AI SEO Packages: What Should Be Included

Ask five agencies what belongs in an AI SEO package and you will get five different lists. The lists barely overlap. That is the finding, not a detail. When a service has no settled definition, the scope is set by whoever writes the proposal, and the buyer has no way to compare two quotes side by side.

There is a way out, and it does not require you to learn the vocabulary. Google has published its own guide to optimising for generative AI features on Search, and roughly a third of it is a mythbusting section listing what you can safely ignore. Read a proposal against that section and most of the disagreement between vendors resolves itself.

We should declare our position before you read further. IZI Digital Marketing sells this work, so treat what follows as a set of testable criteria rather than neutral commentary. The Malaysian context matters as well: only 63.3 per cent of establishments had a web presence at all in the Department of Statistics Malaysia’s Usage of ICT and E-Commerce by Establishment survey. For a large slice of the market, the honest first line of any AI SEO, GEO and AEO programme is a site worth retrieving. The video below sets the platform context before we get into scope.

PART 1 · DIAGNOSE

What Is Genuinely New in an AI SEO Package?

IN BRIEFThree items are new: a setting that makes your site eligible for generative AI features, a Search Console report that measures them, and a content standard that penalises recycled writing. The rest of the scope is the SEO you were already buying, which is why AI SEO and traditional SEO belong in one budget line.

Google’s position is unusually blunt for a platform document. Its guide states that optimising for generative AI search is still SEO, because the AI features are grounded in the same ranking and quality systems that serve ordinary results. If a proposal treats AI visibility as a separate discipline with its own methodology, that claim is doing sales work rather than technical work.

What has actually changed sits in three places, and all three are checkable in an afternoon.

• Eligibility is now a switch, not just an outcome. A page must be indexed and snippet-eligible, and the site must be included in Search generative AI features in Search Console. A package that never mentions this setting has skipped the only true prerequisite.
• Measurement finally exists. The generative AI performance report shows impressions from AI Overviews and AI Mode by page, country and device — though Google notes it is still rolling out to a subset of properties.
• The content bar moved up, not sideways. Google contrasts commodity content with pieces built on first-hand experience, and says the second kind will influence AI visibility more than anything else in the guide.

PART 2 · DIAGNOSE

Which Line Items Has Google Already Called Unnecessary?

IN BRIEFFive deliverables appear in most AI SEO quotes and in Google’s mythbusting list at the same time. Ask for the platform documentation behind each one before you pay for it, especially where a vendor is selling ChatGPT visibility as a separate service.

This is the fastest way to read a proposal you did not write. Google lists these explicitly under what you can ignore for Google Search.

• llms.txt and similar AI files. Google states plainly that Search does not use them. Creating one neither harms nor helps your visibility in Google Search.
• Content “chunking”. There is no requirement to break pages into small pieces for AI systems, and no ideal page length.
• Rewriting pages for machines. Google says you do not need to write in a special way, because its systems understand synonyms and intent.
• Chasing mentions across the web. Seeking inauthentic mentions is called out directly as less helpful than it sounds.
• Extra schema “for AI”. Structured data is not required for generative AI features and there is no special markup — though it remains worth keeping for rich results.

BENCHMARK BRIEFING 1 OF 4

Which AI SEO Deliverables Survive Scrutiny?

IN BRIEFTen deliverables that appear in Malaysian AI SEO quotes, each scored against Google’s published position. Six belong in the scope, one is optional, and three are decoration — a split that also explains why AI visibility trackers should never be the headline deliverable.

PART 3 · DESIGN

How Should the Package Be Shaped Around Your Site?

IN BRIEFThree shapes cover almost every Malaysian SME: a one-off foundations fix, foundations plus a publishing rhythm, or a full programme with reporting. Which one fits depends on site size and who writes, not on how advanced you want to sound. The same logic drives what any SEO package should include.

Scope should follow your constraint. A twelve-page site with an owner who can write is a different problem from a 900-page catalogue with nobody free to edit it. A vendor working from a template will quote both the same way.

Two structural questions decide the rest. Is the fee a retainer or a project, and does the content budget buy your knowledge or someone else’s guesswork? Our note on retainers versus one-off projects covers the first in more detail.

BENCHMARK BRIEFING 2 OF 4

Where Does a Month of AI SEO Work Actually Go?

IN BRIEFTwenty working hours split across five workstreams, with content taking the largest share by a distance. Ask any vendor to complete this table for their own retainer. The shape of their answer tells you more than the price does, and it is the same table we use when comparing DIY against hiring a specialist.

PART 4 · DEPLOY

What Should the First 90 Days Deliver?

IN BRIEFFour deliverables, in order, all of which you should be able to see for yourself: a verified baseline, eligibility confirmed, two pages only you could have written, and a review date agreed in writing before the first invoice rather than after the third.

Ninety days is long enough to prove the work is happening and short enough that a bad fit is still cheap to exit. Insist on the sequence, because a package that starts with content before eligibility is producing pages that nothing can retrieve.

1. Record the baseline in week one. Indexed pages, current organic enquiries, and generative AI impressions if the report is available on your property. Without this, month six has nothing to compare against.
2. Confirm eligibility, not just indexing. Verify the site in Search Console, check the technical requirements, and confirm the generative AI features inclusion setting is on.
3. Publish two pages nobody else could write. Real objections, real numbers from your trade, real decisions you have made for customers. This is the test of whether the content budget is buying your knowledge or generic filler.
4. Agree the review date and the evidence. Name the month, the two or three numbers you will read, and what result would make you stop or widen the scope.

BENCHMARK BRIEFING 3 OF 4

What Should Land at Months 1, 3, 6 and 12?

IN BRIEFA milestone table you can paste into a contract. Each row names what should exist and how you check it without asking the agency, which is the difference between reporting and evidence.

PART 5 · DRIVE

How Do You Check the Package Is Working?

IN BRIEFRead three numbers in your own account, not three slides in a deck: impressions in generative AI features, enquiries by landing page, and branded search volume. Anything a vendor reports that you cannot reproduce should be treated as commentary, as we argue in our guide to measuring SEO ROI month by month.

Google is direct about third-party claims here. Its guidance warns against tools promising ranking success or claiming to use internal Google metrics, and points owners at its advice on evaluating third-party SEO tools. A visibility score with no published method is not evidence.

• Impressions in AI features. Available through the generative AI performance reports announced in June 2026, still rolling out property by property.
• Enquiries by landing page. The number that pays for the retainer, and the one least often shown.
• Branded search volume. A slow but honest signal that people are leaving an AI answer and looking you up by name.

If you are still shortlisting, judge candidates on whether they will hand you those three numbers unprompted. That test does more work than any credentials page, and it applies whether you are reading our take on the best AI SEO agency in Malaysia for GEO work or a broader SEO agency shortlist.

BENCHMARK BRIEFING 4 OF 4

How Many Malaysian Businesses Clear the Prerequisites?

IN BRIEFNearly every Malaysian establishment has internet access, but barely six in ten have a web presence. That gap is the real starting line for most buyers, and it decides whether an AI SEO and GEO programme is the right purchase this year at all.

FAQ

Frequently Asked Questions

1. What should AI SEO packages include as a minimum?

Eligibility, content and measurement. How much beyond that depends on your site size and who writes. At minimum a package should confirm the site is indexed and included in generative AI features, publish content built on first-hand experience, and hand you a baseline you can read yourself. A quote missing any of the three is incomplete regardless of price.

2. Do I need llms.txt or special AI schema in the package?

Not for Google Search. Google states that it ignores llms.txt and similar files, and that no special markup is required for its generative AI features. The exception is if a non-Google service you care about reads those files. Treat them as optional housekeeping, and never as the headline deliverable on an invoice.

3. Should AI SEO be quoted separately from my SEO retainer?

Usually no. It depends on whether your current agency is already doing the foundations properly, because the overlap is close to total. Google’s own framing is that optimising for generative AI search is still SEO. A second retainer for the same underlying work is the most common way Malaysian businesses overpay in this category.

4. How much of an AI SEO package should be content?

Roughly half the effort, in our experience of scoping these. The exact share depends on how much technical debt the site carries at the start. Google says unique, non-commodity content will influence AI visibility more than anything else in its guide, so a package weighted towards tooling and reporting has its priorities inverted.

5. When is it too early to buy an AI SEO package?

When the site itself is not ready. If pages are not indexed, the site has fewer than a handful of real pages, or nobody internally can supply first-hand material, the money is better spent fixing that first. Buy visibility work once there is something worth retrieving, not before.