Answer engine optimization, explained
An answer engine is any system that responds to a question with a composed answer rather than a list of links: ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, Claude, Microsoft Copilot and Google's AI Overviews are the best known. Answer engine optimization is the work of making sure that, when a relevant question is asked, your brand is part of the answer and is described correctly.
AEO builds on SEO rather than replacing it. Many assistants retrieve pages through a search index before they answer, so a site that is crawlable, fast and well structured remains the starting point. What AEO adds is attention to how a brand is understood as an entity: whether its name, services, location and reputation are stated consistently on its own site, in its structured data and across the third-party sources assistants read, such as directories, reviews, press and reference sites.
In practice the work covers four things: clear, citable content that answers real questions directly; consistent entity information everywhere the brand appears; earned mentions in the sources assistants trust; and measurement through prompt sampling, so that changes in how the brand is named and described can be tracked over time. No one can guarantee what an AI model will say, but the factors that make a brand easy to cite are well understood and within a business's control.