What Are AEO and GEO?

By Mehmet, Top Seed AI · Published Oct 7, 2026 · Updated Oct 20, 2026

In short: AEO (answer engine optimization) and GEO (generative engine optimization) are two names for a closely related idea: making AI-generated answers name your brand and describe it correctly. Both mostly extend SEO. AI visibility is the result you measure.

People use several terms for this work, and the differences matter less than the goal. Here is what each term usually means, whether it needs a different strategy from SEO, and what to ask anyone who sells it to you.

The terms

The term GEO was introduced in a 2023 preprint (Aggarwal and co-authors, GEO: Generative Engine Optimization). You will also see "LLMO" and "AI search optimization". They describe the same area. Definitions vary from one company to another, so ask what a provider actually does.

Do you need a different strategy from SEO?

Mostly an extension of it. Google's guidance for its AI search features says that optimizing for generative AI search is still SEO, with no special markup, llms.txt file or content chunking needed. In a large Ahrefs analysis, most URLs ChatGPT cited came from its general web search results. So the basics still count: pages that can be crawled and indexed, clear content and a trustworthy reputation.

The differences are in what you aim for and how you measure it:

• Specific questions. Assistants answer long, specific questions, so use cases and customer types matter more than short keywords.
• Third-party sources. In our checks, answers often lean on review sites, comparison lists and directories.
• A mention, not a position. Success is being named in the answer, so you measure mention rate, share of voice, citations and accuracy, across many runs, because identical brand lists are rare.

What to ask a provider who sells AEO or GEO

1. Which questions will you test, and who writes them? They should be buyer questions without your brand name.
2. How many runs, on which assistants? One run proves little. One study (SparkToro with Gumshoe.ai, reported January 2026, on ChatGPT, Claude and Google's AI) found that the odds of getting the same list of brands twice were under 1 in 100.
3. Do you report brand-name questions separately? In our checks, brands tend to look better when asked about by name than when asked a buyer question.
4. What happens with sources you do not control, such as review sites and lists? Be wary of anyone who offers paid mentions presented as independent.
5. Do you guarantee placement? If yes, walk away. No one controls what an assistant recommends.
6. How is improvement defined before you start, and in writing?
7. What will you change on my site, and who approves it?

Google adds a useful warning: no third-party tool has access to its internal ranking or AI systems, so evaluate any provider's advice against official guidance.

Two invented examples: a weak answer to question 5 sounds like "we guarantee ChatGPT will recommend you within 30 days". A better answer sounds like "we will test a fixed set of questions across these assistants, report how often you are named, and tell you what we cannot control".

Which term should you use?

Any of them. We say "AI visibility" because it describes something you can measure: of the questions your customers ask, how many answers name you, and how correctly.

What none of it can promise

No one controls what an AI assistant recommends, and anyone who guarantees a placement is not being straight with you. This work is not about tricks for fooling a model. What you can do is improve what assistants have to work with and track the result.

Questions people ask

Is GEO the same as AEO?

They overlap and are often used interchangeably. AEO is usually traced to featured snippets and voice assistants, while GEO is usually used for generative AI answers. Definitions vary by company.

Is AEO or GEO replacing SEO?

No. Google says optimizing for its AI search features is still SEO, and the groundwork is shared. See AI Visibility vs SEO.

Are there tricks to make an AI model recommend my brand?

We have not found any reliable one, and Google's guidance says seeking inauthentic "mentions" across the web "isn't as helpful as it might seem". Clear pages, accurate facts and real independent coverage are the durable route.

Which should I measure, AEO or GEO?

Neither is a metric. Measure AI visibility: how often and how accurately assistants name you across a fixed set of buyer questions. See What Is AI Visibility?

Sources

• Google, optimizing for generative AI features in Search, updated Jul 10, 2026.
• Ahrefs, why ChatGPT cites the pages it does, Apr 15, 2026: about 1.4 million prompts one dataset of desktop prompts (Ahrefs gives the month as February 2025 but also names ChatGPT 5.2, so the month looks like a typo); vendor study, correlational.
• GEO: Generative Engine Optimization, Aggarwal et al., arXiv, Nov 2023: the paper that introduced the term GEO.
• SparkToro and Gumshoe study on repeat AI recommendation lists, Search Engine Land, Jan 28, 2026. Run with Gumshoe.ai, an AI-tracking startup that sells such tools, and described by Search Engine Journal as not peer-reviewed research. Volunteers ran the prompts in their own AI settings. Tested ChatGPT, Claude and Google's AI.

External figures were checked against the linked pages on Oct 15, 2026. Where a study comes from a company that sells related tools, we say so. None of the outside studies measures your brand.

Related guides

• What Is AI Visibility?
• AI Visibility vs SEO: What's the Difference?
• How to Check If ChatGPT Recommends Your Brand

About this guide. Written by Mehmet, who runs Top Seed AI. We sell AI visibility measurement and improvement, so we have an interest in this topic; the sources above are there so you can check our reading. Updated Oct 20, 2026: added a link to a related guide. Earlier, Oct 15, 2026: rewritten with sourced figures, an FAQ and clearer limits.