AEO can be worth the investment when your buyers use AI-assisted research and your business has useful expertise that is poorly represented in those answers. The value may include relevant discovery, more accurate brand descriptions, and better-informed prospects. It is less compelling when the targeted questions have little connection to your customers or when basic site problems prevent the work from being discovered.
Evaluate a limited program against its full cost, including internal time, and define what would justify continuing. Useful evidence includes more relevant citations, qualified enquiries, and stronger conversion performance on improved pages. A rise in mentions alone is an early signal, not proof of financial return. Compare AEO with other uses of the same budget and scale the work according to your own results.