Talk to Piste
AEO room
A Slack channel where Piste checks whether ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini and Google's AI Mode recommend your store, and what would change that.
More buyers now ask an AI assistant what to buy before they search. AEO (answer engine optimization) is about being the brand those assistants recommend. The AEO room is a Slack channel, #piste-aeo, where Piste does that work with you: it finds the questions buyers ask, asks each AI, sees who it names and which sites it quotes, and tells you who to reach and what to say. Every Monday it posts how you're doing.
Nothing is ever posted or sent for you. Piste writes the drafts; you decide what goes out.
Before you start
- Piste's Slack app is installed and your Shopify store is connected, as in onboarding.
- You're the workspace owner. Only the owner can open the room and connect Search Console. Teammates you invite to the channel can follow along and ask Piste for an audit too.
1. Ask Piste about AI answers
Onboarding doesn't open the room for you. In any conversation with Piste, ask something like "Does ChatGPT recommend us?" or "How do we show up in AI search?" Piste explains what the room does and asks whether to set it up.
2. Say yes, and Piste opens the room
When you say yes, Piste:
- creates the public channel #piste-aeo and invites you;
- posts a welcome message there: what happens in the channel and what it costs;
- sets up the room's weekly post, every Monday at 9:00 in your workspace's time zone.
There's one room per workspace. Asking again just points you back to it. Invite whoever on your team should see the work.
If your Slack app was installed before Piste could create channels, Piste replies with a link to reinstall it. Reinstalling loses nothing; ask again afterwards. If your Slack workspace only lets some people create channels, an admin needs to let apps create them.
3. Run an audit
In #piste-aeo, mention @Piste and ask for an audit. All AEO work happens in this channel: ask for an audit anywhere else and Piste points you here.
Piste fills in what it can from your store and asks for the rest in one message: the product, what it does in a line, the kind of product, two or three phrases buyers search, your brand and the product's page.
The audit goes in four steps. After each one Piste stops and shows you what it found, with options and a recommendation. You approve, change something, or stop. Before each step it says what the next one costs.
Step 1: What buyers ask
The phrases buyers search, how ready to buy each one is, what advertisers pay per click for it and how many people search it each month. From those, Piste writes the questions a buyer would ask an AI, such as "Which trail running shoes for women are worth it?", ranked.
If Search Console isn't connected, Piste gives you a link to connect it (see below). Once it is, step 1 also shows which of those questions already bring your site clicks from Google, and its near misses: searches your site shows up for but sits low on page one or on page two.
Step 2: What AI says
Piste asks ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini and Google's AI Mode each question, starting with a cheap trial of the first question before asking the rest. You see:
- how often the AI answers name your brand, and where in the answer;
- which competitors they name instead;
- which websites they quote.
Step 3: The websites AI trusts
How strong each quoted site is, and which is most worth getting onto: for example, a review page AI quotes often that lists your competitors but not you.
Step 4: Who to reach
First Piste checks its facts against your product page. Then a to-do list ranked High, Med and Low by how much each would help against how much work it is:
- Reddit threads buyers read, found with a Reddit search for each question. Piste reads each top thread's comments.
- YouTube videos AI quotes. Piste reads each top video's transcript: what the creator compared and which brands they named.
- Review pages worth pitching.
- Your own product page, including whether its first lines answer the questions and whether it blocks AI crawlers.
Then the drafts: a Reddit reply that answers the question and says you're with the brand, a short pitch to the creator or editor, and a rewrite of your product page. You send them.
4. Every Monday
Piste posts in #piste-aeo on its own:
- AI mentions in your category: how often AI answers about your kind of product mention you and each competitor, compared with last week, and your mentions month on month.
- The re-check: once your last audit is three weeks old, the same post asks the AIs the audit's questions again and shows what moved. It flags changes that could just be chance, and the re-check becomes the new baseline.
You can also ask for either at any time in the channel.
Connect Search Console
Search Console shows the searches your site already gets clicks from on Google. Piste reads it free, with read-only access.
- In step 1, Piste gives you a link (owner only).
- Sign in with the Google account that can see your site in Search Console, and allow read-only access.
- You land on Settings › Connections, which says whether it connected.
Then ask Piste for step 1 again. If Google later stops the access, Piste offers the link again.
What it costs
The data comes from outside services, paid from your workspace's monthly allowance (Settings › Connections). A full audit costs well under a dollar, and Piste gives the estimate before each step. Search Console is free.