AI Search Specialist
What is the AI Search Specialist?
The AI Search Specialist is an AI employee in SEO AI Premium. It helps your clients' businesses show up and get chosen across traditional search and AI tools like ChatGPT, Gemini, and Perplexity.
Each month, the AI Search Specialist:
- Runs Brand Visibility, AEO, and SEO reports
- Keeps business profiles complete
- Picks keywords to track
- Writes blogs, FAQs, and website fixes for eligible sites
SEO AI Standard and Pro don't include AI Search Specialist features.
Before you start
- The account has SEO AI Premium.
- Blogs, FAQs, and website fixes require a WordPress site hosted by Vendasta on WP Cloud (up to 50 pages, Gutenberg or Elementor editor). Reports, profile upkeep, keyword picks, and chat work on any website.
- Blog posts require a paid edition of Social AI on the account.
- The business's Google Business Profile is connected.
- Google Analytics and Google Search Console are connected. The reports need both, so create them first if the business doesn't have them.
Set up
- Activate Premium: In Partner Center, upgrade the account to SEO AI Premium.
- Open the Specialist: In Business App, go to
AI Workforceand select theAI Search Specialist. - Turn on Business Profile Optimization: It's off by default because Google requires the business's consent before profile updates are automated. Open the AI Search Specialist's
Configurescreen and turn on the toggle. The Specialist then fills in profile details from the website and handles Google's suggested edits. It never changes the business's primary category. - Connect listings: Bing and Apple sync automatically. Connect Google, Facebook, Yext, and Uberall so updates reach them too. Also connect Google Analytics and Google Search Console.
- Check reports: Brand Visibility, AEO, and SEO reports run when Premium is turned on and appear in the
Performancetab.
What happens each month
| Work | What the AI Search Specialist does |
|---|---|
| Reports | Refresh on the first business day of each month in the Performance tab |
| Blog post | Writes one a month by default (adjustable), based on gaps in the Brand Visibility report. Requires a paid edition of Social AI |
| FAQs | Writes FAQs and adds them to the website, updated once a month |
| Website fixes | Applies robots.txt and schema fixes as reports find gaps |
| Business profiles | Checks and updates profiles from the website once a month, including Google's suggested edits |
| Keywords | Picks 10 at activation and tracks rankings weekly |
On a WordPress site hosted by Vendasta on WP Cloud, the blog can post to the site automatically. On other sites, copy it to the site.
Approve changes
Changes waiting for sign-off are listed on the Next Steps page. You can approve all in one click, review and approve or dismiss individual fixes, or let the Specialist run on its own.
If an applied change breaks the site's layout or styling, the site is restored to its pre-change backup automatically.
Read reports
Open the Performance tab to see three reports. They run as soon as Premium is turned on, then refresh on the first business day of each month. Use the drop-down to see past months, and download any report as a PDF.
- Brand Visibility: How often ChatGPT, Gemini, and Perplexity recommend the business compared with named competitors. The score averages results across the three AI tools, using three customer personas with three prompts each.
- AEO audit: How well the website answers the questions customers ask AI tools. The score averages the section scores below it.
- SEO audit: The website's technical and on-page search health. The score averages the section scores below it.
For more detail, ask the AI Search Specialist in chat where its data comes from.
Manage keywords
The AI Search Specialist picks 10 keywords when Premium is turned on. It bases them on the business category, services, and website, and ranks them by impact and how hard they are to rank for. Rankings are tracked weekly.
To change the list, add or remove keywords by hand, or ask the Specialist in chat to update it.
Chat with the AI Search Specialist
Ask about keywords, listings, citations, SEO, AEO, and AI visibility in plain language. For example:
- "Pull up last month's Brand Visibility report."
- "Which competitors does ChatGPT recommend instead of us?"
- "Add 'emergency plumber near me' to my keywords."
- "Where does your data come from?"
How Business Profile Optimization works
Business Profile Optimization runs automatically once you turn it on with a single click. It:
- Reviews your business profile data
- Fills in missing services, attributes, descriptions, payment methods, and service areas
- Syncs this data to your connected Google, Facebook, Bing, and Apple listings
Updates appear in listings over time, and the business is notified any time its profile is updated.
Business Profile Optimization is turned off by default. Turn it on in the AI Search Specialist's configuration to let it run automatically in the background.
Business description updates
Business descriptions are reevaluated on a monthly schedule—no action is required from your clients. Whether a description is actually changed is an AI judgment call, not a guaranteed outcome: detecting a new service or tracked keyword doesn't automatically trigger an update.
Each month, the AI evaluates a client's existing description against:
- Their website and business profile content (services, specialties, voice)
- Tracked keywords and their search performance data
- Business category
The AI only updates a description when it judges there's a meaningful signal to act on—for example, new services, a niche specialty not yet in the description, or tracked keywords missing from it. To avoid changing a client's description too often, a description also has to have gone at least 90 days since its last update before it's eligible to change again—so a description updated within roughly the last 90 days generally won't be touched by this workflow.
When a description is updated:
- The client receives an AI Search Specialist: Profile Description Updated notification in Business App.
- The notification links to Business Profile so they can review the change.
- The updated description syncs to Google, Bing, Apple, and Facebook.
Clients can review and edit their description in Business Profile at any time.
Share feedback
- Use the thumbs up or thumbs down icon on any chat response.
- Share product feedback through your usual Vendasta support channel.
FAQs
Does it build backlinks?
No. Backlinks are a human service and not part of SEO AI Premium.
What works on a site that is on Vibe or WordPress hosted elsewhere?
Reports, profile upkeep, keyword picks, and chat. Blogs, FAQs, and website fixes require a WordPress site hosted by Vendasta on WP Cloud. On Vibe sites, copy the recommendations from each report and add them to the site by hand.
Do I need Social AI to get blog posts?
Yes. Blog drafts are hosted in Social AI, so the account needs a paid edition of Social AI for the AI Search Specialist to draft a blog.
How fast will rankings improve?
SEO results take time and vary by business, market, and competition. Watch the monthly trend in the Performance tab.
Will the client get email alerts for changes?
Items waiting for approval show on the Next Steps page.
Why is Business Profile Optimization off by default?
Google requires the business's consent before profile updates are automated, so the business turns it on in the AI Search Specialist's Configure screen. Everything else is on by default.
Can the AI Search Specialist change the business's primary category?
No. It has no access to business categories, because changing them is a common reason Google suspends a profile.
A website change broke the site. What now?
The change rolls back to the pre-change backup automatically. If the site doesn't restore, contact support.
My report hasn't generated. What do I do?
Refresh the chat. If the report still hasn't generated after 15 minutes, contact support through the chat icon in Business App.
The AI Search Specialist gave me inaccurate information. How do I flag it?
Use the thumbs down icon on any response in the chat. You can also contact support directly.
Why does an audit say it was blocked?
The website's bot protection (for example, Cloudflare) is stopping the crawler from reading the pages, so the audit can't finish and no report is created.
Why did a client's business description change automatically?
The AI judged that changes like new services, a specialty, or tracked keywords were significant enough to warrant an update. Direct clients to the notification in Business Profile to review the update.
Can clients undo an automatic description change?
Yes. Clients can edit or replace their business description in Business Profile at any time.
Can I offer SEO Standard or SEO Plus to clients in Australia?
Yes. You can implement both SEO Standard and SEO Plus for Australian businesses.