AEO vs SEO: what’s the difference and do you need both?
How AEO (and GEO) differ from classic SEO, what they have in common, and where to start if you want your brand visible in both Google and AI answers.
In short: SEO competes for a page’s position in search results, while AEO (and the closely related GEO) competes for a brand to be mentioned or cited in an AI assistant’s answer. AEO doesn’t replace SEO — it builds on the same foundation of an indexable website and good content, and adds work on how the brand is described across the web, presence in the sources AI cites, and a different way of measuring results.
Definitions in one sentence
- SEO (Search Engine Optimization) — work that helps a page rank highly in search engines such as Google and Bing.
- AEO (Answer Engine Optimization) — work that helps a brand and its content appear in ready-made answers: AI assistants, AI summaries in search engines and voice assistants.
- GEO (Generative Engine Optimization) — a term very close to AEO that emphasises answers generated by language models. In practice the two are used interchangeably.
Key differences
| SEO | AEO / GEO | |
|---|---|---|
| Goal | A page’s position in results | A mention, citation or recommendation of the brand in the answer |
| Where results show | Google, Bing | ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, Copilot, Google AI Overviews and AI Mode |
| Unit of work | A page and a keyword | A brand and a question asked in natural language |
| Key sources | Your own site and links to it | Your site plus what others say about the brand: media, rankings, directories, reviews, communities |
| Success means | A click on the result | Presence in the answer — even without a click |
| Measurement | Rankings, traffic, conversions | Share of answers on a set of questions, cited sources, how the brand is described, branded searches |
What they have in common
More than the new acronyms suggest. AI assistants that search the web in real time rely on search engine indexes or their own crawlers that work in a similar way. Google AI Overviews pick sources from pages indexed in Google, and visibility in Bing matters for Copilot and ChatGPT. The shared foundation is an accessible, indexed website with fast, well-structured pages, clear internal linking and content that answers customers’ questions specifically and reliably.
What the data shows
A 2025 Pew Research Center analysis of Google searches by 900 US adults found that when an AI summary appeared, users clicked a link inside the summary in only 1% of visits, and sessions ended on the results page more often — 26% of the time versus 16% without a summary. For businesses, presence in the answer itself is becoming as important as the position of a link.
The study “GEO: Generative Engine Optimization” (Aggarwal et al., KDD 2024) showed that well-chosen content changes can boost a source’s visibility in generative engine answers “by up to 40%”. Quotations, specific statistics and citations of sources worked best, while keyword stuffing helped little.
Does your company need SEO, AEO or both?
- Your site is new or barely visible in Google — start with SEO and technical foundations. Without them, AEO work won’t achieve much.
- Your site ranks well, but AI doesn’t mention your brand — time for AEO: brand description, presence in the sources AI cites, content that answers comparison questions.
- Your customers compare offers and ask for recommendations before buying — run both in parallel, because more of those questions now go to AI assistants. For international companies in Poland, remember that AI often answers Polish-language questions using Polish sources.
See our AI search visibility service.
Frequently asked questions
Is SEO becoming irrelevant because of AI?
No. Search engines are still the main source of traffic for most companies, and AI assistants largely rely on the same indexes. What changes is what good visibility means: presence in the answer increasingly matters, not just the position of a link.
Are AEO and GEO the same thing?
In practice, yes — both describe work on a brand’s visibility in AI answers and are often used interchangeably. You may also see terms such as “ChatGPT SEO”, “AI SEO” or “LLM SEO”.
Where should I start?
Check the current situation: whether your site is indexed in Google and Bing, whether AI crawlers can access it, and whether — and how — AI assistants describe your brand.
