There's a new sport in marketing and it's called inventing acronyms.
In the last eighteen months we've been handed AEO, GEO, GSO, LLMO, AIO, and "AI SEO" - all describing roughly the same shift: people are using AI tools to find things, and you'd quite like to show up when they do. Every agency and software vendor has picked a favourite three-letter term and planted a flag in it.
So let's cut through it. Here's what each term actually means, where they genuinely differ, where they're just the same idea wearing different hats, and what you should actually focus on. No flag-planting.
SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) - getting your content to rank in traditional search results on Google and Bing. The goal is the click. This is the one you already know.
AEO (Answer Engine Optimisation) - getting your content selected as the direct answer. Featured snippets, voice assistants, and the AI-generated answers that sit at the top of (or instead of) search results. The goal is being the answer.
GEO (Generative Engine Optimisation) - getting your content cited and used as a source inside AI-generated responses from tools like ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Gemini. The goal is being referenced when the AI builds its answer.
That's the textbook split. Now here's the honest bit the textbooks skip.
Here's what most "AEO vs GEO" articles won't tell you: there's no settled, universal definition separating these terms. In everyday use by marketers and software vendors, they're frequently used interchangeably, and the lines between them genuinely blur.
The terms emerged at different moments. AEO came into use as search engines started showing direct answers - featured snippets, knowledge panels - and the goal became getting your content to be the answer shown rather than just a link below it. GEO is the newer term, coined specifically for the era of generative AI tools that synthesise an answer from multiple sources rather than pointing you to a page.
But in practice? When one person says "we do GEO" and another says "we do AEO," they're almost always describing the same work: structuring content so AI tools can cite it, building authority so the models treat you as trustworthy, and answering questions clearly so machines can extract them.
So don't get precious about the acronym. Some practitioners argue AEO is the clearer, more enduring umbrella term. Others have gone all-in on GEO. The work underneath is what matters, and it's largely the same regardless of which three letters end up on the invoice.
The distinctions aren't meaningless, though. There are real differences in what you're optimising for, and they shape how you approach the work.
SEO is about ranking. AEO and GEO are about being referenced. This is the biggest genuine divide. SEO success is measured in positions and clicks. AEO and GEO success is measured in mentions and citations - and you can win without ever getting a click, because the buyer reads the AI's answer and may never visit your site. That's a fundamentally different goal, and it needs fundamentally different measurement.
AEO leans toward "the single best answer." GEO leans toward "one of several trusted sources." When an answer engine wants a direct, definitive response to a specific question, that's the AEO target - be the one. When a generative model builds a longer response from multiple sources, that's the GEO target - be one of the sources it pulls from and credits. In practice these blur together constantly, but the mental model is useful: sometimes you're trying to be the answer, sometimes you're trying to be in it.
SEO has mature tooling. AEO and GEO don't yet. You can measure SEO with precision - rankings, traffic, click-through rates, decades of established practice behind it. AEO and GEO measurement is genuinely early. The models aren't deterministic, the tracking tools are new, and a lot of your wins are invisible by design. Anyone selling you perfectly precise AI-visibility metrics is overselling. The honest approach is to measure for direction, not precision.
Here's the mistake we see most often. Businesses treat this as a choice - "should we do SEO, or switch to AEO?" - as if the new thing replaces the old thing.
It doesn't. SEO is the foundation the others are built on.
This isn't a nice-sounding platitude; it's how the technology works. When you ask ChatGPT or Perplexity a current question, they often search the live web in real time and build the answer from what they find - and the pages they pull from are frequently the strong-ranking organic results. Good traditional SEO is what gets your content into the pool the AI draws from in the first place.
So the relationship is layered, not competitive:
Improve one and you usually lift the others, because they share most of the same underlying signals: clear content, genuine authority, good structure, freshness, and trustworthiness. The formula isn't "pick one." It's SEO plus the AI-era practices layered on top.
Forget the acronym war. Here's the practical priority order.
1. Keep doing SEO properly. It's not dead - it's the foundation. AI answers are changing how often people click through, but strong organic content is still what feeds the AI layer. Abandoning SEO to chase AI search is like demolishing the foundations to renovate the top floor.
2. Layer in the AI-era fundamentals. Call it AEO, GEO, or whatever helps you sleep. The actual work is the same: answer questions directly and early, use clear question-shaped headings, add structured data, keep your best content fresh, and build genuine authority through real references and mentions. These work across every answer engine and every acronym.
3. Get specific about your market. Being explicitly, unmistakably local - and answering the questions your local buyers actually ask - is how you win the searches that are genuinely winnable for an Australian business. Specificity is a signal of relevance, and it puts you in a smaller, more winnable field than competing on broad global terms.
4. Measure honestly. Track your AI visibility with a tool like HubSpot's free AEO Grader, but treat the numbers as directional - watch the trend, not the daily wobble. And add a "How did you hear about us?" question to your enquiry forms so you can see AI-sourced leads as an actual line on a chart rather than a hunch.
The businesses winning AI search aren't the ones who picked the right three letters. They're the ones who kept their SEO strong, structured their content so machines could use it, built real authority in their actual market, and measured honestly enough to keep improving.
Pick whichever term your team finds clearest and get on with the work. The work is what shows up in the answer.
Want a straight answer about where your business stands across search and AI? Let's chat. We'll skip the acronyms and show you what's actually worth doing.
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Happy optimising!