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When someone asks ChatGPT or Gemini a question about your industry, does your brand show up in the answer?
If not, you have a problem and you’re already falling behind your competitors.
AI search isn't replacing traditional search slowly; it’s actively being integrated into traditional search (ahem, AI Overviews and AI Mode), all while users move directly onto AI search platforms. Users are asking questions, getting summarized answers, and clicking through to a website less and less often. If you're not part of those answers, you're losing visibility to competitors who are.
TL;DR: AEO is worth it, but only if you want to be discoverable and visible as user search behavior changes (hint: you do).
Answer Engine Optimization (AEO) is all about getting your content directly quoted by large language models (LLMs) when people ask questions. Brands are no longer concerning themselves with being the top result on Google anymore. They’re focused on becoming the trusted voice that these models turn to for answers.
Traditional SEO helps people find your content in search results, but AEO gets your words featured within the answer itself. Instead of scanning multiple links, users now ask a question and receive a single synthesized answer. If your content isn’t part of that response, your brand risks becoming invisible in AI search.
Crucially, AEO is not a matter of luck. Visibility within AI models can be influenced through structured optimization, prompt-based testing and ongoing visibility tracking. Emerging frameworks and tools, like those developed by Goodie, are transforming AEO from an experimental concept into measurable and repeatable marketing strategies.
The content that is most often cited by AI models shares certain characteristics:
To go beyond these fundamentals, brands should also start building an AEO-Ready Architecture, where every content block, schema, and external signal is designed to be parsed, quoted, and trusted by LLMs.
There is a difference; but that doesn’t mean the two disciplines are mutually exclusive. Having one without the other is a disservice and has the potential to result in overlapping activities (essentially doing double the work for no reason).
SEO and AEO overlap in the sense that both require quality content, clear structure, and topical authority. On the surface, SEO and AEO have the same goal, and that’s to be visible. The difference is where you’re aiming to show up.
AEO demands a broader content strategy that doesn’t just live with the SEO team. Instead, it involves cross-functional coordination between content, PR, and technical teams to build authority signals across the internet.
The name of the game is ensuring that your brand has a multi-platform presence; AI models pull information from social conversations, forums, review sites, and third-party content, not just from what’s on your website.
In fact, after analyzing 2.2 million citations across ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude and Perplexity, we found that 74% of AI sourced answers pulled information from third-party content rather than a brand’s own domain. This makes cross-channel visibility and data consistency non-negotiable.
Treating AEO and SEO as competing strategies is a mistake; rather, they should work together to compound your brand’s visibility.
Strong SEO fundamentals make your content discoverable and crawlable. AEO tactics make it citable and quotable. You need both to succeed in a hybrid search landscape; one where some users still click links, while others rely entirely on AI-generated answers.
The brands that thrive will be those that stop viewing this as an either-or decision and start building integrated SEO and AEO strategies.
A successful AEO strategy should involve your whole team. Creating a cross-functional approach is what separates performative AEO efforts from strategies that actually drive results.
Some sectors are particularly vulnerable to AI search because of the changes in how customers discover products and research brands. For example, some consumers prefer to search for products by asking direct follow up questions within the same search. This means direct-to-consumer brands are more susceptible to changes to the increase in AI search. However, all industries should prioritize AEO strategies, yet the reasoning for prioritizing AEO differs depending on the market.
We recently ran studies across B2B SaaS, Finance, and Beauty examining the most cited domains across industries and found that the top 20 most cited domains make up almost 28% of all LLM citations. Why does this matter? Well, if you aren’t featured on the top domains for your industry, you’re as good as invisible to LLMs. This isn’t the only reason to prioritize AEO, though. Let’s breakdown the reasoning by industry:
Medical misinformation can spread rapidly online. Because of this, knowing your brand's position from a visibility and a sentiment standpoint can ensure your brand isn’t misrepresented. AI search has become a trusted source AI models cite for health questions combating bad information while building patient trust.
When someone asks an AI assistant about systems, treatment options, or preventative care, you want your organization’s expertise to be part of the answer.
When high-stakes financial decisions are made (and YMYL content is involved), LLMs must be able to provide users with accurate information and avoid perpetuating misinformation. As customers turn to AI for explanations of complex concepts, product comparisons, and planning guidance, customers are starting to blindly rely on the information in AI search.
If your financial institution isn’t mentioned in an LLMs answer, potential customers may question the credibility and quality of your institution. Lack of visibility in AI search means customers are forming their opinions about banking products and investment strategies without ever seeing your company.
B2B buyers research solutions using AI long before they reach out to sales teams. Buyers in SaaS industries are already more familiar with the technology than a typical user; they are more likely to turn to and trust a response generated by an LLM. In fact, 88.1% of searches that use AI are informational, not commercial queries. These types of users want an answer directly in the LLMs response.
When buyers ask AI to compare project management tools or recommend CRM platforms, you need to be part of that initial research set. Getting cited in these early-stage answers is how you enter consideration.
Product research happens in AI chat interfaces now. Retailers who structure product content for AI citation using clear specs, highlighting genuine reviews, and using comparison-friendly formats will be recommended. Those who don't, get skipped.
As companies like Google roll out AI shopping we are going to see more and more options directly in LLMs. Users can interact with products beyond a list of links, they can use smart filters to try on products and agentic checkout.
Consulting firms, legal practices, and agencies face a unique challenge: establishing expertise before a prospect ever fills out a contact form.
AEO lets you demonstrate that expertise through the questions potential clients are already asking AI. When your insights get cited in responses about industry challenges, you're building credibility before the first conversation.
Online learning platforms and educational institutions compete for attention in an increasingly crowded market. When students ask AI about learning paths, course quality, or credential value, being cited as a trusted resource drives enrollments.
Property searches often start with AI queries about neighborhoods, market trends, and buying processes. Real estate professionals who optimize for these questions position themselves as local experts AI models reference.
This isn't a future trend nor a fad. AI search is live and actively changing how people find information.
Traditional search showed you links; AI search synthesizes information and presents direct answers. Users don't scroll through results anymore, they get what they need in the first response, with one query. For businesses, this changes everything about discoverability.
Your old content strategy assumed people would visit your website and click around, but your new strategy should assume that AI might quote you without including a link to your site. If that sounds threatening, you're focusing on the wrong metric. The question isn't, "Will they click?"; it's, “How will they find us if we aren’t mentioned in an LLMs answer?"
Now that you understand the importance of AEO (and now that we’ve convinced you that it is worth it), it’d probably be helpful to understand the strategic framework for your brand. Of course, your strategy should be multi-part, but this is a simple breakdown of the essential elements:
Answer Engine Optimization isn't experimental and it sure as hell isn’t a nice-to-have tactic that you can keep in your back pocket and add to your strategy eventually.
It's how discoverability works now.
Investing in AEO today means being part of the answers across every industry, every AI model, and every type of query. The brands that understand this are dominating their categories. The ones that don't will wonder why their traffic dried up.
Yes, if you want to remain visible as search behavior shifts toward AI. AEO helps you become the source that AI models cite when answering questions in your industry. The alternative is watching your discoverability decline as users get answers without ever seeing your brand mentioned.
AEO is the practice of creating content that AI search engines cite directly in their responses. Unlike traditional SEO, which optimizes for rankings in search results, AEO optimizes for being quoted in AI-generated answers. This requires clear structure, direct answers to real questions, and proper formatting that AI models can extract and attribute.
SEO focuses on where you rank in search results. AEO focuses on whether you're part of the answer itself. SEO tactics (keywords, backlinks, page speed) still matter for discoverability. But AEO requires additional work: conversational Q&A formats, structured data, multi-platform presence, and content that AI can easily parse and cite. You need both strategies, not one or the other.
AI SEO refers to using artificial intelligence tools to improve traditional search rankings, think AI-powered keyword research or content generation. AEO is different: it's about optimizing specifically for AI-powered answer engines like ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Google's AI Mode. AI SEO helps you rank better. AEO helps you get cited in the answers users actually see.
Industries where trust and expertise drive decisions see the biggest impact from AEO: healthcare (fighting misinformation), finance (explaining complex products), B2B SaaS (early-stage research), eCommerce (product recommendations), and professional services (thought leadership).
In short, if your customers research before buying, AEO matters.
Effective AEO content:
Most importantly, it focuses on being useful rather than gaming algorithms.
The “best tool” will depend on the scale of your strategy, your industry, and your needs.
We recommend looking for platforms that track AI citations across models (ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, Claude), analyze how AI crawlers interact with your site, identify content gaps in AI responses, and help you create content optimized for both traditional SEO and AI extraction.
Remember, the best tools don't just report data, they show you exactly where you're missing citations and help you fix it.
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