✦ Definition
What is AEO (Answer Engine Optimization)?
Answer Engine Optimization (AEO) is the practice of building the signals that make AI platforms cite and recommend your business inside a generated answer. Instead of ranking a page in a list of search results, ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Google AI Overviews write a direct response — AEO is what determines whether your business is part of that response.
✦ Related terminology
Same service, different names
In the AI marketing industry, you'll see several terms used for closely related concepts. They describe the same underlying work — we use whichever term is clearest for the person asking.
- AI SEO — our preferred term for optimizing businesses for AI search.
- AI Search Optimization — emphasizes optimization across AI platforms.
- Answer Engine Optimization (AEO) — focuses on AI answer engines.
- AI Visibility — describes the business outcome: being recommended by AI.
- Generative Engine Optimization (GEO) — another industry term used by some vendors.
What AEO is
- Optimising to appear inside AI-generated answers, not just search rankings
- Building the signals AI systems use to recommend businesses — reviews, structured content, entity authority
- Getting cited by ChatGPT, Perplexity, Claude, Google AI Overviews, and Meta AI
- A long-term positioning strategy, not a one-time fix
What AEO is not
- A software tool or dashboard you log into and manage yourself
- Instant results — most clients see measurable AI citations within 60–90 days
- Traditional SEO — the signals AI uses differ from Google search ranking factors
- A guarantee of placement — AI platforms are not pay-to-play
✦ FAQs
Answer Engine Optimization — common questions
✦ Get started
We run AEO as a done-for-you managed service
Audit, implementation, and monthly maintenance — no tools to learn, no dashboard to manage. See what's included and get a free AI Visibility Audit of your business.