AEO Now Replaces SEO

As more people start using chatbots for answers instead of search engines, marketers are turning their attention from search engine optimization (SEO) to answer engine optimization (AEO).

Why It Hits: Using chatbots instead of search engines like Google to answer questions like “Which airline has the cheapest fares?” or “Is this mole on my back normal?” is a fundamentally different technology — but still pulls from the same dataset: the internet. Optimizing websites or online content so that chatbots like ChatGPT, Claude, or Gemini consistently surface them in queries requires a new approach to building them.

Between the Lines: Goodbye, SEO… hello, AEO.

• While SEO usually focuses on putting one or more keywords in a piece of content so that it shows up prominently in a Google Search, AEO requires a more holistic approach to attract chatbots.
• That means content optimized for AEO needs to address dozens of interconnected questions, allowing systems to determine that it’s a quality recommendation, theoretically.

The Future: There are a lot of facets to consider now that chatbots pull from the internet in real time, so dozens of AEO-focused companies have popped up in recent months, attracting serious VC attention and already leading to more chatbot-driven results. David Slater, a former CMO of blue-chip firms like Mozilla and Salesforce, told Insider that AEO is “absolutely going to be a hot space.” And considering chatbots give slightly different answers every time you ask the same question, that could be a benefit to upstart companies that know how to work the system.

Prediction: Since effective AEO requires developers to focus more on the overall substance of a piece of content rather than just keywords, it could maybe… hopefully… signal a decline in clickbait.