What Are SEO, AEO and Generative Engine Optimization? A Plain-English Guide

If you have talked to a marketing vendor this year, you have probably heard three acronyms in one sentence: SEO, AEO, and GEO. The last one, generative engine optimization, is the newest and the one most often oversold. In this guide, I will explain what each term means in plain English, what the research and Google actually say about generative engine optimization, and where your money should go if you want buyers to find your company in Google and in AI answers.

I have spent more than 25 years in PR, at top New York agencies and in-house at the NBA and NASCAR. This one matters, but probably not in the way you are being sold.

SEO, AEO and GEO in one minute

Here is the short version.

SEO, or search engine optimization, is the work of ranking in Google’s regular list of results. You search, you see ten blue links, and you click one.

AEO, or answer engine optimization, is the work of being the answer that appears before anyone clicks. Think Google’s AI Overviews, featured snippets, and voice assistants.

GEO, or generative engine optimization, is the work of being named and cited when someone asks an AI tool like ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude, or Perplexity a question.

Even the experts do not agree on where one ends and the next begins. Wikipedia’s entry on generative engine optimization notes that usage varies across practitioners, vendors, and publications, with no consensus definition. Some people use AEO and GEO to mean the same thing.

That confusion is useful to know about. When a vendor tells you that GEO is a brand-new discipline that requires a brand-new budget, remember that nobody has agreed on what it is yet.

If you want the side-by-side table, we published one in AI Search Visibility: Is Your Company in ChatGPT’s Answer? That post also walks through a 30-minute test you can run on your own company today.

Where generative engine optimization came from

The term generative engine optimization comes from academic research, not from a marketing agency. According to Wikipedia, it was introduced in a 2023 paper by Pranjal Aggarwal and co-authors and later presented at the KDD 2024 conference.

The paper itself is public on arXiv. The authors described a new kind of search engine that gathers information from many sources and summarizes it with a large language model. They pointed out the problem for anyone who publishes online: content creators have little to no control over when and how their content shows up in those AI answers.

So they tested ways to change that. They built a benchmark of user questions and found that their methods could boost visibility by up to 40% in generative engine responses.

That is a real finding, and it is the source of a lot of the hype. But read it carefully. It measured how page content performed in AI answers under test conditions. It did not show that a company can buy its way into ChatGPT’s recommendations with a technical checklist.

The useful lesson for a buyer is simpler. AI tools build their answers from sources. Generative engine optimization, at its core, is about becoming one of the sources those tools trust. That is the question the rest of this guide answers.

What Google says about generative engine optimization

Google has now addressed AEO and GEO directly. Its guide to optimizing for generative AI search calls them terms “you may see used” for work focused on visibility in AI search. Then it says this: “From Google Search’s perspective, optimizing for generative AI search is optimizing for the search experience, and thus still SEO.”

In other words, Google does not treat generative engine optimization as a separate game for its own AI features. The same fundamentals apply.

The same guide includes a section on what you do not need to do. According to Google:

• You do not need LLMS.txt files or other special AI files and markup to appear in Google Search, including its generative AI features.
• You do not need to break your content into tiny “chunks” for AI to understand it.
• You do not need to rewrite your content in a special way just for AI.
• Chasing inauthentic “mentions” across the web is not as helpful as it might seem.
• Structured data is not required for generative AI search, though it still helps with rich results.

Google also warns site owners to be wary of third-party tools that promise ranking success, and says plainly that no third-party tool has access to its internal ranking or AI systems.

That is worth reading twice before you sign a generative engine optimization contract. If a GEO proposal is built around the items on that list, ask why.

What AI tools actually cite

If special files and rewrites are not what generative engine optimization comes down to, what is? Look at what AI tools cite.

Muck Rack, a media database used by PR teams, tracks the sources that ChatGPT, Claude, and Gemini cite. Its May 2026 report, “What Is AI Reading?”, found that about 84% of AI citations come from earned media. That group includes journalism, academic research, government sources, encyclopedic sites like Wikipedia, and social platforms. Journalism alone accounts for about 27% of all citations.

Paid and advertorial content accounts for just 0.3%. Press releases account for 1.1%.

That one finding reframes generative engine optimization for most companies. The sources AI trusts are mostly the sources people have always trusted: reporters, researchers, and reference sites. Sponsored articles barely register.

The report also found that ChatGPT cites sources in 96% of its responses, with an average of five citations per response. Five is a short list. If a few trusted outlets have written about your competitor and not about you, the AI has very little reason to name you.

This is why I tell buyers that AI visibility is an outcome of earned media, not a separate product. When a reporter at a trusted outlet writes about your company, that story can rank in Google, earn you a backlink, and become a source an AI tool reads. You earn it once, and it keeps working.

Why it matters for your business now

You might be wondering whether any of this changes how buyers behave. The data says it does.

Pew Research Center studied the browsing activity of 900 U.S. adults in March 2025. In its analysis, about 18% of Google searches produced an AI summary.

When an AI summary appeared, users clicked a traditional search result in 8% of visits. When there was no summary, they clicked a result in 15% of visits, nearly twice as often. Users clicked a link inside the AI summary itself in just 1% of visits.

Put simply, more buyers read the answer and never visit a website. If your company is not named in the answer, you may never know that a buyer was looking.

That is the real case for paying attention to generative engine optimization. Not because there is a secret technical trick, but because being cited by trusted sources now decides whether you are on the shortlist at all.

It also means the old way of measuring success is incomplete. A page that ranks well but is never cited in the AI answer above it may get fewer clicks than it used to. Google now offers a Generative AI performance report in Search Console, according to the same Google guide, so you can see how people find your content through its AI features.

Where to spend your budget

Here is how I would think about SEO, AEO, and generative engine optimization if I were a buyer hiring for the first time.

Technical SEO is the foundation. Your site should load fast, be easy for search engines to crawl, and answer questions clearly. This is blocking and tackling. It is necessary, and much of it can be done with good software and a capable team. It is not the strategy.

Editorial backlinks are the hard, valuable part. A link from a story in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, CNBC, or USA Today cannot be bought, and it cannot be copied by a competitor. Earning it is a PR job. It takes news judgment, relationships, and a story a reporter actually needs.

AI visibility follows. When trusted outlets cover you, the same stories help you rank in Google and give AI tools credible sources to cite. That is the part of generative engine optimization that is backed by data.

At Prism, this is how we work. We create data-driven studies that give reporters a fresh number and a reason to write. For Social Catfish, an annual State of Online Scams study earned 3,862 editorial backlinks and coverage in CNBC, USA Today, and Reuters. You can read the full Social Catfish case study. Across our clients, we have placed more than 25,000 stories and earned 20,000 backlinks.

More on how we approach all three acronyms is on our SEO, AEO and GEO page.

Questions to ask any GEO vendor

Before you hire anyone for generative engine optimization, ask these five questions:

1. What exactly will you change, and which of Google’s “you don’t need to do this” items is on your list?
2. Will this earn coverage from outlets that AI tools already cite in my category?
3. Are any of the placements paid or sponsored? (Paid content was 0.3% of AI citations in Muck Rack’s report.)
4. How will you measure results, and what data does your tool actually have access to?
5. What happens if nothing changes in six months?

A good answer to question two matters more than the other four combined.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is generative engine optimization in simple terms?

Generative engine optimization (GEO) is the work of getting your company named and cited when people ask AI tools like ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude, or Perplexity a question. In practice, it means becoming one of the trusted sources those tools draw from.

What is the difference between AEO, GEO, and SEO?

SEO is ranking in Google’s regular results. AEO is being the answer in features like Google AI Overviews and featured snippets. GEO is being cited by AI chat tools. The terms overlap, and there is no single agreed definition.

Is SEO dead now with AI?

No. Google’s own guidance says optimizing for its generative AI search is still SEO. The fundamentals still apply to generative engine optimization, and the sources that rank and the sources AI cites often overlap.

Do I need an LLMS.txt file to show up in AI answers?

Not for Google. Google says its search, including its generative AI features, does not use LLMS.txt files, so creating one will neither help nor hurt your visibility there.

What is the best way to get cited by AI tools?

The most reliable form of generative engine optimization is earning coverage from trusted sources. Muck Rack’s May 2026 report found that about 84% of AI citations come from earned media and just 0.3% from paid or advertorial content.

The bottom line

Generative engine optimization is a new name for an old truth: the companies that get recommended are the ones that trusted sources write about. The technical work matters, and it is the foundation. The editorial backlinks and coverage are what move the needle in Google and in AI answers.

If you want a senior team that has earned coverage for the NBA, NASCAR, and growing brands alike, schedule an intro meeting. Or start smaller with our pay-for-performance linkbuilding pilot, where data-driven studies start at $1,999 and you only pay for DR 50+ links we secure. No links, no invoice.