AI Search Optimisation

There is significant overlap, but yes. AI assistants pick sources differently from how Google ranks pages. Schema, source clarity, topical authority, and content structure matter more than they do for traditional ranking. Some pages that rank well organically are completely absent from AI summaries, and vice versa. Treating them as the same loses opportunity.

GEO (Generative Engine Optimisation) is the broader term covering visibility in any AI-generated response. AEO (Answer Engine Optimisation) is older and more specific to direct-answer engines like featured snippets and voice assistants. In practice the work overlaps heavily, and we treat them as one discipline.

Direct testing against ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity, and Google AI Overviews for queries relevant to your business, recording which sources get cited and where you appear. Tooling that reports on this is improving but still patchy, so direct testing is the most reliable method right now.

Faster than traditional SEO in some cases, because AI assistants update their indices and reasoning more often than Google updates rankings. We have seen visibility shift within weeks of schema and content changes going live. That said, it remains less predictable than ranking work, so we set expectations conservatively.

No. Share of search behaviour happening inside AI assistants is growing across every category we look at. Traditional search will not disappear, but assuming Google rankings alone are enough is the same mistake as assuming desktop rankings alone were enough during the mobile shift.