What's the difference between GEO and AEO? (2026)

Originally published on answersky.com. Answersky checks whether AI assistants name a business when buyers ask for a recommendation.

Answer engine optimization (AEO) is work aimed at being the direct answer, in a search answer box or in an AI assistant's reply. Generative engine optimization (GEO) is work aimed at being featured in the answers an AI tool writes. The two overlap a lot and they are not identical: they started from different places and lean toward different surfaces.

This post is the next step after our guide to what GEO is, which covers GEO itself and isn't repeated here. It adds what AEO means, where the two differ in practice and how to measure either one with our own dated scans of answersky.com.

What is answer engine optimization (AEO)?

AEO means shaping your content so a search or AI tool can lift a clear answer from it. The idea grew out of the answer box on a search results page. Google describes a featured snippet as a special box that puts the answer text first and the page link after it. Being the page that box quotes is the older job. "Answer engine" widened it to AI tools that answer in one reply.

Google's own guide to its generative AI features spells out "AEO" and "GEO" and says both are terms you may see for work aimed at visibility in AI search. We haven't found a source that coined AEO, so treat this as how the term is commonly explained, not as its documented history.

What is GEO and how is it different?

GEO comes from a 2023 research paper, "GEO: Generative Engine Optimization", whose authors tested ways of changing a page so a generative search engine would feature it more. Our GEO guide goes through what the paper did and didn't show.

Three names with a large shared middle: being named or cited when AI answers a buyer's question.

LLMO is the least settled of the three. One web host's explainer (Jul 15, 2026) treats it as separate from GEO, with GEO about visibility in AI search tools and LLMO about how language models read content.

"AI search optimization" is a broad, plain-language label for the whole job. It's the subject of our guide to what to fix first, so we don't re-cover it here.

Are GEO and AEO the same thing?

They overlap a lot, but overlapping names don't mean identical methods. Google says that from Google Search's side, optimizing for its generative AI features is still SEO. That is a statement about Google Search, not about ChatGPT or Perplexity, but it shows that a search engine treats these labels as one family. Google also says its generative AI features rely on its core Search ranking and quality systems.

Because these names are used loosely outside GEO's research scope, ask anyone who sells one what they actually do and how they check it.

What is actually different in practice?

Two things change what you do and what you measure: where the answer appears and whether you count a link or a mention.

Answer boxes versus assistants. An answer box takes a passage from one page and shows it with a link to that page. An assistant writes its own answer, may name several businesses in the text and may list sources next to it. OpenAI's help page says you can "Select Sources, when available, to view cited sources and other relevant links". "When available" matters: not every answer shows them. A page that states its answer cleanly suits an answer box. An assistant's reply can also name you in its text, with or without a link.

Cited versus named. Cited means your site is listed as a source. Named means your business appears in the answer text. A business can be one without the other. Both are useful outcomes, so count them as two separate numbers.

An answer box quotes one page. An assistant writes its own answer, names businesses in it and may list sources beside it.

Which one matters for your business?

Neither name decides it. What matters more is which surface your buyers use and whether your own pages answer their questions in plain text.

• If your buyers still use Google, SEO basics still count.
• If they ask ChatGPT, Gemini or Perplexity for a recommendation, check whether those assistants name you and look at the sites they cite.
• If someone sells "AEO" and "GEO" as different services, ask what is measured for each. A new acronym is not a new method.

How do I measure any of it?

Whatever the work is called, count the same few things each time: whether you are named, out of how many usable answers; who is named instead; which sites are cited; and whether anything changed between two scans. Keep the questions fixed between scans so the results are comparable.

Here is ours. Our checks asked 9 buyer questions of our own on ChatGPT, Gemini and Perplexity, using each assistant's API with web search, so the apps themselves can answer differently. The setups differed. In Answersky's Sep 30 test we asked each question in three wordings, once each (81 answers; 78 were usable and answersky.com was named in 0 of 78). In Answersky's Oct 7 test we asked each question twice (54 answers, named in 0 of 54). In Answersky's Oct 12 test we asked twice again (54 answers, 53 usable because one ChatGPT answer failed; named in 0 of 53). Because Sep 30 used three wordings and a different number of answers, it is not a like-for-like comparison with the later two. In Answersky's Oct 7 test other tracked AI-visibility tools appeared by name or cited domain in 31 of 54 answers. In the Oct 12 test it was 31 of 53. The Sep 30 and Oct 7 results are on our log. Two flat results five days apart are a starting line, not a trend.

The assistants also don't cite the same sites. We can compare only ChatGPT and Perplexity, because Gemini's sources come back as Google redirect links that we don't resolve yet, as our post on cited sites explains. In Answersky's Oct 7 test ChatGPT's answers cited 30 different sites and Perplexity's cited 139. Only 8 sites were on both lists. In the Oct 12 test it was 25 and 152 with 6 on both.

That is one reason a single check on a single assistant tells you little. A site one assistant cites often may not appear for another at all, so a list of cited sites is a place to start looking, not a target list. How to build the list for your own questions is in which websites does AI cite.

What should I do first?

Whichever name you use, the first steps are usually similar: make sure AI search tools can reach your site, say plainly what you do and answer your buyers' questions on your own pages. Our guide to what to fix first takes those steps in order, using our own site as the example.

Then check where you stand before you change anything. Nothing here is a promise that you will be named after a change. The check is what lets you see whether a change moved anything.

Free Quick Scan: 6 of your buyers' questions on ChatGPT and Perplexity, 12 answers and who AI named instead of you. Results on the scan page when ready, plus an emailed copy; queued or review requests arrive by email within 1 business day.