Yesterday we optimized for SEO; today we must optimize for AEO as well. With this comes a slew of new AEO-focused visibility trackers on the market. But visibility trackers only answer one of our questions: "Are we showing up?" What we really need is a content decision system that also answers "What should we change?", "Why should we change this?", and "Will it be worth the effort?"

There is a new tool from Contentful called Palmata that aims to take the latter approach and answer these questions for us. Rather than just another visibility report with mentions and citations, Palmata gives us a decision system that connects actual AI answers to a likely cause or source, then to a specific content change, and finally to a reason to prioritize it. Instead of guessing, we get the next step laid out for us.

Steer Before You Drive

Every Palmata report begins with Steering Control. Before any research is done, you tell Palmata what you actually care about, whether that is a specific market segment, audience, product line, or set of competitors. Instead of a broad scan, you get a report focused on the questions that matter to your business. For example, instead of seeing how your company shows up in general, you can get a report on how you show up when compared against another vendor for a specific type of project.

Where Most Tools Stop

In Palmata, after you run a report, you will have a large list of topics and prompts to review. These are all targeted prompts based on your report's Steering Control settings. You will notice right away that you can see every prompt you were mentioned in, along with sentiment showing whether the AI mentioned you in a positive or negative light. This is where most tools would stop and leave the rest up to you.

Understanding the Why

Knowing how you show up is only useful if you understand why. This is where Palmata's Strategic Analysis comes in. It reads like an executive summary of the entire report. You get a plain-language overview of how AI answer engines interpret your brand and where you have room to improve. It gives you a quick takeaway before you dig into the dashboard yourself.

The Sources View goes even deeper. It shows you which pages and sites AI answer engines are using to form their answers, and which of those sources are working for you and which are working against you. This helps you decide where to focus your improvements next.

From Insight to Action

Palmata lets you drill into each of these prompts and get actionable feedback. If there is a particular prompt you want to show up more favorably in, you can drill down into it and get a cohesive breakdown of what to do next. The Overview section explains the reasoning behind the suggestion in plain language. The Simulation section then shows the exact source and the copy AI suggests you replace on your website to improve your scores. Before you make any changes, you can check the Impacted Prompts section, where the AI simulates the change's likely impact on each prompt it affects.

Working Where Your Content Editors Work

Palmata also offers an MCP server, which lets editors connect Palmata directly to the AI writing tools they already use. Instead of switching back and forth between the Palmata report and their editor, they can bring Palmata's research right into their existing workflow. Contentful has also said it plans to integrate Palmata into its CMS, which could eventually let teams publish suggested changes straight to their website and make acting on these recommendations even easier.

Choose a Tool That Helps You Decide

With the rising importance of AEO, it is essential to track your standing and optimize your content for the best performance. When you are looking for tools to help, look for a complete product. If a tool only tracks your AEO visibility and leaves you guessing what to do next, it is not providing much value. Make sure the tool you choose not only tracks your AEO visibility well, but also provides action items to improve it and helps you write optimized content. Having these features work together is where the real value lies, and it is how your company can stand out in the age of AI search.