AEO vs GEO · AI search terms explained

AEO vs GEO

AEO vs GEO is mostly a naming question. Answer engine optimization and generative engine optimization both mean getting your brand named and cited when people ask ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini or Google's AI features a question. Here is where the two words differ, what Google says about both, and what the research behind GEO found works.

Last updated October 2026 · Published by Agniverse GEO

Published by Agniverse GEO, the AI search lab at Agniverse for app makers. Our name uses one of the two words, so we checked that this page does not lean on it. Every claim comes from Google's own documentation, the original GEO paper on arXiv, or agencies' own service pages.

Short answer

AEO (answer engine optimization) and GEO (generative engine optimization) describe nearly the same job. Both mean getting named and cited in AI answers. GEO comes from a 2023 research paper that measured which content changes help. AEO is an industry term with no single source. Google treats both the same way, saying that optimizing for generative AI search is "still SEO". Pick the word your buyers use and judge any provider on the work.

AEO vs GEO at a glance

The two terms side by side. Scroll the table sideways on mobile.

Compared on	AEO	GEO
Stands for	Answer engine optimization	Generative engine optimization
The goal	Be the answer an AI engine gives to a question	Be named and cited in answers that AI engines write from several sources
Where the term comes from	An industry term. We found no defining paper or engine documentation beyond Google naming it.	A 2023 research paper by Aggarwal and co-authors, accepted to KDD 2024
Engines in scope	ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, Claude, Copilot, Google AI Overviews and AI Mode	The same engines
What Google says	"Still SEO"	"Still SEO"
Published evidence	No research paper of its own that we found	A benchmark (GEO-bench) with measured tactics
Who sells it under this name	NoGood calls itself an AEO agency. Admiral Media sells AEO for apps and games.	Go Fish Digital sells GEO. Netpeak US sells GEO plans for apps.

What Google says about AEO and GEO

"From Google Search's perspective, optimizing for generative AI search is optimizing for the search experience, and thus still SEO."
Google Search Central, Optimizing your website for generative AI features on Google Search (last updated July 10, 2026)

Google defines both terms in the same paragraph: AEO stands for answer engine optimization, GEO for generative engine optimization.
For Google Search, it says you can ignore tactics like chunking content, unnecessary AI text files such as llms.txt, and inauthentic mentions.
To show as a link in AI Overviews or AI Mode, a page must be indexed and eligible to appear in Google Search with a snippet. Google says there are no additional requirements.
Google's AI features ground answers in its Search index and use query fan-out, running several related searches at once to answer one question.
This covers Google only. ChatGPT and Perplexity use their own crawlers (OAI-SearchBot and PerplexityBot), which you have to allow separately.

What the GEO paper found

The term GEO comes from a paper by Pranjal Aggarwal, Vishvak Murahari, Tanmay Rajpurohit, Ashwin Kalyan, Karthik Narasimhan and Ameet Deshpande, first posted in November 2023 and accepted to KDD 2024. They built GEO-bench, a benchmark of diverse user queries across many domains, then rewrote source pages in different ways and measured how much each page showed up in the generated answers.

Citing sources, adding quotations and adding statistics did best, with a 30 to 40% relative gain on the paper's position-adjusted word count measure and 15 to 30% on its subjective impression measure.
Making text more fluent and easier to understand also helped, by 15 to 30%.
Keyword stuffing, a classic SEO move, gave little to no improvement. On Perplexity it did 10% worse than the unchanged page.
On Perplexity, adding quotations gave the biggest lift in position-adjusted word count, 22% over the baseline.
Overall, the paper reports GEO methods can lift a source's visibility by up to 40%, and that what works varies by domain.

CaveatThese are 2023 and 2024 results, measured on the authors' own test engine and on Perplexity. They show what tends to help a page get used in an AI answer. They are not a promise about ChatGPT or Google today.

Read it yourself: GEO: Generative Engine Optimization, arXiv 2311.09735.

Definition

Do the two words describe different jobs?

AEO

AEO puts the stress on the answer. The aim is to be what the engine says when someone asks a question.

GEO

GEO puts the stress on the engine that writes the answer. The original paper describes generative engines as systems that pull from several sources and summarize them with a language model.

VerdictSame job, different emphasis. Google's own guide names both in the same sentence and treats them as one topic.

Evidence behind the term

Can you point to research that says what works?

AEO

We found no paper or engine documentation that defines AEO or tests AEO tactics. The word lives in agency and tool marketing.

GEO

GEO has a paper with a benchmark of queries across many domains, tested tactics and measured results, on the authors' own engine and on Perplexity.

WinnerGEO. It is the only one of the two with published, tested findings.

Plain-English clarity

Which word does a non-marketer understand on first read?

AEO

Answer engine optimization says what you get. You become the answer. Most people follow it without help.

GEO

Generative engine optimization needs a sentence of explaining, and to plenty of people GEO still reads as geography.

WinnerAEO. It explains itself. GEO needs a gloss the first time you use it.

What Google says

Does Google treat AEO and GEO as their own disciplines?

AEO

Google's guide defines AEO, then says optimizing for generative AI search is still SEO.

GEO

Same sentence, same answer. Google says there are no extra requirements to appear in AI Overviews or AI Mode.

VerdictA tie. To Google, both are SEO. ChatGPT and Perplexity run their own search crawlers, so a few checks are specific to them.

The work itself

Does an AEO service do anything a GEO service does not?

AEO

Admiral Media's AEO service runs six workstreams: entity foundation, a machine-readable site, content built to be extracted, citations and mentions, prompt monitoring and reporting.

GEO

Go Fish Digital's GEO service optimizes pages and passages for AI Overviews and ChatGPT, working on structure, fact density and how easily a page summarizes.

VerdictNo real difference. Agencies list the same kinds of work under both names, so compare what they will do, not what they call it.

Which word should you use?

Use whichever one your buyers and your team already say. Then judge any provider on the work, not the label.

Say AEO when

Your team or your buyers already use it.
You are explaining the work to people outside marketing.

Say GEO when

You want to point to the research behind the tactics.
The tools or agencies you are comparing already use it.

Both? Plenty of firms use both. Moburst sells "AEO & GEO" as one service, and Victorious keeps a page for each. Whatever the name, ask the same questions before you buy.

What to ask anyone selling AEO or GEO

Which buyer questions will you track, on which engines, and how many times each?
Which of our pages will you change, and which outside pages will you try to get us onto?
Can you show a client result measured in AI answers, not only in SEO traffic?
How will you report progress, given that AI answers change from run to run?

How we compared them

We read Google's own AI search documentation, the GEO paper on arXiv (abstract and PDF), and the service pages of agencies that sell under each name. Where a claim rests on one agency's page, we name the agency. The per-dimension calls are our judgment. We are called Agniverse GEO, so we gave AEO the win it earns on clarity.

Frequently asked questions

Is AEO the same as GEO?

Nearly. AEO (answer engine optimization) and GEO (generative engine optimization) both mean getting your brand named and cited in AI answers from ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini and Google's AI features. AEO stresses the answer; GEO stresses the generative engine that writes it. Google defines both in one paragraph of its own guide and treats them as the same topic. Agencies sell the same kinds of work under both names.

What does Google say about AEO and GEO?

Google's guide to generative AI search says that, from Google Search's perspective, optimizing for generative AI search is optimizing for the search experience, and thus still SEO. It adds that for Google Search you can ignore tactics like chunking content, unnecessary AI text files such as llms.txt, and inauthentic mentions, and that AI Overviews and AI Mode have no requirements beyond normal search eligibility.

Where does the term GEO come from?

From the research paper GEO: Generative Engine Optimization by Pranjal Aggarwal, Vishvak Murahari, Tanmay Rajpurohit, Ashwin Kalyan, Karthik Narasimhan and Ameet Deshpande. It was first posted to arXiv (2311.09735) in November 2023 and accepted to KDD 2024. The paper introduced GEO and a benchmark called GEO-bench to measure how content changes affect visibility in AI-generated answers.

What did the GEO paper find?

Citing sources, adding quotations and adding statistics worked best, with a 30 to 40% relative gain on the paper's position-adjusted word count measure and 15 to 30% on its subjective impression measure. More fluent, easier text helped by 15 to 30%. Keyword stuffing gave little to no improvement and did 10% worse than baseline on Perplexity. The paper reports visibility gains of up to 40% overall, varying by domain. These are 2023-24 benchmark results, not a guarantee for any engine today.

Does keyword stuffing work for AI search?

Not according to the GEO paper. Adding more query keywords to a page gave little to no improvement in the authors' own generative engine, and on Perplexity it performed 10% worse than the unchanged page. Citing sources, adding quotations and adding statistics did far better.

Is AEO or GEO different from SEO?

For Google, no. Google says optimizing for generative AI search is still SEO, and its AI features ground answers in the regular Search index. ChatGPT and Perplexity run their own search crawlers (OAI-SearchBot and PerplexityBot), so allowing those and checking how each engine answers your buyers' questions are the parts specific to AI search.

Do I need llms.txt for AEO or GEO?

Not for Google. Google's guide says that for Google Search you can ignore unnecessary AI text files like llms.txt. That guidance covers Google only. For ChatGPT and Perplexity, the documented step is allowing their search crawlers, OAI-SearchBot and PerplexityBot, in robots.txt.

Sources

Where each claim on this page comes from.

Google Search Central, optimizing for generative AI searchDefines AEO and GEO; calls both "still SEO"; mythbusting on llms.txt and chunking.
Google Search Central, AI features and your websiteNo additional requirements for AI Overviews or AI Mode.
Aggarwal et al., GEO: Generative Engine Optimization (arXiv 2311.09735)Abstract: up to 40% visibility gains; accepted to KDD 2024.
GEO paper, full PDFMethod results, keyword stuffing, the Perplexity evaluation.
OpenAI, Overview of OpenAI crawlersOAI-SearchBot and ChatGPT search.
Perplexity, Perplexity crawlersPerplexityBot and Perplexity search results.
NoGood, Answer Engine OptimizationCalls itself an AEO agency.
Admiral Media, Answer engine optimizationAEO for apps, games and ecommerce; six workstreams.
Go Fish Digital, Generative Engine OptimizationPage and passage optimization for AI Overviews and ChatGPT.
Netpeak US, AI App VisibilityGEO plans for mobile apps.
Moburst, AEO and GEO servicesSells AEO and GEO as one service.
Victorious, Generative Engine OptimizationSeparate GEO service page.
Victorious, Answer Engine OptimizationSeparate AEO service page.

Call it AEO or GEO. The work is the same.

Agniverse GEO is our AI search lab for app makers. We run your buyers' questions through ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity and Gemini every two weeks and work on the pages they cite. We take clients by application. Doing it yourself? Start with the how-to guide.

See Agniverse GEO Read the how-to

Published by Agniverse GEO, the AI search lab at Agniverse for app makers. Our name picks one of the two words, so we kept the comparison to what Google, the GEO paper and agencies' own pages say. Current as of October 2026. Found something out of date? Tell us and we will fix it.