AEO and GEO are two names for the same job: getting your business named, cited and described accurately in AI answers. If you've been quoted one and pitched the other, you're not comparing two services. You're comparing two labels for one discipline, and the label tells you almost nothing about whether the agency behind it is any good.
What each term means
AEO, answer engine optimisation, frames the work around where answers appear: ChatGPT, Perplexity, Google's AI Overviews and their relatives, treated as a new class of engine that composes answers instead of listing links. GEO, generative engine optimisation, frames the same work around how those answers get made: generative models assembling text from retrieved sources. One name looks at the destination, the other at the machinery.
You'll also see AI SEO, LLM SEO, and AI search optimisation. Same discipline again. The vocabulary is unsettled because the field is four years old and everyone selling it wants their term to win.
The work underneath is identical
Whatever the label, the mechanics don't change, because the engines don't care what the industry calls the work. Answers are built the same way everywhere: the engine retrieves a shortlist of pages, reads them for passages it can lift, checks who's speaking and whether the wider web agrees, and composes an answer from the evidence. So the work is the same four jobs under either name: stay retrievable, write passages worth lifting, make your entity unambiguous, and build corroboration across the web. An agency doing real AEO and an agency doing real GEO are doing the same things to the same pages for the same reason.
Why we say AEO
We picked AEO and stuck with it, for two reasons. It describes the thing a business owner can see: the answer, with names in it, where a results page used to be. Nobody outside the industry knows what a generative engine is, and a term you have to explain is a bad term for talking with the people paying for the work. And it names the outcome that matters commercially: being in answers, not optimising for a model. If the industry settles on GEO instead, the work we deliver won't change a word.
What to ask, whichever label you're sold
Since the label carries no information, ask about the substance. Three questions separate the real operators from the rebadged SEO packages: How will you measure whether I'm in answers, and can I see a sample report? Which questions will you track, and how did you choose them? What's the split between on-site work and building corroboration elsewhere? Anyone doing this properly answers all three in plain terms with examples. Anyone who answers with a tool subscription and a dashboard is measuring the weather and calling it a strategy.
We run this work as one retainer with classic search, because the disciplines share a foundation: $2,000 to $10,000+ a month, covered in detail in our cost guide.
FAQ
Is GEO different from AEO?
No. They're competing names for the same discipline: getting named and cited in AI-generated answers. GEO emphasises the generative models, AEO the answer engines. The tactics underneath are the same.
Do I need both AEO and GEO?
You can't buy both, because they're one thing. If an agency quotes them as separate line items, that's two invoices for one job, and worth walking away from.
Which term will win?
Unsettled. AEO currently leads in how businesses search for the service in Australia, which is why we use it. If that changes, the name changes and the work doesn't.
