AEO, or answer engine optimization, means making your business easy for AI assistants to find, understand, and trust, so they name you when someone asks for what you do. It isn’t a replacement for SEO. It’s mostly the same groundwork, held to a higher standard, because an AI answer names a few businesses and stops.
What AEO is, in plain English
Ask Google for a plumber and you get a list you can scroll. Ask ChatGPT and you get two or three names. That’s the whole difference, and it’s why AEO matters: there’s no page two. AI assistants don’t have opinions about your business. They search, read what they find about you, and repeat what several sources agree on.
So the job is simple to describe. Make sure that everywhere an assistant might look, it finds the same clear facts about you, plus proof from other people that you’re good.
Where AI assistants get their answers
Each assistant leans on different places. This is what the companies themselves have confirmed:
| Assistant | Where it looks |
|---|---|
| Google AI Overviews and AI Mode | Google’s regular search index, plus your Google Business Profile and Maps data. |
| Gemini | Public Google Maps information for addresses, websites, ratings, and hours. |
| ChatGPT | Live web searches using its own search crawler, OAI-SearchBot. In 2026, Yelp also licensed its reviews, photos, and business information to OpenAI for use in ChatGPT. |
| Claude | Its own search crawler, Claude-SearchBot, plus pages it fetches live while answering. |
| Microsoft Copilot | Bing’s search index. A page Bing hasn’t indexed can’t be cited. |
| Perplexity | Searches the web live and shows the sources it cites. |
Notice the pattern: your own website and your Google Business Profile show up everywhere. Get those two right first, and you’ve covered most of it.
What the AI companies themselves say
You don’t have to take an agency’s word for any of this. Each company publishes guidance for site owners, and it’s more boring than the hype, which is good news:
- Google: there’s no separate AI checklist. A page has to be indexed and allowed to show a snippet, and normal SEO best practices apply.
- OpenAI: any public website can appear in ChatGPT search, as long as it doesn’t block OAI-SearchBot (OpenAI publisher FAQ). Placement isn’t guaranteed.
- Anthropic: blocking Claude-SearchBot or Claude-User can reduce how visible your site is in Claude’s answers (Anthropic crawler docs).
- Microsoft: Bing’s updated guidelines say to state facts directly and keep your business name clear and consistent, so AI systems can verify them.
Read together, the official advice comes down to three things: let the crawlers in, get indexed, and say clearly what’s true about your business. Everything else is the same work that gets you found on Google.
How AI picks who to name
Your name, address, phone, hours, and services match everywhere: your site, Google, Bing Places, Apple Maps, Yelp, and Facebook. If one listing has an old phone number, the assistant has to guess which is right, and it tends to skip businesses it’s unsure about.
A site that says plainly what you do, where, and for whom. One clear page per main service, with your town in the words. Answers to the questions customers actually ask, written so a sentence could be quoted on its own.
Reviews act like a filter. In SOCi’s 2026 Local Visibility Index, which looked at more than 350,000 business locations, the ones ChatGPT recommended averaged 4.3 stars. Steady, recent reviews on Google and on the sites your customers use matter.
Mentions on other trusted sites: your chamber of commerce, local news, industry directories, and “best of” lists. A business only described by its own website is a weak recommendation. One described the same way by five other sites is an easy one.
Under all four sits one technical basic: your site has to be readable. That means real text in the page, not text locked inside images or scripts. It also means you don’t block the crawlers. If your site blocks OAI-SearchBot, ChatGPT can’t use your pages in its answers (OpenAI’s crawler docs).
What you can skip
- “AI schema” packages. There’s no special markup for AI. Normal structured data, like LocalBusiness, still helps search engines understand you, so it’s worth having. But anyone selling “AI markup” is selling the same thing under a new name.
- An llms.txt file, for Google. Google has said its search ignores it.
- Fake reviews or keyword-stuffed business names. They break Google’s rules, and AI tools lean on the same data.
- Anyone who guarantees you’ll be named. Nobody controls what an AI says. You can only make the evidence strong.
What to do this month
Finish your Google Business Profile. Right category, every service, hours, photos, and a short description written in plain words. Keep it current.
Claim Bing Places and Apple Business Connect. Bing can import your Google profile in a few minutes.
Set up Bing Webmaster Tools and submit your sitemap. ChatGPT and Copilot both lean on Bing, and its free AI Performance report shows when Copilot cites your pages.
Check your robots.txt. Make sure it doesn’t block Googlebot, Bingbot, OAI-SearchBot, or Claude-SearchBot.
Make your details match everywhere. Search your business name and fix any listing with an old address, phone number, or hours.
Add a real FAQ to your site. Ten questions customers actually ask you, answered in two or three sentences each.
Ask for reviews that say what you did. “Fixed our furnace the same day” helps more than “Great service!” because an assistant can repeat it.
Get mentioned once. Join your chamber, get listed in your industry’s directory, or offer a local reporter a useful quote.
Test it yourself
There’s no dashboard for AI answers, so ask. Once a month, try these in ChatGPT, Gemini, and Perplexity, using your real service and town:
“Who’s the best [what you do] in [your town]?”
“I need [your service] this week in [your town]. Who should I call?”
“What do people say about [your business name]?”
You can also see real visits. ChatGPT adds utm_source=chatgpt.com to the links it sends, so those visitors show up in Google Analytics under that source.
If you’re missing, look at who gets named and which sources they cite. Those sources are where you need to show up next. If the facts about you are wrong, find the listing they came from and fix it.
Want the broader picture first? Start with why your business doesn’t show up on Google, or see how local SEO works.
Rather have it handled?
Every Neodigital site is built so search engines and AI tools can read it: plain text, clear service pages, structured data, and your Google profile set up properly. Then I keep it all consistent and tuned every month. $2,500 to build, $250 a month to run. You see the finished site before you pay. Love it, or pay nothing.