What is Answer Engine Optimization (AEO)?

Quick answer

Answer Engine Optimization is the practice of structuring your content so AI assistants like ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, and Google's AI features can extract and cite it when answering user questions. It means leading with direct answers, using clear question-style headings, providing concrete facts, adding structured data (JSON-LD), and publishing machine-readable summaries such as an llms.txt file — so your business becomes the source the AI quotes.