming you at all.
If your buyers shortlist with AI, you're either on the list or invisible. See how it plays out in your industry.
Citabld is an AI search (AEO) company. We help you build content and content strategy for AI citations. We work out all the smaller questions an AI asks behind the scenes when your buyers come looking, build the full library of those questions for your category, and write the content that gets your company named in the answers on ChatGPT, Gemini, Google AI Mode and AI Overviews, Perplexity, Copilot, Claude, and Grok.
Updated August 2026
Why we publish our provenance
Three of the big AI tools don\u2019t let anyone see the questions they ask behind the scenes. Any vendor who shows you \u201cyour exact fan-out\u201d on those tools is showing you a guess dressed up to look like a fact. Citabld labels every question in your library so you know what\u2019s real and what\u2019s modeled. The honest version of this work sells better odds of getting quoted, not guarantees. That\u2019s what we sell.
Captured live from the AI tool.
Follows from a documented process.
Built from how the tool behaves, checked against the ones we can watch.
We label every question so you know what's real and what's modeled. Read the standard and the terms.
Common questions about AI Query Architecture
What is query fan-out in AI search?
When you ask an AI a question, it doesn’t just answer that one question. Behind the scenes it splits your question into several smaller questions, pulls a separate answer for each, and combines them into the reply you see. The AI answers those smaller questions, not the one you typed. That splitting is called query fan-out.
How do companies get named in AI answers?
A company gets named in an AI answer when a clear, self-contained passage somewhere online answers one of those smaller questions and says the company by name. The AI lifts that passage out and quotes it. Being a big, well-known site helps, but it isn’t enough on its own. You need clear answers to the right questions.
Can anyone show me my exact AI fan-out?
No. Three of the big AI tools don’t let anyone see the questions they ask behind the scenes, so any vendor promising your exact fan-out on those tools is showing a guess dressed up to look like a fact. Citabld labels every row as MEASURED, DETERMINISTIC, EXTRAPOLATED, or MODELED so you know what’s real and what’s a model.
How long does it take to get cited in AI answers?
Fixing basic facts about your company can show up in weeks. Getting quoted on competitive questions usually takes one to two content sprints per topic, because the AI has to find your new page and your answer has to beat whatever it currently quotes.
Does Citabld write the content or just the strategy?
We write the content. The first phase gives you the map, the full library of questions, and the scored plan you approve. The second phase is the writing: pages, short answer blocks, comparisons, posts, and product feeds, all drafted and edited by us in your voice.
The fastest way to know if this is real for you is to see your own fan-out. Free, takes a few minutes.