VEI Global
From invisible to the number one AI answer for its core buyer query, in 60 days
VEI Global · Managed ICT and B2B telecommunications · Clane, Co Kildare
When an operations director asks ChatGPT or Perplexity "who can run a multisite network rollout with one accountable partner", the answer they get is the shortlist. Sixty days into the work, VEI Global is the number one cited source in that answer on both tools.
This is how that happened, and why it matters for any Irish B2B firm whose buyers have started asking AI before they ask Google.
The client
VEI Global runs managed networks, WiFi, voice and IT services for businesses across Ireland, the UK, Europe and the US, from offices in Clane, Co Kildare and Manchester. Founded in 2010. ISO 9001 certified. The kind of firm that has deployed tens of thousands of access points across Europe and supports customer operations in more than a hundred countries.
Strong company. Strong track record. Almost invisible to AI search.
The problem
Buyers changed how they shortlist, and most B2B websites did not notice.
A few years ago a buyer looking for a managed services partner ran a Google search and read down the page. Today a growing share of them ask ChatGPT, Perplexity or Google's own AI answer the question directly, in plain language, and act on the three or four names the tool hands back. If you are not one of those names, you are not in the room. You never find out you were left out.
VEI had this exact gap. Its core positioning, one partner for a full multisite voice and data rollout, is precisely the kind of question buyers now ask AI tools. At the April baseline, VEI was named in 1 of 15 of those queries. The competitors who had tidied up their sites for machine readers were getting cited. VEI was not.
Why the obvious fix does not work
The obvious fix is to write more content. Add blog posts. Chase keywords. That is the old playbook, and it does very little here.
AI tools do not rank pages the way Google did. They read a site, decide what the business actually is, and quote the passages that answer a specific question cleanly. If your site does not state plainly what you do, who you serve, and where, the model fills the gap with a guess, or with a competitor who said it more clearly. The problem is rarely a shortage of words. It is structure the machine can read, and claims it can trust.
So we did not start with content. We started with an audit.
What we did
The method is Foundation first, then the build. No new platform for VEI to learn. No tool for VEI to maintain. The work happened inside the site they already own.
- Audit. We measured VEI against the questions its buyers actually ask, across ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini and Google AI Overviews, and scored the site on seven things that decide whether an AI tool will cite you: schema, an llms.txt file, crawlability, passage structure, entity clarity, and citation pickup on the two surfaces that matter most.
- Tell the machine what the business is. A single clean Organization record, stating the legal entity, the founding year, the certifications, the partner brands and the locations. One source of truth the model can read instead of guessing.
- Rewrite the pages around the questions. Every core service page rebuilt to open with the question a buyer would ask, answered in the first two lines, in language a machine can lift. A dedicated questions page added, with 21 buyer phrased questions and validated structured data behind them.
- Make the reach explicit. VEI runs multisite rollouts nationally and internationally, well beyond its home county, but the site stated its footprint thinly. We set out the full operating reach in plain body text, across Ireland, the UK, Europe and the US, so the AI tools represent VEI as the national and international partner it is rather than guessing at a firm that works only near home.
- Publish a machine readable map of the site. An llms.txt file, kept current with the full service set. VEI is the only firm in its competitive set that publishes one.
Then we measured again at Day 30, and again at Day 60.
The result
Sixty days in, the picture moved decisively, and it moved on the queries that match what VEI actually sells.
| At the April baseline | At Day 60 | |
|---|---|---|
| Appearances across all tools and queries | 1 | 13 of 44 |
| Verified link citations | 0 | 9 |
| Service queries returning a VEI citation | not measured | 6 of 9 |
| The core "one partner, multisite rollout" query | absent | number one cited source on ChatGPT and Perplexity |
The single strongest signal is that core rollout query, the one that sits in VEI's own tagline territory:
ChatGPT
names VEI first and cites vei.global as the number one source domain, ahead of the other firms in the answer.
Perplexity
names VEI first in its answer, with vei.global at the top of the sources.
Gemini
names VEI first in the response, alongside BT, Vodafone and Computacenter.
Google AI Overviews
names VEI first: a single accountable engineering team for the entire voice and data stack.
Cited at or near the top on all four tools, on the exact question the business is built to answer. Two more new service queries, Microsoft Teams Phone migration and enterprise multisite WiFi, came in cited on three tools each the very first time they were measured. Google AI Overviews, which named VEI nowhere at Day 30, now names the firm on three separate queries.
The target set in the original audit was 4 to 7 citations by Day 90. VEI passed it at Day 60, with a month still to run.
What it actually means
VEI is now being named in the same answer as BT, Vodafone and Computacenter for its core service. Not because it outspent anyone. Because its site finally states clearly what it does, and the AI tools can read it and trust it.
The work did not add a single tool for VEI's team to run. It made the site they already had legible to the machines their buyers now ask first.
In Lloyd's words
"We knew the AI search shift was coming. What we did not know was how far behind we already were, or how quickly a focused piece of work could close the gap. Sixty days on, we are the first name two of the main tools give for the exact thing we do. That is real."
Lloyd O'Rourke, joint CEO, VEI Global
If your buyers have started asking AI
The shift is already underway, and it is quiet. You will not see it in your analytics. You will see it in the deals that never reach you, because the shortlist was drawn before anyone visited your site.
The AI Discoverable audit measures exactly where you stand today: which buyer questions name you, which name a competitor instead, and what is causing the gap. It is specific, it is measured, and it shows you the work in priority order.
Find out whether AI is recommending you or your competitor.
