More people now ask an AI assistant before they search. "Who's a good emergency plumber near me?" "Which dentist in Columbus takes walk-ins?" If the answer names three competitors and skips you, that person may never see your website. This lesson explains the new jargon (AEO, GEO) without the hype, so you can decide what deserves your time.
In BrightLocal's 2026 survey of 1,002 US adults, 45% said they had used AI tools to find local business recommendations, up from 6% the year before. That's vendor data from one survey, so don't lean on the exact number, though the direction is hard to argue with.
Three terms, one sentence each
| Term | Stands for | What it means in practice |
|---|---|---|
| SEO | Search engine optimization | Making your pages easy for search engines to find, understand and rank, so people click through to you. |
| AEO | Answer engine optimization | Making your information easy to use as a direct answer: a featured snippet, a voice-assistant reply, or an AI-written summary. |
| GEO | Generative engine optimization | The same idea, aimed at AI tools that write an answer from several web pages and cite some of them. |
AEO is the older term. It dates from the days of featured snippets and voice assistants. GEO was popularized by a 2023 research paper, GEO: Generative Engine Optimization (Aggarwal and colleagues, presented at the KDD 2024 conference). These days people use the two almost interchangeably. In these lessons, "AI search" covers both.
Google itself offers a handy way to think about it. Its guide to generative AI features says AEO and GEO are names people use, and that "optimizing for generative AI search is optimizing for the search experience, and thus still SEO." So AI search sits on top of SEO rather than replacing it.
The answer engines that matter
An answer engine is any tool that replies to a question with a written answer rather than a list of ten blue links. Here are the main ones for a US local business, and where each says it gets its information:
| Answer engine | Who makes it | Where answers come from (per the company's own docs) |
|---|---|---|
| AI Overviews and AI Mode | Google's Search index. AI Mode began rolling out to everyone in the US on May 20, 2025. Both may run several related searches behind the scenes ("query fan-out"). | |
| ChatGPT search | OpenAI | "Third-party search providers" plus content from partners. Launched October 31, 2024. Sites must allow OpenAI's search crawler, OAI-SearchBot, to be shown. |
| Perplexity | Perplexity AI | Searches the web in real time and adds numbered footnotes to its sources. Its crawler is PerplexityBot. |
| Copilot | Microsoft | Microsoft's documentation says Copilot sends a short query to Bing and shows the sources it used. |
| Gemini | Google's assistant app. Its help pages say it sometimes shows sources and related links under a reply. |
Almost every answer engine starts with a plain search. Google uses its own index. Copilot uses Bing. ChatGPT uses outside search providers that OpenAI doesn't name in its help pages. That's why the boring basics still decide most of the outcome: your site can be crawled, it's indexed, and your facts are clear. Lesson 2 goes deeper into how assistants pick a business.
What's actually different from classic SEO
1. The answer is a summary, not a list
In a classic search, you fight for a click among ten results. In an AI answer, the assistant reads several pages and writes one reply. Your business might get named, linked, both, or left out.
That changes click behavior. Pew Research Center tracked the browsing of 900 US adults in March 2025. When a Google results page showed an AI summary, people clicked a regular result on 8% of visits, compared with 15% when there was no summary. Links inside the AI summary itself were clicked on just 1% of visits. Fewer people scroll past the summary, so getting named in it counts for more than it used to.
2. One question becomes many searches
Google says AI Mode breaks a question into subtopics and runs "a multitude of queries simultaneously." ChatGPT's help center says it "typically rewrites your query into one or more targeted queries." A question like "best family dentist in Columbus that's open Saturdays and takes Delta Dental" might become separate searches for Saturday hours, insurance and reviews. A page that answers those specifics in plain words gets more chances to be picked up.
3. More than one index matters
If you've only ever checked Google, Copilot gives you a reason to check Bing too, because Copilot is built on Bing. A third-party study by Seer Interactive found that 87% of ChatGPT search citations matched Bing's top 20 results for the same question. That's vendor data from about 100 questions, and OpenAI hasn't confirmed which providers it uses, so take it as a hint, not a rule.
4. Your business facts come from more places
For local questions, assistants read more than your website. Google's guidance for AI features tells site owners to keep their Business Profile information up to date. ChatGPT's help center says nearby business listings come from "trusted third-party providers," and reservation availability may come from OpenTable, Resy or Yelp. Consistent, complete listings now feed AI search as well as "local SEO."
What hasn't changed
Google's documentation is blunt: there are "no additional requirements to appear in AI Overviews or AI Mode." A page must be indexed and eligible to show a snippet, and that's the whole list. You don't need special markup, special files or a special writing style.
Bing has taken a similar line. As reported by Search Engine Journal, Bing's February 2026 webmaster guidelines describe GEO as making content eligible to be grounded on and cited in AI answers, and say that, as with SEO, there are no guarantees.
So the foundations haven't moved:
- Your site can be crawled and is in the index.
- Each important page says clearly what you do, where, for whom, and at what price range.
- Your name, address, phone number and hours match everywhere they appear.
- You have recent, genuine reviews, and you reply to them.
Three myths you can drop
"You need an llms.txt file to show up in AI." llms.txt is a proposal from 2024 for a file that summarizes a site for AI agents. Google's AI optimization guide says Google Search ignores these files: they "will neither harm nor help" your visibility. None of the crawler documentation from OpenAI, Perplexity or Anthropic that we checked mentions it either. Lesson 3 covers this in more detail.
"AI search means SEO is dead." Google says its AI features are "rooted in our core Search ranking and quality systems." Copilot runs on Bing. Classic SEO is still the price of entry.
"You can pay to be recommended." Not in organic answers. Google's Business Profile help says "there's no way to request or pay for a better local ranking on Google," and OpenAI's ChatGPT search help says "placement is not guaranteed." Ads are a separate, clearly labeled product.
A worked example: a family dentist
Dr. Patel runs a two-chair dental office in Columbus, Ohio. A parent asks ChatGPT: "Which dentists near Clintonville see kids on Saturdays?"
For ChatGPT to name her, Dr. Patel's practice needs four things:
- To be findable. Her website must not block OAI-SearchBot, and her pages must be in the search indexes ChatGPT draws on.
- To answer the exact question. A "Pediatric dentistry" page that says, in plain text, "We see children from age 2. Open Saturdays 8 a.m. to 1 p.m. in Clintonville" beats a page that says "We love smiles!"
- Matching facts elsewhere. Her Google Business Profile, Yelp and Bing Places listings should all show the same Saturday hours.
- Proof. Recent reviews that mention kids and Saturday visits help both people and machines see that she's a good fit.
None of that is a trick; it comes down to being clear, consistent and easy to check.
Do this now
FAQ
Is AEO the same as GEO?
For a small business, effectively yes. AEO is the older term from featured snippets and voice search; GEO comes from a 2023 research paper about AI-generated answers. Both mean making your information easy for an answer engine to use and cite.
Do I need to hire a special "AEO agency"?
Not necessarily. Google says there are no extra technical requirements for its AI features, and it advises evaluating third-party AEO and GEO advice carefully. The work is mostly good SEO, accurate listings and genuine reviews.
Which AI tool should I care about most?
Start with Google (AI Overviews and AI Mode) and ChatGPT, then check Copilot and Perplexity. In BrightLocal's 2026 survey, ChatGPT was the most-used AI tool for local recommendations, followed by Google's AI Mode.
Sources
- AI features and your website, Google Search Central (checked Oct 2026)
- Optimizing for generative AI features in Google Search, Google Search Central (checked Oct 2026)
- AI Mode update, May 20, 2025, Google (checked Oct 2026)
- Introducing ChatGPT search, OpenAI (checked Oct 2026)
- ChatGPT search, OpenAI Help Center (checked Oct 2026)
- How does Perplexity work?, Perplexity (checked Oct 2026)
- How web search works in Microsoft 365 Copilot Chat, Microsoft Support (checked Oct 2026)
- View related sources in Gemini Apps, Google Gemini Help (checked Oct 2026)
- GEO: Generative Engine Optimization, Aggarwal et al., arXiv / KDD 2024 (checked Oct 2026)
- Google users are less likely to click on links when an AI summary appears, Pew Research Center (checked Oct 2026)
- Bing adds GEO to official guidelines, Search Engine Journal (checked Oct 2026; reporting on Bing's guidelines)
- 87% of SearchGPT citations match Bing's top results, Seer Interactive (vendor study) (checked Oct 2026)
- Local Consumer Review Survey 2026: AI and trust, BrightLocal (vendor survey) (checked Oct 2026)
- Tips to improve your local ranking on Google, Google Business Profile Help (checked Oct 2026)
- The /llms.txt file proposal, llmstxt.org (checked Oct 2026)
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