Generative engine optimization vs AEO depends on your business: if customers ask AI "who is the best" before they buy, put GEO first, and if they mostly ask quick "how" or "what" questions, put AEO first.
Most businesses need both, so the real decision is where your first month of effort goes, and this page answers that by business type.
GEO, or generative engine optimisation, means getting your business named inside answers that AI tools write.
AEO, or answer engine optimisation, means getting your page picked as the one direct answer in a box or on a speaker.
I run a 7-figure SEO agency and I test this on my own sites every week, so the priorities below are my opinion from that work, not a law of nature.
If you'd like my team to tell you which one fits your business, book my free one-to-one GEO, AEO AI audit and get a custom game plan.
Which To Prioritise, By Business Type
This table is my opinion on where each type of business should put its first month of effort.
| Business type | Prioritise first | Why | First move |
|---|---|---|---|
| Local service business, such as a plumber or dentist | GEO for "best" searches, with AEO close behind | Customers ask AI who the best local option is, and they also ask quick practical questions. | Get your name, service and town identical on your site, your Business Profile and directories. |
| Agency or B2B service | GEO | Buyers ask who the best provider is, and AI answers name only a few. | Publish one case study page per real client result you're allowed to share. |
| Consultant or personal brand | GEO | AI answers describe experts by what they've publicly tested and shared. | Publish your experiments with real numbers on every platform you use. |
| Ecommerce shop | Both, split evenly | Product questions suit AEO, and "best X for Y" searches suit GEO. | Answer your top product questions under clear headings and keep Merchant Center up to date. |
| SaaS or software tool | GEO | Buyers ask AI to compare tools, and comparison pages feed those answers. | Write honest comparison pages that include your own real test results. |
| News or information publisher | AEO | Readers ask quick factual questions, and voice assistants read news aloud. | Put the direct answer first and look at Google's speakable markup if you publish news. |
| Course, coaching or community | GEO | Buyers ask AI which community or course is best. | Publish a disclosed "best of" list with your offer first and real alternatives below. |
If your business sits between two rows, use the row your best customers come from.
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The Two Terms In Plain English
GEO is about being one of the names an AI recommends when someone asks a question.
The term comes from a 2023 research paper, GEO: Generative Engine Optimization by Pranjal Aggarwal and colleagues, which was accepted to KDD 2024.
AEO is about being the one answer in a featured snippet or the one reply a voice assistant reads out.
It's the term from the snippet and voice assistant era, and Google still documents featured snippets as boxes where the descriptive snippet shows first.
If you want the longer history of both, read my generative engine optimization vs answer engine optimization comparison.
The One-Question Test For Any Business
If you don't fit neatly into the table, this test settles it in five minutes.
- Write down the question a customer asks right before they pay you.
- Type that exact question into Google, AI Mode and ChatGPT.
- If the answer is a short list of business names, that's a GEO question.
- If the answer is one box or one plain fact, that's an AEO question.
- Put your first month of effort into whichever type your money questions turn out to be.
Most owners are surprised by step two, because they've never seen who the AI names for their own market.
Local Service Businesses
Local businesses sit right on the line, which is why I put GEO first and AEO close behind.
A customer might ask "who's the best emergency plumber in Leeds", which is a recommendation question.
The same customer might ask "how long does a boiler service take", which is a quick factual question.
My favourite proof for service businesses is the "best HARO agency" example in my GEO examples video.
The AI Overview lists five suppliers and links Goldie Agency first, and Goldie Agency also ranks first organically.
That's a normal service business, and the same approach can work for a dentist, a plumber or an accountant.
Google's AI features and your website page also lists checking that your Business Profile information is up to date as a best practice.
📞 Want to see who the AI names in your town right now? Book a free AEO SEO strategy session and my team will run a competitor gap check on your best local searches. → Get your custom game plan for Google and AI search
Agencies, Consultants And Personal Brands
For service sellers and experts, I'd put GEO first without much debate.
Buyers ask "who is the best" far more often than they ask a quick factual question about a provider.
In my GEO examples video, Google's AI Overview for "best geo expert" names me first and cites several of my pages.
In my Hermes GEO video, AI Mode describes me as widely recognised as a top practitioner because of public testing and deployment.
The lesson is that to be named as the expert, you have to show you've actually done the work.
That's why every page I publish carries a real case study, which is the first move of the system I call the answer engine.
Ecommerce Shops
Ecommerce is the most even split, because shoppers ask both kinds of question.
Product questions, such as "is this jacket waterproof", suit AEO, because the answer is one clear fact.
Recommendation searches, such as "best waterproof jacket for hiking", suit GEO, because the answer is a short list.
Google's AI features page lists checking that your Merchant Center information is up to date as a best practice.
I'd answer the top product questions on each product page and publish honest buying guides for the "best" searches.
SaaS And Software Tools
For software, I'd put GEO first, because buyers ask AI to compare tools before they ever visit a pricing page.
When I had Hermes Agent analyse my own Search Console data in my video, comparison articles were one of the things working.
So I'd write honest comparison pages with real test results, including the parts where a competitor is better.
AEO still helps with "how do I" support questions, so keep those answers short and clear in your help docs.
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Publishers, Courses And Communities
News and information publishers are the one group where I'd put AEO first.
Readers ask quick factual questions, and Google documents speakable structured data, still in beta, for Google Assistant to read news sections aloud.
Courses, coaching programmes and communities are the opposite, because buyers ask which one is best.
In my GEO examples video, AI Profit Boardroom ranks first for "best AI SEO community", and that article was three days old when I checked.
That's my result, not a promise, and it came from a disclosed list with my own offer first.
Where To Spend: GEO-Only, AEO-Only And Shared Work
Whatever your business type, the work splits into three buckets.
| Bucket | What the work is | Who should spend most here |
|---|---|---|
| Shared work | Make pages crawlable and snippet-eligible, answer each question in the first two lines, keep business facts identical and fact-check everything. | Every business should do this first. |
| GEO-only work | Add case studies, cited sources, quotes and statistics, get other sites to agree about you, and publish disclosed listicles. | Agencies, consultants, SaaS, courses and local services should spend most here. |
| AEO-only work | Format answers as short lists or tables, write voice-friendly answers and add follow-up questions. | Publishers and ecommerce shops should spend most here. |
The GEO bucket has research behind it, because the GEO paper found citing sources, adding quotations and adding statistics were its top methods.
The same paper found keyword stuffing didn't help, so don't pay anyone to do it.
Here's my GEO examples video, where I show the real results behind the priorities above.
📞 Want your first month of GEO and AEO work planned for you? Grab my free one-to-one GEO, AEO AI audit and leave with a plan built around the keywords you're closest to winning. → Book the free call
Tools For Each Job, By Budget
Most businesses can start for free, so here's how I'd split the tools.
| Budget | GEO tools | AEO tools |
|---|---|---|
| Free | A manual prompt log, plus Hermes Agent reading a Google Search Console export, as I show in my video. | Google Search Console plus a manual check of who holds each featured snippet. |
| Free checks for both | The Rich Results Test checks your structured data. | The Schema Markup Validator checks any schema.org markup. |
| Paid | Ahrefs Brand Radar tracks visibility across AI answers, YouTube and Reddit, and the Semrush AI Visibility Toolkit tracks brand visibility in AI search. | I'd stick with the free AEO stack above, because a manual snippet check is usually enough here. |
I've described the paid tools only from their own pages and left prices out, because they change.
Google says traffic from AI Overviews and AI Mode is counted inside Search Console's performance report under the "Web" search type, so you won't see it as a separate line.
How To Judge Results Without Guarantees
Nobody can guarantee what an AI answer will say, so judge the work on trends instead of promises.
- Track how many of your money questions name you this month compared with last month.
- Track whether the AI describes your business accurately.
- Track clicks and impressions in Search Console for the pages you improved.
- Track leads that mention finding you through an AI tool.
One of my sites went from zero to more than 1,300 clicks a day, but that's my result from my own screens and not a forecast for yours.
Any provider who guarantees an AI placement is promising something nobody controls.
Related Reading
- The full history of generative engine optimization vs answer engine optimization.
- The GEO agencies I'd shortlist if you want to hire help.
- Real GEO examples you can copy for your business.
Also On Our Network
- 🌐 The operator setup for whichever one you pick first
- 🌐 GEO and AEO tactics scored for impact and effort
- 🌐 Letting an Agent OS sort GEO from AEO questions
- 🌐 How the models behind the free GEO workflow score
FAQ: Generative Engine Optimization vs AEO For Business
Is GEO or AEO better for a local business?
I'd run both, with GEO first for "best [service] in [town]" searches and AEO for quick customer questions.
Keeping your Business Profile up to date helps too, because Google lists it as a best practice for AI features.
Should an agency or consultant prioritise GEO or AEO?
I'd prioritise GEO, because buyers of services tend to ask who the best provider is.
AI answers give a short list of names, so being on that list matters most.
Which matters more for ecommerce, GEO or AEO?
Both matter, because AEO helps with product questions and GEO helps with "best X for Y" searches.
Google also lists keeping Merchant Center information up to date as a best practice for AI features.
What does GEO and AEO cost?
You can do much of it with free tools such as Google Search Console and a manual prompt log.
Agency prices vary, so I don't quote them here.
Can GEO or AEO guarantee my business appears in AI answers?
No, because nobody controls what an AI answer says.
Google also says indexing and serving aren't guaranteed even when a page meets every requirement.
What is the free strategy session?
It's a free one-to-one call, not a written report.
My team looks at your site, your competitors and the keywords you're closest to winning, then gives you a custom game plan.
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About Julian
I'm Julian Goldie, an SEO entrepreneur, author and founder of the AI Profit Boardroom, which has 3,400+ members and four coaching calls a week.
I help business owners scale with AI agents, automation and SEO.
- I started Goldie Agency on my own, and it is now a 7-figure SEO and link-building agency with 70+ people.
- I've grown my YouTube channel to 400,000+ subscribers.
- I wrote "Link Building Mastery".
- My Udemy courses have taught 29,000+ students.
→ Get my best AI training inside the AI Profit Boardroom
Find your row in the table, run the one-question test, book a free strategy session if you want my team's view, and put your first month into the right side of generative engine optimization vs AEO.
