Every few weeks someone declares that “SEO is dead” and GEO is taking its place. Or AEO. Or AI Search, LLMO, GSO, AIO. The list of acronyms grows faster than any agreement on which one is right. I get the pull to join in, but it's an argument about the label on the box, not about what's inside it.
Everyone argues about the name. The name is the least important thing.
The question that actually decides the outcome isn't “are we doing GEO or AEO?” It's: are you recommended where people search today, and who in your company owns that? The rest is naming. In this piece I'll sort out the acronyms, so you know what people mean when you hear each one, and then show why the fundamentals and the work matter, not the acronym.
A short glossary — so we're talking about the same thing
All these terms circle one phenomenon, visibility in search and in AI answers, just from different angles:
- SEO (Search Engine Optimization) — classic optimisation for search engines. The foundation everything else stands on.
- AEO (Answer Engine Optimization) — being the direct answer: featured snippets, voice assistants, answer boxes. More: what is AEO.
- GEO (Generative Engine Optimization) — being a cited source inside an AI-generated answer. The differences with AEO are in GEO vs AEO.
- AI Search — an umbrella term for search with an AI layer; AI Overviews are specifically Google's AI answers.
- LLMO / GSO / AIO — LLM Optimization, Generative Search Optimization, AI Optimization. Naming variants for the same current.
And one disambiguation, because “GEO” is misleading: here it means Generative Engine Optimization, not geography or local SEO. Same acronym, two entirely different worlds.
Why the industry has no single name (and why that's normal)
Because it's a young, fast-moving field. When a phenomenon is new, names appear faster than consensus; every tool vendor and every agency coins its own acronym, often to have “their” product to sell. Standards haven't settled, and the lines between GEO, AEO and AI Search are blurry, because in practice they overlap heavily.
That's not cause for worry; it's a normal stage. The problem only starts when someone waits to act until the naming stabilises. It won't stabilise soon, and your competitors aren't waiting.
The new era: from search to recommendation
Underneath all the naming sits one real change. Search used to return ten links and let the user choose. Increasingly it returns a ready answer or recommendation, synthesised from many sources, and the user no longer scans a list, they see a result. The job has moved from “rank a link” to “be the source that gets recommended when the answer is written.”
And here the same fundamentals return that I wrote about in the piece on getting cited in AI: whether you get recommended is decided by trust, citability and presence across many places, with classic SEO still underneath, because models often lean on Google's index. The name of the discipline is secondary. The mechanics are the same whether you call it GEO, AEO or AI Search.
Who actually owns AI visibility — and it isn't SEO alone
This is, to me, the most important point of the whole topic. Look at the levers that actually build AI recommendations: digital PR, real users and UGC, brand presence on Reddit and in communities, personal branding of the right people on LinkedIn, reviews, a consistent entity. Almost none of that sits on the SEO team's desk.
That's why I don't think AI visibility should be built by SEO alone; it should be built by the whole inbound marketing team that owns the brand and its presence online. SEO, with its strong technical and content foundations, is well placed to lead it: it understands how search engines and models think, and can tie the whole thing into a strategy. But the execution spills across content, PR, social, brand and product. Every brand activity across the web works toward whether AI recommends you.
If you treat AI visibility as “a task for the SEO person,” you cap the result before you start. It's a whole-brand project, just with SEO conducting.
I've written more on which teams an SEO works with.
What to do — whatever you call it
The good news: the list of actions is surprisingly stable, even as the names change every quarter.
- Get the SEO foundation right: indexing, structure, technicals. Without it, the rest hangs in mid-air.
- Provide content that's easy to cite, and keep it fresh.
- Build a consistent entity: About, authors, one brand name everywhere.
- Go off your own site: digital PR, real reviews and UGC, presence on Reddit, personal branding on LinkedIn.
- Measure, even imperfectly (I covered the tools and manual tests in the piece on getting cited in AI).
You do all of this the same way whether you call it GEO, AEO or AI Search. If you want it tied into one strategy, that's what GEO / AI visibility is.
FAQ
Frequently asked questions
They're largely different labels for the same shift — visibility in search and in AI answers. Real differences exist (GEO = being cited in a generative answer, AEO = being the direct answer), but the work overlaps heavily. LLMO, GSO and AIO are further names for the same thing.
No. SEO is the foundation AI visibility stands on — models often lean on Google's index, so without indexing, structure and authority there's nothing to pull. What changes is what you build on top of the foundation, not the foundation itself.
Whichever your team understands. Arguing about the label doesn't change the outcome — the fundamentals and the work do. Pick one name internally and get on with it, instead of waiting for the industry to agree.
Not necessarily. You need someone with strong SEO foundations who understands how search engines and models work and can tie it into a strategy — plus the whole team around the brand, because most of the levers live outside the SEO desk.
The whole inbound marketing team that owns the brand and its presence online, with SEO conducting. Digital PR, UGC, Reddit, LinkedIn, reviews, content, brand — all of it builds AI recommendations, and none of it is SEO's job alone.
With the SEO foundation and a consistent entity, then extractable, fresh content, and around that off-site presence: digital PR, UGC, LinkedIn. Measure your share of recommendations — even imperfectly. These are the same actions whatever you call them.
