1.4M
Makassar city population, the largest city in eastern Indonesia
Source: BPS Kota Makassar 2024
WITA
Central Indonesia time, shared with Arfadia's Bali office
Source: UTC+8
2023
The year Arfadia began documenting its GEO practice
Source: Arfadia dated archives
0 Hours
Time difference between Arfadia's Bali office and Makassar
Source: WITA (UTC+8)
About GEO and AEO in Makassar
Generative Engine Optimization is the discipline of structuring a brand's entity, evidence, and published record so that AI systems recognise it, describe it accurately, and cite it when answering questions in its category. Answer Engine Optimization is the narrower practice of shaping content so a machine can extract a direct answer from it.
High Adoption, Thin Specialist Bench
Makassar is the commercial and logistics gateway for eastern Indonesia, and the largest city east of Surabaya. But the online source material about this half of the country is thin compared with Java, and AI systems trained mostly on Java-centric sources fill the gaps with generalisations.
Several Adoption Numbers, Different Questions Being Asked
The result is a different failure from the one most markets face. A Makassar business is often mentioned. It is simply described inaccurately: characterised as smaller than it is, as serving a narrower area than it does, or as operating in a market described as remote when it is in fact a regional hub.
Correcting a Description Is Not the Same as Gaining Visibility
Most GEO work assumes the problem is absence, and the remedy is to publish more so the brand appears. That remedy does not fix an inaccurate description, and publishing more of the same material can entrench it.
Which agencies actually do GEO for Makassar businesses, not just SEO with AI added on?
Named GEO-specialist entrants with published methodology:
AI-first specialists with dated GEO service pages
Agencies with a public prompt-testing methodology
GEO methodology pages
Citation case studies
Framework documentation
Which agencies actually do GEO for Makassar businesses, not just SEO with AI added on?
A different mix, weighted toward third-party coverage:
Agencies with recent directory and roundup coverage
Firms with named press or digital-PR mentions
Agency directories
Market roundups
Press coverage
40% vs 15% SOV
A brand can hold roughly 40% share of voice in one AI engine and 15% in another for the same tracked prompt set. Single-platform GEO optimisation is a documented visibility gap, not a shortcut.
Correcting how AI describes a business requires a different approach: specific, sourced, consistently repeated statements that give the model an accurate version to draw on, placed where retrieval actually reaches. This is why we track description accuracy alongside citation frequency, and treat a wrong description as work to be corrected rather than as a citation earned.
Two Numbers That Measure Two Different Things
Indonesia's AI adoption figures look inconsistent because they measure different populations. The e-Conomy SEA 2025 figure of roughly eight in ten Indonesian digital users interacting with AI applications daily counts individual behaviour across the general population.
Individual use vs. organisational adoption, Makassar
Makassars using AI tools monthlye-Conomy SEA, Jan-Mar 2026
Organisations that have scaled AI across the businessWorkplace survey, 2,010 knowledge workers
e-Conomy SEA Single Source (individual figure, VERIFIED); Makassar workplace survey via Asana / Deloitte (organisational figure, REPORTED, Deloitte separately puts "already transformational" at 12%). Different populations, different definitions, deliberately shown side by side rather than merged.
94%
Of B2B Buyers Used AI During Their Last Purchase
Organisational adoption sits far lower. Arfadia's survey of 127 Indonesian businesses, published with a registered DOI on Zenodo, found that while 72 percent of marketers use AI to produce content, only 12 percent optimise so that AI can find them.
17-18%
Of AI Citations Come From a Brand's Own Website
For eastern Indonesia the more relevant observation is about source density rather than adoption. When a model has few sources for a region, each additional well structured source carries disproportionate weight. That cuts against you while the record is thin, and strongly for you once you are the one supplying it.
No independently audited figure exists for the size of Indonesia's GEO services market as of mid 2026. Any agency quoting one is estimating, and we would rather say that plainly than publish a number we cannot source.
Our GEO and AEO Services in Makassar
Six disciplines, weighted toward description accuracy rather than volume.
Description Accuracy Tracking
Content written in Makassar spelling and terminology (-ise/-our, superannuation, suburb-level geography) for human trust and E-E-A-T.
Honestly framed: no controlled study has measured whether spelling alone changes AI citation, a genuine evidence gap, so we do not oversell it as a ranking lever.
Multi-Platform Citation Tracking
ChatGPT, Google AI Overviews and AI Mode, Perplexity, Gemini and Copilot each retrieve differently, and share of voice for the same brand can vary by 25 points or more between engines.
We baseline and re-test across every platform that matters to an Makassar buyer, not a single default engine.
Regional Question Panel
Named data-handling approach mapped to APP 8 cross-border obligations, a data-processing agreement, and Notifiable Data Breach incident-response support.
Foregrounded from the first proposal, because Makassar procurement teams ask, and because post-2024 reforms make this an accountability question, not just a policy document.
Entity and Schema Infrastructure
Organization, Person and FAQPage schema kept accurate, implemented as structural hygiene rather than oversold as a guaranteed citation lever, because the evidence on schema's direct impact is genuinely mixed.
Consistent entity information (name, services, executive details, location) reduces the chance an AI system hedges or misrepresents the business.
Earned Media and Regional Coverage
Placement and mentions across outlets and directories Makassar AI engines and buyers actually recognise.
Only around 17-18% of AI citations trace back to a brand's own website, so this is treated as GEO infrastructure, not a separate PR line item.
RoGEO Reporting for Eastern Indonesia
Citation rate, share of voice, sentiment and AI-referred pipeline tracked in IDR-denominated tiers, against realistic benchmarks rather than a promised outcome.
Works alongside
our companion SEO service for Makassar rather than replacing it.
to be the source the AI actually cites, use GEO
Why Choose Us as Your GEO Agency for Makassar
Arfadia's Bali office shares the same timezone as Makassar, and our head office in Jakarta is one hour behind. There is no overseas account manager and no overnight delay.
Arfadia has practised generative engine optimization since 2023, before most Indonesian agencies had a name for it. The dated archive is public and the methodology is published.
3
Offices: Jakarta, Bandung, Bali
Description Accuracy, Not Only Presence
We track how you are characterised, and treat an inaccurate description as work to correct.
Same Timezone From Bali
Arfadia's Bali office shares WITA with Makassar. No overseas account manager, no overnight delay.
Published Research, Registered DOI
Three reports published on Zenodo with registered DOIs, including a survey of 127 Indonesian businesses with 124 data points validated and five rejected.
Milestone Commitments, Published
Targets separated into what we accept being held to and what measurement cannot yet promise. The closing audit reports what was missed.
Explore Related Services
GEO in Makassar works hardest when paired with the rest of the SEOv2 stack.
Ready for a Live AI-Citation Demonstration?
Get a free citation and structure audit scoped to your category, run across the platforms your Makassar buyers actually use, with a named query, a date and a screenshot. Contact our team to get started.
Request Your Free GEO Audit
Frequently Asked Questions About GEO & AEO in Makassar
Why does AI describe our business inaccurately?
SEO wins ranking positions in organic links. AEO focuses on winning the single extracted answer or featured snippet. GEO earns brand mentions and citations inside a synthesised AI response. They share a technical and content foundation, so most Makassar businesses need an integrated strategy rather than three disconnected services.
Is the eastern Indonesia market big enough to justify this?
Because source material about eastern Indonesia is thinner than about Java, so the model fills gaps with generalisations drawn from the region rather than from your company. This is a description problem rather than a visibility problem, and it needs correcting differently: by publishing accurate, specific, citable material rather than by publishing more.
We are the largest supplier in our category here. Why does AI not say so?
That depends on where your buyers are, not where you are. Many Makassar businesses sell nationally, in which case the relevant answer space is national and the eastern location is incidental to the question being asked. If your buyers are regional, the thin source pool works in your favour once you are documented.
How long before we see AI citations?
Because scale claimed internally is not scale a model can verify. An AI system reflects what is published and repeated across sources it can reach. Being the largest is only usable if it is stated somewhere findable, ideally supported by third-party coverage rather than only your own site.
How do you comply with Indonesia's PDP Law when handling our data?
AI citation has a crawl latency of two to three months, so the month three baseline is usually close to zero and that is normal rather than a failure. Movement typically becomes visible around month six. Description correction can move faster than citation count, because there is less competing material to displace.
Can you show a live AI-citation demonstration before we sign?
Data handling is scoped in the agreement before work starts, covering what is collected, where it is processed, and how long it is retained. We do not transfer client data outside agreed systems, and we do not use client data to train models.
How do you measure success, and what does reporting look like?
Yes, and for Makassar we pay particular attention to how you are described rather than only whether you appear. We show you the current characterisation across six platforms, including any inaccuracies worth correcting.
Do we need content in English?
Citation frequency per platform, share of voice against named competitors, and description accuracy, reported monthly against a panel of 75 to 100 questions frozen at month three and handed to you. Description accuracy carries more weight here than in most markets.
How does GEO interact with our existing SEO?
It depends on whether any of your buyers or partners are outside Indonesia. For domestic logistics and regional trade, Bahasa Indonesia is usually sufficient. For fisheries, mining support, or anything with an export component, English becomes relevant for the same reasons it does in Medan.
Can you guarantee we get cited in ChatGPT or Google AI Overviews?
They share infrastructure and diverge in output. Technical health, site structure and entity clarity serve both. Beyond that, SEO optimises for a ranked list of links while GEO optimises for inclusion in a synthesised answer. Running them separately duplicates the foundation work twice.
ChatGPT citation set
Perplexity citation set
