Discover how AI optimization works alongside traditional SEO and AEO to help your brand get seen, cited, and trusted across search, chat, and voice.
TL;DR (Too Long; Didn’t Read):
Search is changing fast. AI tools like ChatGPT, Google SGE, and voice assistants now deliver answers directly, often without sending traffic to websites. To stay visible, brands need three layers working together:
Together, they ensure your brand is seen, cited, and trusted wherever people ask questions online.
Search engine AI is no longer a future concept. Look around and you’ll see that artificial intelligence has already crept into how we search for things online, how answers are delivered, and how users interact with results without ever clicking through. It’s the new normal, with tools like ChatGPT and Google’s SGE changing how people look for things in a fundamental way.
That change is already measurable, as around 72% of American users are now using AI regularly to find information online, and that number continues to rise. This shift is driving a new kind of AI optimization that focuses less on ranking pages and more on training models to recognize, summarize, and reuse credible content.
Over the past year, we’ve watched traditional platforms embrace a new wave of AI in SEO by integrating generative AI directly into results, with Google’s Search Generative Experience (SGE) and Microsoft’s Copilot being two major examples. Both tools generate synthesized, conversational answers, reducing the role of traditional listings.
At the same time, answer-focused platforms like ChatGPT, Perplexity, and You.com have gained serious traction. Rather than acting as search engines, they’ve become ‘answer engines’ which deliver responses instantly and often without citation instead of directing users to websites.
For brands, this creates a dual challenge:
This is where generative engine optimization (GEO) and answer engine optimization (AEO) come in. They don’t come in to replace SEO, but to expand its reach in an AI-dominated landscape. Stay with us as we take a closer look at what’s going on.
Generative Engine Optimization (GEO) helps your content rank like traditional SEO, but it also goes one step further to ensure that AI tools can make sense of it. With GEO SEO, the goal isn’t to please a search crawler, rather, it’s to be clear and useful enough that models like ChatGPT, Claude, or Google’s Search SGE know how to pull you into the conversation.
Instead of focusing solely on traditional SEO tactics, GEO shifts your content toward what language models actually use. That means less box-ticking and poring over keywords and more working on structure, tone, and clarity.
Some of the work involves:
Where the SEO we’re all familiar with tries to make your content show up in search engine listings, GEO makes your content the piece that gets quoted, paraphrased, or directly reused. Rather than just being seen, you're literally speaking through the machine.
Quick Take: GEO shifts the focus from pleasing algorithms to being useful for AI models. The aim is to write so clearly and reliably that you become part of the answer, not just a name buried below it.
AEO is about getting chosen, not ranked. While generative engine optimization helps AI make sense of your content, AEO and everything it involves serve to make sure it’s seen as the right answer and used as-is. That matters more than ever, as voice assistants and generative tools often serve just one result.
If your content is the one getting quoted when someone asks a direct question, that’s the outcome AEO is built for. The key difference in AEO vs SEO is where your effort goes. Traditional SEO focuses on visibility, but AEO is about generating enough trust that AI systems online rely on your words, not just your presence.
To get there, content should be:
You’ll see AEO in action most when there’s no link to click, with just a voice reading your sentence aloud or a box at the top of the page quoting your words.
Quick Take: You can optimize for ranking with SEO, but AEO is how you get chosen. AEO has nothing to do with getting ranked higher, but a lot to do with being the one result that doesn’t get replaced.
It’s important to think of SEO, GEO, and AEO not as competing strategies, but as parts of the same system. Each one handles a different layer of visibility, and when used together, they can become very effective, with each reinforcing the other.
Here’s how it looks in practice:
Step 1: Traditional SEO gets you on the map
Let’s say you publish a guide on “How to soundproof a small office.” In this instance, classic search engine optimization ensures your page appears in organic listings when someone types that in. You’ve done the usual things like targeting the right SEO keywords, writing a meta description, optimizing for speed and mobile. That’s your foundation.
Step 2: GEO makes your content reusable by AI
Next, you go a step further. You rework your intro so it answers the main question directly and naturally. You phrase your subheadings like questions people would ask. You keep your tone human but factual. Suddenly, ChatGPT or Google SGE has a clean paragraph it can cite, and that’s generative engine optimization at work. Your content has become part of the answer.
Step 3: AEO gets you chosen as the answer
Now, we go even deeper. You add an FAQ at the bottom with quick, voice-friendly responses. You use schema markup so that tools like Alexa and Siri can understand what your page is really about, and you build topical authority by linking to reputable sources and writing clearly, without ambiguity.When someone says “Hey Google, how do I soundproof a home office?”, your sentence is the one it reads back. That’s answer engine optimization, with your content being used as the default response.
These strategies compound, too.
Used in isolation, each of these is helpful. But together, they’re how you build a search strategy that actually lasts, no matter how fast AI evolves. To make things even clearer, the table below shows how SEO, GEO, and AEO can layer together across the funnel.
Long gone are the days when visibility was just about ranking on Google. In 2025, it’s about recognition across not just search engines, but also voice assistants, AI chats, and answer boxes. That means that the content you create needs to be clear, credible, and present wherever people are asking questions.After the chaos and furore of Black Friday and Cyber Monday have subsided and customers have got their hands on some awesome deals, the work to create loyal customers must continue.
Ask yourself:
Traditional SEO gets you seen, but GEO and AEO get you selected where it matters, as the summary, the citation, or the answer itself. So, if you’re currently rethinking your company’s strategy or want an honest second opinion, the team at Digirise is here to help. We support brands to succeed the way search really works now, as well as where it’s likely heading next.
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