AEO vs GEO: answer optimization vs generative optimization

Side by side

	AEO	GEO
Unit of work	The passage that answers a question	The brand as described across the web
Where	Mostly your own pages	Your site plus reviews, directories, press, communities
Primary outcome	Being cited / quoted	Being mentioned, recommended and described accurately
Typical tasks	Answer-first rewrites, question-led headings, tables, structured data	Entity consistency, original research, digital PR, review and listing presence
Speed of change	Weeks after recrawl	Months; depends on third parties
Measured by	Citations for target questions	Mention/recommendation share, accuracy over sampled prompts

When AEO is the bottleneck

• Your pages rank, but AI Overviews and Perplexity cite a competitor’s page for the same question.
• Your answers are buried after long introductions or locked in PDFs and images.
• Your FAQ answers are vague (“it depends”) without explaining what it depends on.

When GEO is the bottleneck

• You’re cited for how-to questions but missing from “best X” shortlists.
• AI answers put you in the wrong category or repeat outdated facts.
• The sources AI answers cite for your category don’t mention you.

A worked example

A cybersecurity consultancy tests twenty prompts. For “what is a SOC 2 audit?” Perplexity cites its guide — AEO is working. For “best SOC 2 consultants in India”, answers list three competitors and cite two directories and an industry roundup that don’t include the firm. That’s a GEO gap: the fix is accurate directory profiles, outreach to the roundup author and coverage that describes the firm’s specialism.

Verdict

Do AEO first on pages you control — it’s faster and makes you a better source. Invest in GEO when citations are healthy but mentions, recommendations or accuracy lag. Both rely on SEO underneath.