Search behaviour is changing. A growing share of research now happens inside AI assistants like ChatGPT, Gemini and Perplexity, and directly inside Google’s AI Overviews, rather than through a traditional list of blue links.
AEO (Answer Engine Optimisation) and GEO (Generative Engine Optimisation) are the emerging disciplines focused on making sure your brand is accurately understood, trusted and cited when these systems generate an answer.
In practice, this means writing content in clear, directly quotable formats, implementing structured data (schema markup) so machines can parse your content correctly, and building the kind of authoritative, well-sourced content that AI models are more likely to draw from.
It builds on the same technical and content foundations as traditional SEO, so businesses with a solid SEO base have a real head start. But it’s a fast-evolving area, and monitoring how (and whether) your brand shows up in AI answers is becoming an important part of a modern marketing strategy.
