They overlap heavily and are often used interchangeably. AI Search is the broad shift to engines that answer rather than list links. GEO (Generative Engine Optimisation) is the practice of getting cited in those answers. AEO (Answer Engine Optimisation) is an earlier, narrower term for the same goal. The labels differ. The objective is identical: be the answer.
These three terms cause a lot of confusion because they describe different slices of the same change, and people use them loosely. It helps to take them one at a time, then see how they fit together.
AI Search is the umbrella. It describes the broad shift in how people find information: away from a list of blue links you click through, toward engines that read the web and hand you a synthesised answer directly. ChatGPT, Google AI Overviews and Perplexity are all examples. AI Search is the phenomenon, the new behaviour. It is not a technique you do, it is the environment you now operate in. With 37% of consumers now starting their searches with AI rather than Google (Conductor, 2025), and 69% of Google searches already ending without a click (Similarweb, 2024), this is the ground that has shifted under everyone's feet.
AEO, Answer Engine Optimisation, was one of the first labels for responding to this. It grew out of the era of featured snippets and voice assistants, when the win was getting your content lifted into a single direct answer rather than a ranked list. The instinct was right, but the term carries the assumptions of that earlier moment: one answer, often pulled verbatim from one page. It is still used, and it is not wrong, but it is narrower than where things have landed.
GEO, Generative Engine Optimisation, is the term that has gained the most traction as generative engines matured. The shift in the word is "generative." These engines do not just lift a snippet from one page, they generate an answer by drawing on and blending many sources. So the practice is broader than chasing a single featured answer. It is about being one of the trusted, well-positioned sources the engine reaches for and cites when it composes its response, consistently, across many questions.
Put plainly: AI Search is what changed. AEO and GEO are two names for the work of winning in it, with GEO being the more current and more accurate framing for how generative engines actually behave. You will hear all three, sometimes in the same sentence, sometimes meaning subtly different things. Do not get hung up on the labels. The objective behind every one of them is the same: when an AI engine answers a question in your market, you want to be in the answer, described the way you would choose, ahead of your competitors.
The practical takeaway is to ignore the terminology turf war and focus on the outcome. Whether a provider calls it AEO, GEO or AI Search optimisation, the question to ask is the same: can they measure whether the engines cite and recommend you, and can they help change that answer? If they can, the label is just branding.
It also means the old SEO playbook is necessary but not sufficient. Ranking a page still helps, because the engines draw on what they can find and trust. But the new goal is being the source the engine blends into its generated answer, which depends on authority, clear entity signals and narrative as much as on rankings. That is a wider remit than classic search.
We work in the GEO frame because it matches how the engines actually behave, but we measure the outcome that underlies all three terms: are you in the answer? Our AI Visibility Score, built across the 12-pillar framework and three dimensions, captures exactly that across ChatGPT, Google AI Overviews and Perplexity. For the fuller picture, see what is GEO and our GEO guide, or the plain-language entries in our glossary.
Rather than sell you on a label, we start with a free Exec Brief that shows where you actually stand and where the gaps are. The cadence work that follows is bespoke priced and focused on moving the one thing that matters, your presence in AI answers. Begin at /start. Be Known. Be Cited.
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