Your next customer is asking ChatGPT, not Google
Buyers increasingly ask AI assistants for recommendations before they ever search. Here is what Answer Engine Optimization (AEO) means for an established business, and five steps to start.
- A growing share of buyers ask an AI assistant for a shortlist before they search.
- Reputation does not carry over automatically; assistants recommend businesses they can read and verify.
- Clear, consistent, cited and useful businesses get named most often.
- SEO and AEO share one foundation; AEO adds how you are described across the whole web.
For twenty years, being found meant ranking on Google. That still matters. But a growing share of buyers now start somewhere else: they ask an AI assistant. “Who are the best packaging suppliers in the UAE?” “Which agencies in Chennai do B2B lead generation?” The assistant gives a short answer with a few names. If you are not one of them, you were never considered.
Answer Engine Optimization, or AEO, is the work of making sure AI assistants know who you are, understand what you do, and trust you enough to recommend you.
Why this matters more for established businesses
Large, established companies often assume their reputation will carry over. It doesn’t automatically. AI assistants build their answers from what they can read and verify across the web. A business with twenty years of quiet excellence but a thin online footprint can lose the recommendation to a younger competitor that explains itself clearly everywhere.
How AI assistants decide who to mention
There is no single ranking factor to game. In practice, assistants favour businesses that are:
- Clearly described: what you do, for whom and where, stated plainly on your own site.
- Consistently described: the same facts across your website, LinkedIn, directories and press.
- Cited by others: mentioned in articles, partner sites, case studies and reviews.
- Useful: publishing answers to the questions your buyers actually ask.
If you are not in the answer, you were never on the shortlist.
Five steps to start
- Ask the assistants. Put the questions your buyers ask into ChatGPT, Gemini and Perplexity. Note who gets named, and what is said about you, if anything.
- Fix the basics on your site. One clear sentence on every key page saying what you do, for whom and where. Add structured data so machines can read it.
- Make your facts match everywhere. Name, services, locations and contact details should be identical on your site, LinkedIn and every directory.
- Publish real answers. Turn the questions your sales team hears every week into short, specific articles and FAQs.
- Earn mentions. Case studies with partners, industry articles and genuine reviews all give assistants more reasons to trust you.
SEO or AEO?
Both. Good SEO and good AEO share the same foundation: a clear, fast, well-structured site with useful content. AEO adds a focus on how your business is described across the whole web, not just on your own pages.
Our complimentary Revenue Review includes an AI visibility check: what the main assistants say about you and your competitors today, and what to fix first.
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