The Future of Discoverability

Remember shaking a Magic 8 Ball as a kid? You’d ask a question, give it a shake, and—like magic—an answer appeared. It wasn’t always right, but it was quick and effortless. Now, picture something far more sophisticated—not only delivering accurate, instant answers but anticipating what you need and even solving the problem and delivering on the solution for you.

That’s where search is headed.

Today’s digital landscape requires more than just Search Engine Optimization (SEO)—brands must also optimize for Answer Engines (AEO), Generative Engines (GEO), and the overall Generative Experience (GXO). In this article, we’ll use AEO as a shorthand to represent both AEO and GEO (and so, GXO), reflecting the broader strategies needed to stay visible in AI-driven environments. Success now depends on measuring what matters—tracking citations, visibility, and performance across AI platforms to stay ahead of the curve.

We have observed the “zero-click” trend for some time now, with roughly 60% of searches ending without a single click. The reality is that people are researching more thoroughly, iterating on their queries, and becoming even more informed before “clicking,” resulting in higher-quality visits.

We are also seeing AI solutions take customers further along their journey. Users now receive direct, conversational answers from AI platforms like OpenAI’s ChatGPT, Google’s Gemini, Perplexity, Anthropic’s Claude, Meta AI / Llama, and others. Generative AI and large language models (LLMs) are reshaping how people engage online moving from searching for information to receiving answers and even completing customer actions, such as through integrated buy buttons.

And this shift is happening fast: ChatGPT's weekly users exceed 400M (representing 4x growth in 15 months) and Google AI Overviews now appear in 47% of all search results. For businesses, this marks a fundamental change in how visibility is achieved online. As people increasingly rely on AI for answers, it’s not enough for brands to climb the SEO ranks—they also need to be trusted and referenced by the AI tools giving the answers.

The marriage of Search with AI

Search engines have long been the starting point for online discovery but are now evolving to be more than just a simple gateway to information. Search engines are integrating AI features, and pure-play AI answer engines are entering the market to meet growing user expectations for speed, relevance, and personalization. These features and tools go beyond just pulling up links by delivering direct, contextual answers to help users complete a task or decide—whether booking a vacation, troubleshooting software, or shopping for a new car.

AI-powered search tools and answer engines are now answering hundreds of millions of questions daily. Users are increasingly finding what they need without leaving the results page. And this “zero-click” experience isn’t just changing how people research or learn about things—it’s redefining how brands are discovered.

Take running shoes. You used to type in “best running shoes for beginners” and had to sift through reviews, articles, and product pages, hoping you wouldn’t fall into an internet rabbit hole along the way. Now you can ask something like, “What’s the best running shoe for my foot type and training goals?” and get a quick, AI-generated recommendation that compares options, shares where to buy, and some answer engines even facilitate the buying journey.

This doesn’t mean SEO no longer matters. Organic search engine traffic remains the dominant discovery source and channel. SEO still plays an important role in capturing non-brand demand, and it’s vital for protecting branded search, ensuring that when someone looks up your company name, the results accurately reflect your brand.

But how users search for information is changing fast. To stay visible, businesses need more than SEO—they must also optimize for how AI selects, synthesizes, and serves up content. And that’s where Answer Engine Optimization (AEO) comes in.

What Is Answer Engine Optimization?

Answer engine optimization is the practice of structuring your digital content so that it’s selected and surfaced by AI platforms. While traditional SEO aims to rank high on search engine results pages (SERPs), AEO is focused on serving up the content that AI platforms choose to surface, summarize, and cite when responding to user queries.

With AEO, your content isn’t competing for clicks—it’s competing to be included as a trusted source. A strong AEO strategy rests on four core pillars:

1. Optimizing for how users ask questions 

AI favors concise, factual, and authoritative content. Content that answers common user questions directly is far more likely to be selected. Formatting information with summaries, numbered lists, Q&As, and well-labeled sections that match natural language queries increases the chances of being surfaced in AI answers.

2. Enabling AI-friendly content architecture 

Content depth (longer sentences containing thoughtful explanations) and readability (e.g., Flesch Reading Ease scores) are also strong predictors of AI visibility according to a recent analysis of the top 10% most cited pages across ChatGPT, Perplexity, and AI Overviews.

3. Managing brand presence across third-party sources

AI answer engines don't just pull from your website. From Reddit and product review sites to news articles and social media, third-party sources shape the digital picture of your brand. If your messaging is inconsistent or inaccurate across these channels, you risk being overlooked or misrepresented. Getting it right everywhere your brand shows up isn't optional anymore—it's how you stay visible and credible.

4. Showing up where influence happens 

AI answer engines like ChatGPT favor content from authoritative domains—and the data proves it. Sites like Wikipedia, G2, Forbes, and Amazon dominate citation volume, with Wikipedia leading by a massive margin at 1.3 million citations. To increase visibility in AI-generated answers, your brand must show up where AI already looks for credible information. Enhancing presence on these high-trust sources—through syndication, guest contributions, or strategic partnerships—can significantly improve the chances of being cited. In this new era, it’s not just about owning your content; it’s about earning a seat at the AI table.

AEO is evolving rapidly, and brands that treat it as a continuous test-and-learn cycle will stay ahead. By tracking AI citations, monitoring brand visibility, and experimenting with emerging content formats and keywords, businesses can position themselves as go-to sources in AI-driven search.

Why AEO Doesn’t Replace SEO (and vice versa)

SEO and AEO may share the same goal—online visibility—but take different paths to get there. SEO was built for a world of clickable links and ranked results. It relies on keywords, backlinks, and metadata to push content to the top of SERPs, with success measured in traffic and clicks. AEO, in contrast, optimizes for how AI models read, interpret, and surface content, with success measured by AI-driven citations and answer placements.

And while a slow page load time can negatively impact traditional SEO rankings and of course user experience, site speed doesn’t appear to carry the same weight in AEO. Still, good crawlability and response times matter for keeping both robots and humans happy across both AEO and SEO.

So, what content gets cited the most by AI answer engines? Interestingly, it’s not always what ranks highest. The same study of the top 10% most cited pages across Google AI Overviews, ChatGPT, and Perplexity showed that these pages had fewer keywords and had fewer backlinks and traffic than their SEO-optimized counterparts. Traditional SEO metrics simply don't carry the same weight when it comes to being selected by AI models.

“Our analysis of millions of queries shows that AI modules and answer engines differ dramatically from search engines, with just 8 - 12% overlap in results. SEO alone won't ensure visibility in this new search paradigm. Brands need to consider Answer Engine Optimization (AEO)—creating clear, context-rich, and AI-friendly content—to remain relevant and visible to answer engines like Google’s AI Overviews, Gemini, ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Microsoft Copilot.” — Josh Blyskal, AI Search Strategist, Profound.

SEO and AEO are both essential—not only for maximum visibility, but also to guide and influence every stage of the customer journey.

SEO plays a critical role at the bottom of the funnel, when people are searching with clear intent and ready to convert. For example, these users may search for reviews on specific brands or products. AEO, meanwhile, is gaining influence at the top and middle of the funnel, helping users explore, compare, and learn before they’re even aware of what solutions exist.

While the lines between these two approaches are increasingly blurred, businesses should recognize that AEO and SEO can (and should) work together to create a seamless discovery-to-conversion pathway. As search behavior continues to shift, businesses will need both strategies to work in tandem.

4 Practical Strategies for AEO

Building an AEO strategy doesn't mean abandoning SEO best practices—it means adjusting how your content is structured, surfaced, and trusted in an AI search environment. Here are four ways to get started:

1. Align content with user intent

AI answer engines prioritize clear, direct responses that match how people naturally ask questions. While many SEO best practices also apply to AEO, studies suggest that easily digestible elements—like numerical facts and expert quotes—tend to perform especially well in AEO.

• Provide concise, well-structured answers that map to common user queries.
• Use the E-E-A-T (Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness) framework to demonstrate credibility and authority.
• Craft rich, contextual content that addresses the full intent behind a question.
• Prepare for multimodal search by optimizing images with descriptive alt text and using video transcripts.
• Align with sources AI already trusts by reverse-engineering AI Overviews. Use tools like Brand24 to analyze competitors’ cited sources and mimic their structure.

2. Structure content for machine readability

If your content isn’t easy to parse, AI models won’t use it. Structured data helps answer engines identify and extract relevant information.

• Implement schema markup to make content machine readable. Google prioritizes schema-tagged FAQs for rich snippets, while AI answer engines use it to better understand and structure content in chat responses.
• Use entity linking and knowledge graphs to reinforce related concepts and topical authority.
• Organize pages with clear subheadings, comparison tables, bullet points, and FAQ sections.
• Add clear, descriptive meta-descriptions to each page.
• Use semantic URL slugs (e.g., /employee-communication-tools instead of /page?id=12345) to help users and AI models quickly understand what a page is about. Pages with simple, readable slugs are more likely to be cited.

3. Expand your third-party presence

AEO extends beyond on-site optimization. AI answer engines pull from a wide range of sources, making brand presence across multiple channels essential.

• Syndicate key messages across third-party sites, including PR placements, industry blogs, and review platforms.
• Since AI prioritizes content from authoritative platforms, republish blogs to sites like Medium and Substack.
• Align AEO efforts with SEO, digital PR, and influencer marketing to reinforce credibility across sources.
• Use consistent messaging across channels so AI engines pull accurate, authoritative responses.

4. Monitor and measure AEO performance

AEO is still an emerging discipline, and what works today will likely evolve. Businesses that treat it like an ongoing test-and-learn process will stay ahead.

• Track AI citations to understand where and how content is being referenced
• Audit “citation velocity” by tracking how often AI cites your content monthly and updating outdated citations.
• Monitor brand mentions and visibility scores across AI-generated results.
• Experiment with content formats to see which structures AI prefers.
• Monitor zero-volume keywords since AI often answers emerging queries before they gain volume. Use SEMrush to find and target these untapped topics.

The takeaway? AEO requires a mindset shift—pushing teams to think holistically about content clarity, credibility, and discoverability across the entire digital ecosystem. While successful SEO ensures your brand gets on the page, successful AEO ensures your brand is part of the conversation, influencing how it's presented as a cited source in AI-driven answers.

From Rankings to Recognition

As zero-click search becomes more common and AI answer engines become the front door to information, brand visibility increasingly hinges on whether AI platforms surface and attribute your content.

SEO still matters—it’s the foundation of digital discoverability. But it’s only part of the equation. The goal isn’t just to rank—it’s to build credibility. Paid formats in search and answer engines are more relevant than ever for your brand to secure its position on relevant queries and questions.

Search visibility is not just about out-optimizing competitors on a results page—it’s about becoming the source AI turns to. That requires content that’s not only technically sound but also consistently trustworthy across every place your brand shows up online.

As AI plays a larger role in shaping what users see—and how they understand it—search visibility requires thinking beyond rankings and designing content for interpretation, not just discovery. The businesses that adapt to this shift will set the standard for digital relevance in the years ahead, influencing not only what gets seen, but what gets said.

This content was developed in collaboration with Profound.