If you’ve been online for five minutes lately, you’ve seen the acronyms: SEO, AEO, GEO. Sometimes AIO. Occasionally something that sounds like a Wi‑Fi password.
This is written for founders and business owners who keep hearing they need “AEO” or “GEO” and just want a straight answer.
I’m not here to invent another one. And I’m not here to teach you that AEO and GEO are two cleanly different sports with different scoreboards. That version of the story is tidy. It’s also mostly wrong.
This sits next to my earlier field note on fewer clicks, better customers. That piece is about how buyers changed. This one is about the vocabulary people keep selling you — and what to do if you run a business and care about being found when someone asks an AI for a recommendation.
TLDR
AEO and GEO are labels marketers use for roughly the same problem: AI search / LLM visibility — whether your company shows up, gets described accurately, and earns the kind of visit that arrives already half-decided.
Google’s May 2026 guidance on generative AI in Search put it bluntly from their side: optimizing for those features is still SEO. Useful reminder. Incomplete if your buyers also live in ChatGPT and Perplexity.
So forget “pick a team.” Follow the buyer journey instead.
Where the acronyms came from (and why they blur)
Answer Engine Optimization (AEO) is older than the ChatGPT panic. The phrase took off around 2017–2018 — often credited to work popularized by Jason Barnard — when “answer engines” meant featured snippets, voice assistants, and one extracted answer instead of ten blue links. The name aged into today’s AI answers because the job rhymed: be the answer, not just a ranking.
Generative Engine Optimization (GEO) showed up later as generative systems took over the conversation — academic work (often traced to late‑2023 / 2024 research) plus a wave of agency decks. Same instinct: get represented inside synthesized answers.
Then, in May 2026, Google published a proper guide on optimizing for generative AI features in Search (AI Overviews, AI Mode, and friends). They name-check AEO and GEO as terms you’ll see online, myth-bust a pile of “AI hacks,” and say that from Google Search’s perspective this is still SEO. (Google’s guide; announcement)
That’s the honest picture:
- Marketers use AEO, GEO, and sometimes LLM visibility interchangeably.
- Google wants you to keep doing strong SEO for their generative surfaces.
- Other answer surfaces (ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity, etc.) don’t all retrieve the web the same way Google does — so “Google said it’s still SEO” is necessary, not sufficient.
I use AI search visibility (or AI / LLM visibility) as the umbrella. AEO and GEO are dialect. If someone insists they’re totally different disciplines, ask them what they’d do differently on Monday. Often: nothing.
What you’re actually optimizing for
Not “winning GEO.” Not “doing AEO this quarter.”
You’re trying to be part of how a buyer gets from question → shortlist → decision.
Rough journey:
- They ask — a messy, human question (“best X for Y,” “alternatives to Z,” “who should I hire for…”).
- A system answers — Google AI Overview / AI Mode, ChatGPT, Perplexity, Claude, Copilot, whatever’s open on their laptop.
- You’re named, cited, ignored, or misdescribed.
- If the answer helps, they may click — or they may just remember your name and show up later as “direct.”
- The visit that does arrive is often further along — which is the whole fewer clicks, better customers thesis.
Classic SEO still matters for the blue-link world and for Google’s own AI features (they pull from Search systems). AI search visibility is the practice of making sure step 3 doesn’t quietly erase you — across the places your buyers actually ask.
One practice. Several surfaces. Same facts everywhere a model or a human might look.
What actually moves the needle
Not volume. Not forty generic posts so you can say you “did GEO content.”
Intent over inventory. Specific answers to real questions beat keyword-stuffed explainers. If you know one niche extraordinarily well, write like it.
Entity clarity. One clear sentence for what you are, for whom, with consistent name / category / proof across site, listings, and profiles. If the model can’t place you, it won’t recommend you confidently.
Sources you already control. Your site, docs, reputable directories, reviews. Fix those before buying a tool stack with “GEO” in the logo.
Answer-shaped pages. Direct answer up top. Real headings. FAQs that match how people ask. Structured data where it’s accurate — helpful for humans first, machines second.
Prompt intelligence. Track the questions buyers ask and who gets named. Measurement is incomplete everywhere (Google’s generative report ≠ ChatGPT). Treat prompt checks as channel work, not a vanity dashboard.
Proof a human can verify. Named authors, concrete claims, case-shaped evidence. Content farms can’t fake depth forever — and spam systems keep tightening around scaled synthetic mush.
Where to start this month
- Write down 15–25 buyer prompts — questions you’d want to win, not old bid keywords.
- Run them across Google (AI Overview / AI Mode), ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Claude. Note who is cited and how you are described (or ignored).
- Segment AI referrals in analytics. Stop filing them as “direct.”
- Audit homepage and product pages for a first-screen answer: what you do, for whom, why you’re credible.
- Align entity facts across site, LinkedIn, directories, and review platforms.
- Ship or refresh one FAQ cluster mapped to real comparison / “best for” prompts.
- Fix structured data on key pages where it’s accurate (Organization, Product/SoftwareApplication, FAQ).
- Publish one specific piece only you could write — not a cloneable explainer.
- Refresh stale listings and reviews. Quiet leaks matter.
- Pick three prompts where a rival is cited and you’re not. Gap = content, proof, or category language?
If you only do three: prompts, entity clarity, answer-shaped pages.
Soft next step
If you’re a founder or business owner and want a structured read on where you stand — visibility gaps, prompt map, competitor representation, priorities — that’s what my AI Visibility Audit is for. Audit for current-state. Strategy for a 90-day roadmap. Growth Partner for ongoing execution.
For the ongoing field notes — experiments, what’s shifting, what I’m testing — subscribe to Ahead. For the curious, the bold, and the slightly ahead.