AEO: how AI assistants decide which businesses to name.

People used to type keywords into a box. More of them now ask a sentence: “Who is a good plumber near Culver City that can come this week?” The answer may come from Google’s AI summary, ChatGPT, Gemini, or a voice assistant. That surface is what we mean by an answer engine.

Answer Engine Optimization (AEO) is the work of making sure your business can be read, verified, and confidently named when those systems answer. It is not a replacement for SEO. It is the next layer on top of a footprint that already works for search and Maps.

AI can only recommend what it can trust

Language models do not magically know your shop exists. They lean on training data, live retrieval, and public pages that are clear enough to quote. If your business is a ghost online, the model will name someone else who is not.

Three things have to be true before you show up in useful answers:

1. You exist in crawlable public form. A site that answers who you are, what you do, and where you serve. Consistent name and location. Not only a Facebook page behind a login wall.
2. The facts agree. Hours, phone, address, and services match across the site, Google Business Profile, and major directories. Contradictions make systems cautious.
3. There is something worth citing. Plain descriptions of services, service area, and what makes you a fit. Reviews and third-party mentions help. Vague marketing language does not.

What AEO looks like in practice

Skip the jargon. The practical build is boring and effective:

• Clear service pages written for humans, not keyword soup
• Structured data (schema) that states organization, local business, services, and FAQs in a machine-readable way
• A solid Google Business Profile. Map pack visibility and AI retrieval often share the same public facts. See the five GBP gaps that kill rankings.
• An optional llms.txt or similar plain brief so assistants that look for one can learn who you are quickly. We publish one for this studio at /llms.txt.
• Content that answers real questions: hours, pricing model, service area, what you do not do

None of this requires gaming a secret algorithm. It requires being legible.

SEO and AEO are the same system

If your site ranks and converts for search, you are already halfway to AEO. Fast pages, honest titles, internal links, and a sitemap help both. If your site is thin, slow, or contradictory, fixing that helps Google and AI assistants for the same reason: clearer evidence.

What changes is the success metric. SEO often tracks rankings and clicks. AEO also cares whether you get named in a zero-click answer. The customer may never visit your site. They may call from the recommendation alone. That is why the full footprint matters: search, maps, site, and AI-readable presence pointing the same way. More on that framing in findability as the new front door.

A simple test you can run today

1. Ask ChatGPT or Gemini: “Recommend a [your category] in [your city].”
2. Ask the same with your neighborhood or a landmark nearby.
3. Note who gets named, and what facts the answer cites.
4. Search those same terms on Google and open the map pack.

If you are absent from both, the footprint is incomplete. If you appear in Maps but never in AI answers, the public pages may be too thin or inconsistent to cite. If you appear in neither, start with the Scorecard and the basics, not with advanced tricks.