AI Assistants Actionable Strategies: AEO And GEO

AI Assistants Actionable Strategies: AEO And GEO

What are AEO and GEO?

AEO (Answer Engine Optimization) and GEO (Generative Engine Optimization) are about how you win the recommendation in AI-powered discovery. AEO drives clarity- accurate, real-time data that AI can interpret. While SEO drives credibility, content positions your brand as authoritative.

AEO is an extension of SEO, changing the focus through Answer Engine Optimization. It doesn’t ask questions about “Will someone click this?” Instead, it asks “Can this be used as the answer?”. While GEO is the newest layer but not replace SEO. It enhances its impact with genAI search. GEO is all about how LLMs find, assess, and link to material on the web.

Evolution of AI Search

Search has evolved beyond the traditional list of links and users finding answers through voice assistants, AI chatbots, and generative search engines that summarize information instantly.

Whether GEO, AIO, or SEO, one thing not changes and that does not change is visibility. In today’s world of AI search, it's not bot just about being found but about being selected, and it starts with content. AI search is rapidly evolving, reshaping how people find and consume information online. In June 2025, AI referrals to top websites spiked 357% year-over-year, reaching 1.13 billion visits.1 2 Powered by Bing’s search index, experiences like Microsoft Copilot, Microsoft Start, and others handle billions of queries each month, embedding Bing deeply into how people search, shop, and explore online.

With Google’s AI overviews, customers are no longer clicking through websites. In a study by Smartly Marketing, they found that 90% businesses are worried about the SEO future because of AI and LLMs. Many digital marketing professionals are in a flurry to adjust their search visibility strategies.

AI-driven shopping is transforming discovery and purchase journeys, traditional SEO focused on clicks; now Answer Engine Optimization (SEO) and Generative Engine Optimization (GEO) determine visibility in LLM-powered ecosystems. It defines Answer/Agentic Engine Optimization (AEO): as “optimizes content for AI agents and assistants like Copilot or ChatGPT so they can find, understand, and present answers effectively.” And it defines “Generative Engine Optimization (GEO): as “optimizes content for generative AI search environments (like LLM-powered engines) to make it discoverable, trustworthy, and authoritative.”

Difference between SEO, AEO, and GEO

Let’s say if SEO focused on driving clicks AEO is focused on driving clarity with enriched, real-time data. GEO helps establish credibility through authoritative voice. And then shares how searches differ:

For instance, SEO: “waterproof rain jacket”

AEO: “Lightweight, packable waterproof rain jacket with stuff pocket, ventilated seams and reflective piping”.

GEO: “Best-rated waterproof jacket by Outdoor magazine, no-hassle returns allowed for 180 days, three-year warranty, 4.8 star rating”

A Three-Part Action Plan Recommended By Microsoft

Strategy 1: Technical Foundations

Foundation of the strategy starts with how content is structured. Product specifications, FAQs, how to guides, and organizational information all need proper schema implementation. Think if your website as a book, and the schema is the table of contents, index, and chapter summary, helping AI to quickly grasp what you are about without reading every word.

Microsoft focuses on feeds: direct data submissions to AI platforms as critical data pathways. If you are not actively pushing structured data to these systems, then you are invisible by default.

Strategy 2: Intent and Clarity: Modular Content Architecture

While traditional blog posts and landing pages are written for humans scrolling through search results, AI systems operate differently: they are looking for clear, modular answers to specific questions. Further, Microsoft guide suggest restructuring content into discrete, answerable chunks, with each section being able to stand alone as a complete response to a potential query. This means organizing content so that an AI assistant can extract the exact answer a user needs without wading through irrelevant context.

Strategy 3: Trust Signals

A third-party pathway Microsoft identifies is off-site data: third-party mentions and references establishing authority. This is where AEO & GEO intersect with traditional PR and reputation management, but with a technological twist.

Verified reviews, expert citations, academic references, and mentions from established publications all contribute to the “trust score” in the AI systems' algorithms.

What’s Next?

Implementing Microsoft’s framework requires expertise in structured data, content architecture, and the rapidly evolving landscape of AI search systems. If the team is ready for building visibility in ChatGPT, Copilot, Gemini, and Perplexity, partnering with specialists who understand both technical and strategic dimensions of this shift is important.

Final Thoughts

SEO matters, but AEO and GEO determine how well content is interpreted, explained, and chosen inside AI assistants and agents. Furthermore, AI shopping is not a single authoritative signal across crawled content, structured feeds and live site experiences. The winning brands are consistent, machine-readable data, and clear content consist of useful contextual information that can be easily summarized.