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.
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