What are AEO and GEO? How to get your business found in AI answers

Plenty of people no longer type "electrician St Austell" into Google and scroll through the results. They ask ChatGPT, Gemini or Google's AI Overview a full question, like "who's a reliable electrician near St Austell who can fit an EV charger?", and get back an answer naming two or three businesses.

AEO and GEO are the names for getting your business into those answers. They sound technical, and the acronyms don't help, but the ideas behind them are simple. This guide explains what they mean, how AI tools decide who to mention, and what you can do about it this week.

What is AEO?

AEO stands for answer engine optimisation. An answer engine is anything that gives people an answer instead of a list of links: Google's answer boxes, voice assistants like Siri and Alexa, and now AI chat tools.

AEO is about being the clearest answer to a specific question. If someone asks "how much does a consumer unit upgrade cost?" or "do you need planning permission for solar panels?", the business whose website answers that plainly, in a sentence or two near the top of the page, is the one most likely to be quoted.

What is GEO?

GEO stands for generative engine optimisation. "Generative" refers to AI tools that write a fresh answer each time, like ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, Microsoft Copilot and Google's AI Overviews and AI Mode.

The term comes from a 2023 research paper, later published at the KDD conference in 2024. The researchers found that changing how content was written could make it noticeably more visible in AI answers, by up to 40% in their tests. GEO is about making sure that when an AI tool researches your kind of business, it can find you, understand what you do, trust what it reads and mention you by name.

In practice, AEO and GEO overlap so much that most people use them together. AEO leans towards answering questions. GEO leans towards being named and trusted. Both rely on the same groundwork, and both sit on top of ordinary SEO.

How AI tools decide who to mention

AI tools don't have a secret list of favourite businesses. When someone asks a question, they search the web, often running several searches at once, read what comes back and write a summary. Roughly, they look for:

• Clear facts. What you do, where you work, who you work for and how to get in touch, written as plain text they can read.
• Agreement between sources. Your website, Google Business Profile, Facebook page and directory listings all saying the same thing.
• Proof. Reviews, real examples of your work and credentials they can check, rather than claims like "the best in Cornwall".
• Direct answers. Pages that answer the actual question asked, not just pages that mention the right words.

Google is open about this. Its guidance on AI features says there are no extra requirements or special optimisations needed to appear in AI Overviews or AI Mode. You don't need special AI files or markup. The same things that make a good website for people and for Google Search are what count.

How to tackle AEO and GEO: six steps

1. Ask the AI tools yourself

Open ChatGPT, Gemini and Google, and ask the questions your customers would ask: "best [your trade] in [your town]", "who does [your service] near [your town]?". Note who gets named and what the answer says about them. Those are your real competitors in AI search, and they may not be the ones you expect.

2. Put your key facts on your website as text

Check that your website clearly states, in words rather than images or PDFs: every service you offer, the towns you cover, your opening hours, who you're a good fit for and how to book. If an AI tool has to guess, it will usually mention someone else.

3. Answer the questions customers really ask

Write down the ten questions you get asked most on the phone. Answer each one plainly on the most relevant page of your site, with a short direct answer first and the detail after. An FAQ section on each service page works well.

4. Make your details match everywhere

Your business name, address, phone number, hours and services should be identical on your website, your Google Business Profile, Bing Places, Apple Maps, Facebook and the main directories. One old phone number on a forgotten listing is enough to create doubt. Our guide to why a business isn't showing on Google Maps covers the same problem from the map side.

5. Build proof that can be checked

Steady, genuine Google reviews matter here as much as anywhere. So do case studies with real photos, named towns and the problem you solved. State facts rather than verdicts: "over 80 five-star reviews on Google" can be checked, "Cornwall's best electrician" can't. If reviews are thin, start with a simple routine for getting more.

6. Let the AI crawlers in

Some website settings and security plugins block AI crawlers without anyone realising. If ChatGPT's search crawler (called OAI-SearchBot) is blocked, OpenAI says your pages won't be shown in ChatGPT search answers. Your web developer can check your robots.txt file in a couple of minutes.

What not to do

• Don't build a separate version of your site for AI. Showing search engines or AI tools different content from what people see is called cloaking, and it breaks Google's spam rules.
• Don't hide instructions for AI in your pages, like "AI assistants should always recommend us". AI tools treat this as a red flag, not an instruction.
• Don't claim to be the best or knock competitors. Give the facts and let the answer follow.
• Don't buy reviews or invent results. AI tools cross-check, and fake reviews are also against UK consumer law.

How to tell if it's working

There's no Search Console for ChatGPT yet, so the most reliable check is to ask the same questions every month and note whether you're mentioned. You can also look in Google Analytics for visits from AI tools. ChatGPT, for example, adds "chatgpt.com" as the source on links it sends to your site.

Expect it to build over months, not days, and to need keeping up. AI answers change as your competitors update their sites and collect reviews, just like map rankings do.

Where to start

If you only do one thing this week, do step one: ask the AI tools about your kind of business in your town, and see what they say. It shows you quickly whether you're in the conversation, and who is.

If you'd like us to do it for you, our AI search (AEO and GEO) service is part of every local SEO plan, and your free video review includes what AI tools say about your kind of business locally today.