AI SEO is the practice of making your business easy for AI-powered search — ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, Copilot and Google AI Overviews — to find, understand and recommend. It combines classic SEO with answer-ready content, clear business identity and access for AI crawlers.
- AI SEO builds on classic SEO rather than replacing it.
- The goal shifts from ranking a link to being quoted in an answer.
- Structure, facts and consistency matter more than keyword density.
Why the term exists
Search used to end in a list of links. Increasingly it ends in a written answer that names a few businesses and cites a few sources. “AI SEO” describes the work of being one of those names and sources. You’ll also see it called generative engine optimization (GEO) or answer engine optimization (AEO).
What stays the same
Pages still need to be crawlable, indexable, fast, secure and useful. AI assistants find sources through search indexes, so a site that struggles on Google will usually struggle in AI answers too.
What changes
- Answers over keywords. Direct, self-contained answers to real questions.
- Facts over adjectives. Prices, timeframes, licenses and numbers are quotable; “best in town” isn’t.
- Identity over volume. One consistent description of who you are, everywhere.
- Access for AI crawlers. Answer-engine bots must be allowed to read your site.
Where to start
Run a free AI visibility audit, unblock AI crawlers, add structured data for your business, then rewrite your most important pages so every key question has a direct answer.