What is AEO?
AEO stands for Answer Engine Optimization. It's about getting your content into the answers that AI tools generate, not just ranking on Google's traditional search results.
If you've used ChatGPT, Perplexity, or Google's AI Overviews, you've seen what this looks like. You ask a question, and instead of getting ten blue links, you get an actual answer. Sometimes that answer cites sources. Sometimes it doesn't. Either way, the game has changed.
AEO, GEO, and the Alphabet Soup
You'll also hear people talk about GEO (Generative Engine Optimization). The terms overlap a lot. AEO tends to focus on answer-based systems like Google's AI Overviews and voice assistants. GEO is broader, covering optimization for any generative AI system, including ChatGPT and Claude.
In practice, the distinction doesn't matter much. Both are about the same shift: optimizing content so AI systems cite you when they generate answers. If you're doing one well, you're probably doing the other well too.
Why People Are Talking About This Now
The numbers tell the story.
ChatGPT went from 300 million weekly active users in December 2024 to 800 million by October 2025. That's not gradual growth — that's a fundamental shift in how people find information.
Perplexity, the AI search engine, now handles 780 million queries per month, up from 230 million in August 2024. Their users average 9 searches per day, compared to 6 on traditional search engines.
And then there's Google itself. AI Overviews — those AI-generated summaries at the top of search results — appeared in 30% of U.S. desktop searches as of September 2025.
Gartner predicted in 2024 that traditional search engine volume would drop 25% by 2026 because of AI chatbots. Whether that specific number proves accurate, the direction is clear.
The Zero-Click Problem
Here's what this means for anyone creating content: people aren't clicking anymore.
According to Similarweb data, zero-click searches increased from 56% to 69% between May 2024 and May 2025. When Google's AI Overviews appear, organic click-through rates drop by 61%.
A Pew Research Center study found that users clicked on results only 8% of the time when AI summaries appeared, compared to 15% without them.
The answer is on the page. Why would anyone click through?
This is particularly rough if you're in education or publishing. Chegg reported a 49% decline in non-subscriber traffic between January 2024 and January 2025. The AI was answering the homework questions that used to drive their traffic.
AEO vs. SEO
Traditional SEO is about ranking your webpage higher in search results. You optimize for keywords, build backlinks, and make sure your site loads fast. Success means appearing on page one.
AEO is about something different: getting your content extracted and cited in AI-generated answers. The AI doesn't link to your homepage — it pulls specific passages from specific pages and uses them to construct a response.
This creates a few differences in practice:
Content structure matters more. AI systems pull individual passages, not entire articles. Each section needs to make sense on its own. If your answer to "what is AEO?" is buried in paragraph seven, surrounded by context that only makes sense if you read paragraphs one through six, the AI won't use it.
Lead with the answer. Put your core point in the first 40-60 words before adding detail. The AI is looking for direct answers to direct questions.
Tables and comparisons work well. AI engines favor structured, comparison-driven content. If you're explaining differences between two things, a table often performs better than prose.
E-E-A-T matters even more. Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, Trustworthiness — Google's content quality signals — are now central to what gets cited. AI systems prefer content that demonstrates actual knowledge, not just keyword coverage.
Does Traditional SEO Still Matter?
Yes. AEO builds on SEO, it doesn't replace it.
The content that AI systems cite still comes from websites that rank well in traditional search. Google's AI Overviews pull from pages that would have ranked anyway. Perplexity and ChatGPT tend to cite authoritative sources that have strong domain authority.
If your SEO fundamentals are weak — slow site, thin content, poor mobile experience — AEO won't save you.
But if you're already doing SEO well, AEO is about formatting and structuring your content so AI systems can actually use it.
What Actually Works
Based on what's working now:
Write clear question-and-answer sections. Format content so there's an obvious question and an obvious answer. This is what AI systems are looking for.
Make your content voice-assistant friendly. About 30% of all web browsing sessions involve voice search. Write content that would sound natural if read aloud.
Use structured data. Schema.org markup helps AI systems understand what your content is about. FAQ schema, How-To schema, and Product schema are particularly useful.
Keep sections self-contained. Each heading should introduce content that stands alone. Don't assume the reader (or the AI) has read what came before.
Cite your sources. Content that references specific studies, names specific experts, or links to primary sources signals credibility. AI systems prefer content they can verify.
How to Measure AEO
This is where things get tricky. Traditional SEO gives you clear metrics: rankings, traffic, click-through rates. AEO is harder to measure because the goal is getting cited, not getting clicked.
Some approaches that work:
Track featured snippets. Tools like Semrush, Ahrefs, and Moz can show when your content appears in Google's featured snippets and People Also Ask boxes. These are precursors to AI Overview citations.
Watch for high impressions with low clicks. If a page gets lots of search impressions but few clicks, especially for question-based queries, that often means your content is being shown in AI summaries.
Monitor brand mentions in AI tools. Periodically search for queries related to your business in ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Google's AI Overview and see if you're being cited.
Look at citation sources in AI Overviews. When your competitors are cited and you're not, study what their content does differently.
Most tracking tools only cover Google's AI Overviews right now. Measuring visibility across ChatGPT, Claude, and Perplexity is still manual and inconsistent.
Should You Care About AEO?
It depends on what you're trying to accomplish.
If you're creating educational content, informational content, or anything people might ask AI about, AEO matters. The way people consume this kind of content is shifting toward AI-mediated answers.
If you're building products or running a SaaS business, AEO probably matters less right now. People aren't asking ChatGPT which project management tool to buy — they're asking it to explain concepts.
That said, this is moving fast. In 2024, AI Overviews barely existed. By late 2025, they appeared in nearly a third of searches. What's true today might not be true in six months.
The Bottom Line
AEO is about adapting to how people actually find information now. More people are asking AI tools questions and expecting direct answers. If your content isn't structured to be that answer, someone else's will be.
The good news: most of what makes content good for AEO also makes it good for humans. Clear structure, direct answers, credible sources, specific details. Do these things and you're optimizing for both.
The AI search landscape is still forming. The tools that matter today — ChatGPT, Perplexity, Google AI Overviews — might look completely different in two years. But the direction is clear: people want answers, not links. Build content that gives them answers.