From Search Engine Optimisation to Answer Engine Optimisation (AEO) means we’re shifting from links to hyper-specific answers and context. AEO is about making your content discoverable by answer engines like ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini and Claude. These AI agents find, synthesise and reuse content in response to user prompts.

With traditional SEO, users click a link to find answers themselves. AI agents provide fully formed answers directly. To do this, they scan and synthesise content through several key steps:

• Scanning for relevance – Instead of returning entire sources, agents extract relevant snippets to embed in answers. They’re looking for the specific information that addresses the user’s query.

• Finding direct answers – AI agents prioritise content that directly answers questions. Clear, concise responses to common questions in your domain make your content more likely to be cited.

• Prioritising structure – Content with clear headings, bullet points and numbered steps gets picked up more readily. Structure helps agents quickly parse and understand your content hierarchy.

• Evaluating trust signals – References to authoritative sources and verified subject matter expertise signal trustworthy content. This aligns with Google’s E-E-A-T framework (Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness and Trustworthiness), which AI agents increasingly use to evaluate source credibility.

• Processing multimodal content – “Content” now extends beyond text. AI agents can parse video, audio and PDFs, meaning all formats need optimising for discovery and citation.

The commercial implications are interesting. How will companies optimise content visibility in AI-generated summaries and convert that visibility into downstream action? What does advertising look like when answers are synthesised rather than linked? Will answer engines eventually surface promoted content alongside organic results?

These questions matter because I believe we’ll see a fundamental shift in how users discover and consume information. Companies that understand AEO now will have a significant advantage as AI-mediated search becomes the default.

Main learning point: Answer Engine Optimisation represents a paradigm shift from directing users to content to having your content synthesised and cited by AI agents. The principles remain familiar – clear structure, direct answers, authoritative sources – but the context is entirely new. Understanding how AI agents evaluate, extract and present information will become as critical as traditional SEO has been for the past two decades.

Related links for further learning:

1. https://www.forbes.com/sites/joetoscano1/2025/09/03/ai-is-destroying-seo-rank-now-requires-answer-engine-optimization/
2. https://deepmind.google/models/synthid/
3. https://www.pwc.com/gx/en/issues/technology/next-tech-agenda/what-is-answer-engine-optimisation.html
4. https://www.tryprofound.com/resources/articles/what-is-answer-engine-optimization
5. https://www.usebear.ai/blog/what-is-source-attribution-in-ai-search
6. https://medium.com/towards-artificial-intelligence/answer-engine-optimization-how-to-be-ais-first-choice-in-2026-1df03ee5e40a
7. https://www.frase.io/blog/faq-schema-ai-search-geo-aeo
8. https://ai-marketinglabs.com/lab-experiments/how-does-ai-decide-which-brands-to-trust-in-its-search-results
9. https://medium.com/@broworks/aeo-vs-traditional-seo-what-still-matters-and-what-doesnt-in-2026-8e1018d220b7
10. https://developers.google.com/search/docs/fundamentals/creating-helpful-content