The short answer
Answer engine optimization (AEO) is the work of making a business easy for AI assistants to find, understand, trust and quote. Success is measured as citations and mentions inside AI answers, not only rankings.
How answer engines pick sources
Engines such as ChatGPT search, Perplexity and Google AI Overviews retrieve candidate pages from a search index, rank them for relevance and trust, and write an answer that cites a few. Being retrievable, quotable and corroborated is what gets you chosen.
AEO vs SEO vs GEO
SEO earns rankings. AEO earns citations to your pages. GEO shapes how models describe and recommend your brand across the web. They share foundations, so we run them as one programme with separate measures.
Where to start
Run a prompt panel: 50 or more real buyer questions, asked in each engine, logged-out, in your market. The gaps tell you which pages to write and which sources to earn.