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AI search · 2025.01.15 · 8 min read

GEO, AEO, AI SEO — what differs, and why you need all three

ChatGPT and Perplexity are rewriting search. Conventional SEO cannot answer that shift.

Search behaviour started shifting in 2024. A meaningful share of buyers now open ChatGPT instead of Google and ask "recommend a customer management tool for B2B SaaS." Perplexity summarises results and cites its sources. Google itself puts AI Overviews (formerly SGE) above everything else on the results page.

The problem is that conventional SEO strategy was never tuned for this environment. Google crawlers and AI crawlers read content differently, and they rank it by different logic. This piece explains three core concepts — GEO, AEO and AI SEO — how they differ, and why all three matter.

What GEO is (Generative Engine Optimization)

GEO is the work of getting generative AI engines — ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Perplexity — to treat your company as a source they can trust.

Generative models assemble answers from training data and live crawling. Which companies and brands an AI cites on a given topic depends heavily on how much content about you exists on the web, and how consistent it is.

The goal of GEO: "when an AI covers this topic, it mentions us without being prompted to."
How to execute GEO
Write definition-shaped paragraphs an AI can lift verbatim (e.g. "X is …")
Publish industry statistics, data and comparisons in structured form
Earn mentions and backlinks from authoritative outside sites
Strengthen author expertise signals (E-E-A-T)
What AEO is (Answer Engine Optimization)

AEO is the work of getting AI search engines to use your content directly when they answer a question. FAQ structured data, JSON-LD Schema, and clean question-and-answer formatting are the core of it.

Answer engines like Perplexity and Google AI Overviews look for the content that states the answer most clearly, then cite it. Concise, structured answers get cited far more often than long explanations.

The goal of AEO: "have the best answer ready in advance for the questions your buyers will ask an AI."
How to execute AEO
Implement FAQPage Schema (JSON-LD)
Write H2 and H3 headings as questions
Place a clear 40–60 word answer directly beneath each question
Structure definitions, comparisons and step-by-step content
What AI SEO is

AI SEO targets citation inside traditional search engines that have absorbed AI — Google AI Overviews, Bing Copilot. It layers AI-friendly elements on top of a conventional technical SEO foundation.

Google already serves an AI-generated summary above its results. Getting cited in that summary requires strong structured data and E-E-A-T signals on top of the usual SEO fundamentals: page speed, mobile optimisation, backlinks.

The goal of AI SEO: "when Google summarises results with AI, our site is one of the sources."
Why you need all three

The three overlap, but each targets a different channel and a different citation mechanism.

GEO AEO AI SEO
Main channels ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini Perplexity, AI Overviews Google, Bing
Primary lever Brand authority, content volume Schema, FAQ structure Technical SEO + E-E-A-T
Time to effect 3–6 months 2–4 weeks 1–3 months

AI search is not one channel. Your buyers search differently in ChatGPT, in Perplexity, and in Google. Being visible in only one of them is partial visibility. Treating all three as one programme is what produces complete visibility in the AI search era.

Where to start

If starting all three at once is unrealistic, we recommend this order.

First — technical foundation (immediately): Verify static HTML structure, allow AI crawlers in robots.txt, apply basic Organization Schema
Second — AEO (1–2 weeks): Implement FAQPage Schema and build clear answer pages for your ten core questions
Third — GEO (1–3 months): Publish citation-optimised content continuously and earn external mentions

Intesol Korea delivers all three as a single AI search visibility programme. Start by checking where you stand with a free AI visibility diagnostic.

See it for yourself
Check your AI visibility score now
A free diagnostic measures your GEO, AEO and AI SEO standing on a 100-point scale.
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Contents
What GEO is (Generative Engine Optimization)
What AEO is (Answer Engine Optimization)
What AI SEO is
Why you need all three
Where to start
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Intesol Korea · written from measurements on our own domain.