For two decades, getting found online meant one thing: ranking on a Google search results page. AEO — Answer Engine Optimization — is the newer discipline of making sure your business shows up correctly when someone asks an AI assistant like ChatGPT, Gemini, or Perplexity a question, instead of typing a search into Google.
The difference matters because an AI assistant doesn't return a list of ten blue links for a person to click through — it gives one synthesized answer. If your business isn't part of the information that answer is built from, you don't just rank lower. You're invisible.
AI-assisted search is growing fast, and most businesses haven't started optimizing for it yet — which makes it a real opportunity for the ones who do.
AEO and SEO aren't the same thing. See how they compare →