Answer Engine Optimization (AEO)
Shaping your content so AI answer engines like ChatGPT and Google's AI Overviews quote you directly in their answers.
Answer Engine Optimization (AEO) is the practice of writing and structuring your content so AI answer engines — ChatGPT, Perplexity, Google's AI Overviews and similar tools — pull your business into the answer they give a searcher, instead of just linking to a list of websites. More and more people ask a question and read the single answer the AI writes back, so the goal shifts from simply 'rank on page one' to 'be the source the AI trusts and repeats.'
In practice that means giving clear, direct answers to real questions, using plain headings and well-organized pages, and backing your claims with facts an AI can lift out cleanly. It overlaps heavily with regular SEO and with GEO (generative engine optimization), and often the same well-made page earns you both a Google ranking and a mention inside an AI answer.
Why it matters
When a customer asks an AI a question about your kind of product, AEO decides whether your business gets named in the answer or left out entirely.