AEO vs SEO: Are They Different Jobs?
By the Leadee team at Netbase JSC · Updated
AEO (answer engine optimization) is getting a company mentioned inside an AI-generated answer instead of a search-results page — the same goal as GEO (generative engine optimization); the two terms describe the same work, and most people use them interchangeably. AEO is not a separate discipline from SEO, either: it is built on the same crawlable pages and structured data SEO already requires, with citation tracking and answer-first content added on top.
Key facts
- Generative AI has overtaken traditional search for about a quarter of B2B buyers researching vendors, in a 2025 survey of 350 buyers. (Responsive, 2025)
- 94% of B2B buyers now use an LLM such as ChatGPT or Claude somewhere in their buying process, in a 2025 survey of nearly 4,000 buyers. (6sense, 2025)
- 80% of B2B buyers still use search engines when sourcing new suppliers — Thomas's 2019 survey, the older of the two habits, not a replaced one. (Thomas (Thomasnet), 2019)
What does AEO mean, in one sentence?
AEO (answer engine optimization) is the practice of making a company easy for an AI "answer engine" — ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity or Google AI Mode — to find, understand and cite correctly when it writes a direct answer to a buyer's question, instead of returning a page of links.
If that sounds identical to GEO (generative engine optimization, explained here), that is because it mostly is: both terms appeared around the same time to describe optimizing for AI-written answers rather than search rankings, and the industry has not settled on one name. This page uses GEO for Leadee's own product and measurement, but treats AEO as the same underlying work.
Is AEO a different job from SEO?
No — AEO sits on top of SEO rather than replacing it. An AI engine still has to crawl your site (the same crawlability work SEO has always required), still reads structured data like schema markup (a small block of code stating facts about a page so machines can read them directly) to understand what a page is about, and still favors a site that other reputable sources also reference.
What AEO/GEO adds is specific to how an answer gets written, not found: content that states the direct answer to a buyer question in the first sentence (so a model can quote it), and measurement of whether AI engines actually mention and cite you — not just whether a page ranks on a results page.
What AEO does not mean
- It does not mean writing only FAQ-style pages. A direct-answer first sentence helps on any page type — a product page, a service page, a comparison page — not only a page formatted as questions and answers.
- It does not mean abandoning keyword-based content that already ranks well in search; that content still has to exist for AEO to have something crawlable to build on.
- It does not mean a guaranteed outcome. As with GEO, no vendor can promise a specific AI engine will mention a specific company for a specific prompt.
- It does not mean a one-time project. AI engines change their output run to run, so a page optimized once can still need rechecking months later.
Do I need to hire a separate AEO specialist?
Usually not. For most of the traditional B2B companies Leadee works with — manufacturers, distributors, professional-service firms — the same person or agency who already handles the website and SEO can pick up AEO's few extra requirements: crawler access for AI bots specifically, schema markup, and answer-first page structure. It becomes its own specialism mainly at a scale where a company already has a dedicated SEO team to extend.
What usually does need a new habit is measurement: tracking whether AI engines mention you, repeatedly over time, is a different kind of check than a search-ranking report — see the methodology for how Leadee runs that measurement with a published confidence interval.
Some vendors brand their whole product around the word 'AEO' and others around 'GEO'; a few use both on the same pricing page. Leadee treats them as the same category and names what it actually measures — mentions, citations, position and share of voice across AI engines — rather than picking a side in the naming debate.
Terms on this page, explained simply
- GEO (generative engine optimization): optimizing a site so generative AI engines mention and cite it in the answers they write.
- AEO (answer engine optimization): the same goal, under a different name — see the section above.
- SEO (search engine optimization): optimizing a site to rank in a traditional search-results list; the foundation both AEO and GEO build on.
- Prompt: the question or instruction a person types into an AI engine, such as "best accounting firm for foreign companies in Vietnam."
- Schema markup: a small block of code on a page that states facts (a company name, a product's specs) in a format machines read directly, instead of guessing from prose.
- Citation: when an AI engine names your domain or a specific page as the source for a claim in its answer.
- Entity: a specific, named thing (a company, a product, a person) that search and AI engines try to recognize consistently across the web rather than treating as plain text.
- Crawlability: whether an automated crawler (a search engine's or an AI engine's) can actually fetch and read your page's content, as opposed to hitting a login wall, a block in robots.txt, or an empty page before JavaScript runs.
- llms.txt: a plain-text file some sites publish to describe themselves to AI crawlers in one place; a nice-to-have, not the lever that moves whether you get cited.
Questions
Is AEO the same as GEO?
For almost all practical purposes, yes — both describe optimizing a site so AI answer engines mention and cite it correctly. Some writers use AEO specifically for question-and-answer content and GEO more broadly for any generative AI engine, but the distinction is not consistent across the industry or enforced by any standards body.
Does AEO replace keyword research?
No — it extends it toward question-shaped phrasing, since that is usually closer to how a buyer phrases a prompt to an AI engine than to how they type a search query.
Is SEO dead because of AEO?
No. Most B2B buyers still use search engines when sourcing suppliers — see [GEO vs SEO](/learn/geo-vs-seo) for the exact figures — so AEO is an additional channel to win, not a replacement for ranking well in search.
Where do I start with AEO for my company?
Start with the same checklist as GEO: confirm AI crawlers can read your site, add schema markup, write answer-first pages for your main products or services, and keep your industry directory listings current — see [the ChatGPT checklist](/learn/get-recommended-by-chatgpt) for the full list.
Is there a tool that measures AEO specifically, separate from GEO?
Not in a way that matters — any tool measuring "AEO" is reading the same signal a "GEO" tool reads: whether an AI engine mentions or cites your domain for a given prompt. Leadee measures that signal across five AI engines through official APIs rather than branding it under either acronym.
Should my marketing team use the term AEO or GEO when talking to buyers?
Whichever term your own buyers already search for, if either. Plain-English companies without a dedicated marketing team are usually better served avoiding both acronyms with customers and instead describing the outcome directly: "showing up when someone asks ChatGPT for a supplier like you."
Can GEO guarantee results?
No. AI answer engines change their output frequently, and no vendor — including Leadee — can guarantee a ranking or a mention. Leadee publishes confidence intervals on every metric so you can see how much a result can vary run to run.
How does Leadee measure AI visibility?
Leadee runs your prompt set against each AI engine on a weekly to daily schedule, depending on plan, through official vendor APIs (OpenAI, Gemini, Perplexity, Anthropic, DataForSEO) — never by scraping consumer chat interfaces — and reports mention rate, citation rate, average position, share of voice and sentiment with a 95% confidence interval.
Who do I talk to?
Use Talk to an expert at https://leadee.ai/contact-sales — the Netbase JSC team behind Leadee replies by email or WhatsApp — or WhatsApp the CEO directly at https://wa.me/84937869689.
See the full GEO picture
AEO and GEO are the same work — read the full comparison with SEO, then run a free scan to see where your site stands.