AEO Engine has announced that the First Movers Edition of The Answer Index is scheduled for publication on September 5, 2026, following a September 1–3 measurement window. The edition will compare how 100 eligible law firms appear in recommendations generated by ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, and Google AI Overviews. Its purpose is to add a dated second observation to the existing National 100 baseline without presenting a single ranking as permanent standing.
The live National 100 law-firm results provide the baseline for that comparison. The August 2026 edition tested 300 real client questions across four AI engines, producing 1,200 answers. All 100 eligible firms received at least one measured mention. The top 10 firms captured 40.4% of the mentions, 35 firms appeared in all four engines, and 12 appeared in only one engine. Morgan & Morgan ranked first with 8.4% share of voice.
Those figures describe the July 28–30 collection window published as the August edition. They do not establish a permanent market order or predict how the same firms will appear in September. AI-generated recommendations can vary with model behavior, source availability, phrasing, and collection timing. A monthly series creates a clearer record by repeating the same measurement design and labeling each observation with its own dates.
The published Answer Index methodology uses a fixed and versioned question set drawn from real search demand. Questions are weighted equally, responses are collected in clean sessions without account personalization, and the answer text is stored for audit. Firms are matched through maintained entity records covering names, brands, common misspellings, and domains. Rankings are based on share of voice, with appearance rate and engine coverage used as tie breakers.
The First Movers Edition is designed to show what changed between equivalent windows and what did not. A movement in share of voice, appearance rate, rank, or engine coverage can be reported as an observed difference. The measurement alone cannot establish why the difference occurred, whether one marketing activity caused it, or whether it will produce traffic, enquiries, bookings, or revenue. Those outcomes require separate sources and reporting windows.
"Monthly measurement turns an AI ranking into a dated record instead of a permanent label. Keeping the cohort, questions, collection rules, and scoring method stable gives firms a fair basis for comparing one window with the next while preserving the limits of what the data can prove," said Vijay Jacob, Founder & CEO, AEO Engine.
The index also separates AI visibility from traditional search authority. Domain Rating and estimated organic traffic are displayed as context but do not affect rank. The August edition recorded firms with substantial organic traffic outside the leading AI positions, illustrating that search visibility and AI recommendation visibility are related but distinct measures. The September edition will test the same eligible universe under the frozen National 100 question-set version.
AEO Engine discloses client relationships on the ranking board and states that client status does not affect measurement or rank. Rankings are not for sale, the index carries no sponsors, and corrections are investigated through a public process. These rules are intended to make the published result reviewable while limiting incentives for firms to optimize for a disclosed test instead of the broader market.
The First Movers Edition will be reported only after the September collection window is complete. Until then, the August edition remains the current published National 100 result. Any September movement will need to be tied to the completed answer corpus, the recorded engine configuration, and the same scoring definitions before it is described as a measured change.
AEO Engine is an AI Search agency that provides Answer Engine Optimization, AI SEO, AI visibility measurement, and digital PR services. Founded in 2018 and formalized as AEO Engine in January 2026, the company helps organizations improve how they are understood, recommended, and cited across AI systems and traditional search.
###
For more information about AEO Engine, contact the company here:
AEO Engine
Vijay Jacob
team@aeoengine.ai