Answer Engine Optimization — Optimizing a page so a system can extract a direct answer to a question from it.
How it differs from GEO
AEO predates generative AI. It grew out of featured snippets and voice assistants, where the job was to have the cleanest liftable answer to a specific question. GEO is about being named as a recommendation inside synthesised prose — a different outcome, reached partly by the same means.
The useful distinction is answer extraction versus entity recommendation. AEO gets your paragraph quoted. GEO gets your business chosen.
The honest caveat
Nobody agrees on where the boundary sits, and the two terms are used interchangeably across the industry. Be suspicious of anyone selling them as separate line items on an invoice — the underlying work overlaps almost completely.
Related: GEO, AI Overviews.