Mostly nothing. SEO gets your pages to show up in search results. AEO (answer engine optimisation) is the same effort pointed at getting your business named in the answer that ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Perplexity or Google's AI Overviews gives. The foundations overlap heavily, and Google itself says that optimising for its AI features is still SEO.
The confusion comes from who is using the terms. Some agencies use AEO to describe sensible work that was always part of SEO. Others use it to sell tactics that nobody has shown to work. Knowing where the two genuinely differ makes it much easier to tell which you're being offered.
SEO, search engine optimisation, is the work of making your website easy for search engines to find, understand and trust, so it appears when people search for what you do. The result is a list of links, and the aim is clicks to your site.
AEO, answer engine optimisation, is the work of being included when an AI tool writes a direct answer. You'll also see GEO, generative engine optimisation, used for the same idea. In practice the two terms are used interchangeably. The result is a written answer, sometimes with links, and the aim is for your business to be named in it.
For Google, largely yes. Google's published guidance on its AI features says that AI Overviews and AI Mode build on its core search systems, that there are no additional requirements to appear in them, and that from its perspective optimising for generative AI search is still SEO. A page has to be indexed and eligible to show with a snippet, the same as any other.
For ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity and the other assistants, the picture is less clear. Those companies publish far less about how they choose what to mention, and nobody outside them can say exactly how it works. What can be said is that the same things that make a business easy to find and trust in search (clear pages, accurate details, genuine reviews and mentions) are sensible groundwork there too. That is a reasoned view, not a proven formula.
The differences are in what you aim for and where you look beyond your own site.
We'll check what the main AI assistants say when someone asks for a business like yours in your area, and tell you plainly what is worth doing about it.
GET YOUR FREE AI VISIBILITY CHECKA business should fix the basics before anything labelled AEO. The order below is the one that tends to matter most.
Most of the loudest AEO advice can be ignored, at least for Google. Google says it does not use llms.txt files, that you don't need special schema markup or AI-specific files to appear in its AI features, and that you don't need to chop your content into tiny pieces for AI. Creating such files is harmless, but it won't help you in Google Search.
Treat any promise of guaranteed mentions or guaranteed AI rankings with suspicion. No one controls what an AI assistant chooses to say, and anyone who tells you otherwise is guessing or selling.
Hutch Media Group is an AI consultancy in Gloucestershire that finds where AI can save a business time or earn it more, and builds the tools if you want them. For getting found, we offer SEO consulting and AI search optimisation for Gloucestershire businesses, and they work best together. If neither is worth your money yet, we'll say so.
No. Google says its AI features are built on its core search systems, so the SEO fundamentals still apply, and people still use ordinary search. AEO is better thought of as an extension of good SEO than a replacement for it.
For Google, yes: its guidance describes optimising for generative AI search as still SEO. For other assistants such as ChatGPT, Claude and Perplexity, the overlap is large but those companies publish less about how they pick sources.
Nobody can say for certain. What is clear is that AI search features currently draw on the same foundations as search, so work on clear content, accurate details and trust is unlikely to be wasted.
In practice, yes. AEO means answer engine optimisation and GEO means generative engine optimisation. Both describe work aimed at being included in AI-written answers, and people use them interchangeably.
Most businesses need the SEO foundations first, since AEO builds on them. Once those are sound, checking how AI assistants describe you is a worthwhile extra step, particularly if customers in your area are starting to ask them for recommendations.
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