Setup Wizard
Walk through the seven-step project setup wizard to configure your brand, AI models, API keys, locations, themes, tags, and prompts for AI visibility tracking.
Overview
The Setup Wizard appears when you create a new project and guides you through configuring everything AEO Optima needs to start tracking your brand across AI answer engines. It breaks the process into seven manageable steps, each focusing on a different aspect of your monitoring setup.
You can complete the wizard in a single sitting or return to it later to fill in remaining steps. The wizard tracks your progress and shows which steps are complete. A progress indicator also appears on your Dashboard until all steps are finished.
Wizard Steps
| Step | What You Configure | Why It Matters |
|---|---|---|
| 1. Business Info | Brand name, website URL, description, competitors | Brand name is used for mention detection in AI responses. Website URL is used for citation matching. Competitors let you benchmark your visibility. |
| 2. LLM Configuration | Which AI models to query | Different AI models have different training data and produce different answers. Monitoring multiple models gives you a complete picture. |
| 3. API Keys | How AI models are accessed (Platform API or BYOK) | Choose between the platform's managed API or bring your own API keys for direct control over usage and costs. |
| 4. Locations | Country and language pairs | AI responses vary by region and language. Location settings ensure you capture responses relevant to your target markets. |
| 5. Themes | Thematic categories for prompts | Organize your prompts into meaningful groups (e.g., "Product Features," "Industry Trends") to structure your analytics by topic. |
| 6. Tags | Freeform labels | Add flexible labels to prompts for additional filtering and segmentation in reports. |
| 7. Prompts | Questions to ask AI models | The core of your tracking setup. The quality of your prompts directly determines the quality of your visibility insights. |
Step 1: Business Info
This is the foundation of your project. The information you enter here determines how AEO Optima identifies your brand in AI-generated responses.
- Brand Name — Enter the exact name you want to track. AEO Optima uses this to detect mentions in AI responses. If your brand is commonly referred to by multiple names (e.g., "AWS" and "Amazon Web Services"), use the most common variation here.
- Website URL — Your primary website. AEO Optima uses this to detect when AI models cite or link to your content.
- Description — A brief description of your business. This helps provide context for analysis.
- Competitors — Add the brands you want to compare against. Competitor names are used for Share of Voice calculations and competitive benchmarking.
Step 2: LLM Configuration
Select which AI models AEO Optima should query when capturing snapshots. Models are loaded dynamically from the platform's model registry and grouped by provider.
Each enabled model will be queried with every prompt during a snapshot capture. Enabling multiple models gives you cross-engine comparisons so you can see where your brand is strong and where it is missing. At minimum, enable two models from different providers.
See LLM Configuration for the full list of supported models and recommendations.
Step 3: API Keys
Configure how AEO Optima accesses AI models. You have two options:
Platform API (Recommended for new users)
Use AEO Optima's managed API with no additional setup required. Benefits include:
- No API keys to manage
- Automatic rate limiting
- Unified billing
- Access to all models
Select Continue with Platform API to proceed.
Bring Your Own Key (BYOK)
For more control over API usage and costs, you can add your own API keys:
- Gateway Key (Recommended) — Add a single OpenRouter API key that covers all AI models across all providers. One key gives you access to ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, DeepSeek, Mistral, and more.
- Direct Provider Keys — Optionally add native API keys for specific providers like OpenAI or Anthropic. Direct keys take priority over the gateway key for that provider.
All API keys are encrypted at rest and never displayed in plaintext after creation.
See API Keys for more details on the 3-tier routing system.
Step 4: Locations
Configure the geographic regions and languages for your AI tracking. AI models can produce different responses depending on the user's country and language context.
If you operate in multiple markets, adding your primary locations here ensures you capture region-specific responses.
See Locations for details on supported regions and languages.
Step 5: Themes
Themes are thematic categories that you assign to prompts. They help you organize your analytics by topic area rather than viewing all prompts as a flat list.
Examples of themes:
- Product Features
- Industry Trends
- Competitor Comparisons
- Customer Use Cases
- Pricing and Plans
Themes appear as filters throughout the Analytics and Dashboard pages, making it easy to focus on the topics that matter most.
Step 6: Tags
Tags are freeform labels you can attach to prompts for additional filtering and segmentation. Unlike themes, which are predefined categories, tags are flexible and can be anything you find useful.
Examples of tags:
high-priority,low-priorityq1-campaign,product-launchlong-tail,branded,category
Tags work alongside themes to give you fine-grained control over how you slice and filter your reporting data.
Step 7: Prompts
Prompts are the questions AEO Optima sends to AI models on your behalf. Think of them as the queries your potential customers are typing into ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, and Perplexity.
The quality of your prompts is the single biggest factor in the quality of your insights. Broad, customer-oriented questions produce the most actionable data.
Examples of effective prompts:
- "What is the best [your product category] for [your target audience]?"
- "Can you recommend a [your product type]?"
- "How does [your brand] compare to [competitor]?"
- "What are the top [your category] tools in 2026?"
Tip: Start with 3 to 5 broad, category-level prompts. You can always add more specific prompts later as you learn which angles matter most for your brand.
See Prompts & Rankings for a deeper guide on prompt strategy.
What You Need to Complete
Tip: At minimum, complete Steps 1 through 3 (Business Info, LLM Configuration, and API Keys). These three steps provide everything AEO Optima needs to start capturing snapshots and generating visibility data. Steps 4 through 7 (Locations, Themes, Tags, and Prompts) are helpful for organizing and refining your tracking but can be completed later.
Returning to the Wizard
You can return to the Setup Wizard at any time from the Setup Wizard link in the sidebar or from the Dashboard's setup progress card. Changes take effect on the next snapshot capture.