Is AEO the same as SEO?

No. SEO optimises to rank your page in Google’s blue-link results so people click. AEO optimises so AI assistants like ChatGPT and Google AI Overviews name your business directly as the answer. They share a foundation (structured data, reviews, a clean Google Business Profile), but they aim at different surfaces.

Which AI assistants matter for AEO?

The big four for local businesses are ChatGPT, Google AI Overviews, Perplexity and Claude. Each is trained on different data and weighs sources differently, so appearing across several gives you the most accurate and resilient visibility.

How do I check if AI already recommends my business?

Ask ChatGPT, Perplexity or Google AI a question a customer would ask — e.g. "best [your trade] in [your city]" — and see whether your business name appears. Chantry automates this across multiple assistants and tracks your mention rate over time.

How long does AEO take to work?

You can usually fix the technical foundations (schema, profile, FAQ) within a day or two. Meaningful improvement in how often AI recommends you typically takes 4–6 weeks of consistent signals — similar to the timeline a good SEO agency would quote.

Do I need a developer to do AEO?

Not necessarily. The schema and content work can be done by hand if you’re technical, but most local business owners don’t have the time. Tools like Chantry apply the fixes automatically so you don’t need to touch code.

Home › What is AEO?

Answer Engine Optimization

What is AEO (Answer Engine Optimization)?

AEO (Answer Engine Optimization) is the practice of making your business easy for AI assistants — ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity and Google AI Overviews — to understand, trust and recommend when someone asks them for a business like yours. Where SEO is about ranking blue links, AEO is about being the named answer.

Why AEO matters now

For twenty years, "getting found online" meant ranking on Google's results page so people could click your link. That's changing fast. More and more customers now ask an AI assistant a direct question — "who's the best plumber near me?", "a good Italian restaurant downtown that's open late" — and get back a short list of specific business names, not ten blue links.

If your business isn't set up to be recognised by those assistants, you simply aren't one of the names they say. The customer never sees you, never clicks, never calls. AEO is how you become the recommended answer.

AEO vs SEO: what's the difference?

They overlap, but they optimise for different things:

	SEO	AEO
Goal	Rank your page high in search results	Be the business an AI assistant names
Surface	Google's blue links	ChatGPT, Perplexity, Claude, Google AI Overviews
Winner gets	A click	A recommendation
Key signals	Keywords, backlinks, page speed	Structured data, entity clarity, reviews, consistency, citations

The good news: a lot of the foundation is shared. Clean structured data, an accurate Google Business Profile, real reviews and clear content help you in both worlds at once.

What AI assistants look for

AI assistants recommend businesses they can confidently understand. The signals that matter most:

Structured data (schema markup) — code that tells AI exactly what you are ("a plumber, in this city, with this phone number and these hours").
A complete, active Google Business Profile — the single biggest local signal. Category, hours, service area, photos and recent posts all feed it.
Recent, genuine reviews — volume and recency signal that you're real, active and trusted.
Clear, answer-shaped content — an FAQ that answers the exact questions customers ask, in plain language.
NAP consistency — your name, address and phone matching everywhere online.
Citations — being mentioned on directories and local sites the assistants already trust.

How to do AEO (the short version)

Claim and fully complete your Google Business Profile.
Add schema markup to your site that names your business type and service area.
Put a real FAQ on your site answering the questions customers actually ask.
Build a steady flow of recent reviews — and reply to them.
Make your name, address and phone identical across every listing.
Re-check: ask ChatGPT and Google AI for a business like yours and see if you're named.

The honest part: none of this is magic, and none of it happens overnight. It's a checklist of unglamorous fixes, done consistently. The hard bit is doing it every week — which is exactly what an automated agent is good at.

How Chantry automates AEO

Chantry is an AI agent that does this checklist for you. It scans how visible you are to AI assistants and Google today, fixes the gaps on your website and Google Business Profile automatically, and then re-checks whether AI actually names you — so you can see the score move, not just take it on faith. It runs overnight and emails you a plain-English summary of what changed. Run a free 60-second scan to see where you stand.