AEO and GEO Consulting: Get Cited by AI Answer Engines
Answer engines answer the question directly and show only a few sources. innobu structures your content, your data and your evidence so that these systems can extract and cite you. This page explains what AEO and GEO are, why they matter now, what our consulting includes and who it is for.
AEO stands for Answer Engine Optimization, GEO for Generative Engine Optimization. Both prepare content so that AI answer engines such as ChatGPT, Perplexity, Google AI Overviews and Gemini name a company as a source, rather than burying it in a list of links. This matters because many people now ask their question to an AI and read the answer directly, without clicking classic search results. A company that does not appear in that answer loses visibility. innobu AEO and GEO consulting works on five points: an answer-ready content structure with clear questions and direct answers, structured data and schema markup, an llms.txt with clean crawl rules for AI bots, building entities and recurring citations across several sources, and measurement that shows which answer engine names you. The consulting is for marketing, communications, sales and content teams that want to hold their visibility as search shifts toward the answer engine. AEO and GEO do not replace classic SEO, they build on it. An introductory call assesses your starting point and names the next steps.
What AEO and GEO are
AEO and GEO prepare content to be named in the answer of an AI. AEO stands for Answer Engine Optimization and means the work of appearing in the direct answer of an answer engine. GEO stands for Generative Engine Optimization and means the same for generative systems that write an answer themselves and cite sources while doing so. The two terms overlap heavily.
The difference from classic search is where the decision happens. Search used to spread traffic across several results, and whoever ranked at the top earned clicks. With an answer engine, what counts is whether your content flows into the one answer and whether your name appears as evidence. That needs clear statements, verifiable evidence and a structure a machine can read without detours. How this thinking breaks away from classic ranking is set out in our piece on the AEO mindset.
Why this matters now
Search is shifting toward the answer. Google shows AI Overviews above the results, Perplexity and ChatGPT deliver a finished answer with a few sources, and many people read exactly that answer instead of clicking further. So the value of a plain ranking falls, and the value of a named source rises.
For companies this has a clear consequence. Content that answers a general question is increasingly summarised by the answer engine itself, often without a click to the original page. Anyone who wants to stay visible has to appear in the answer. How strongly this shift moves traffic away from classic search is set out in our analysis of the AI traffic crisis.
The point is not to produce more content. The point is to make the content you already have so clear, evidenced and machine-readable that an answer engine can take it over without risk and name you as a source.
What the consulting includes
innobu AEO and GEO consulting covers five areas. We start where your biggest lever is and work with your existing content, rather than rebuilding everything.
1. Answer-ready content structure
We bring core pages into a question and answer form: a clear question as the heading, the direct answer in the first sentence, then the evidence. That way an answer engine finds the usable statement at once, without guessing.
2. Structured data and schema
We set up structured data cleanly, for example FAQPage, Organization, Article and Breadcrumb. Machine-readable markup makes statements unambiguous and helps systems attribute and cite your content correctly.
3. llms.txt and crawl rules for AI bots
We create an llms.txt that bundles the content that matters for AI systems, and we review the rules for AI bots. That way you decide on purpose what answer engines may read from you, and you put the relevant pages in front.
4. Building entities and citations
We sharpen what your company stands for and drive recurring, consistent mentions across several sources such as your own pages, expert articles, forums and comparisons. Several coherent mentions carry more weight than a single top spot.
5. Measuring AI visibility
We set up measurement: a fixed set of test questions, regular checks of the answers in the relevant systems, and analysis of referrals from AI sources in your web analytics. That makes it visible which measure works.
How we work
We work in clear steps, so you hold a tangible result after each stage.
Assessment
We check, with a set of real questions, how you appear today in the relevant answer engines, and we review content, structured data and crawl rules.
Set priorities
From the assessment we derive the measures with the biggest lever and order them by effort and effect.
Implement
We bring content into the answer form, set up structured data and llms.txt and kick off the building of entities and citations, together with your team.
Measure and refine
We track whether and how you appear in AI answers, evaluate the results and adjust the measures, rather than delivering once and hoping.
Who the consulting is for
The consulting fits teams whose audience increasingly asks questions to an AI and who want to hold their visibility as search shifts.
Teams that see traffic from classic search decline and want to stay present in AI answers.
Providers of services that need explanation, whose prospects first orient themselves through an AI.
Editorial teams with existing content that can be brought into an answer-ready, evidenced form.
Decision makers who need a solid answer to the question of how the company appears in AI search.
Next step
Want to know how your company appears in AI answers today? In an introductory call we assess your starting point and name the next steps, concrete and with no obligation.
Frequently asked questions
AEO stands for Answer Engine Optimization and prepares content to be named in the direct answer of an AI or answer engine. GEO stands for Generative Engine Optimization and aims to have generative systems such as ChatGPT, Perplexity, Google AI Overviews or Gemini take your content into the answer they produce and cite you as a source. The two terms overlap heavily. In practice we treat them as one field of work: preparing content and data so that machines can extract and attribute them with confidence.
More and more people ask their question to an AI and read the answer directly, without clicking a list of links. Google shows AI Overviews above the results, and assistants such as ChatGPT or Perplexity return a summarised answer with a few sources. A company that does not appear in that answer loses visibility, even when its classic ranking still holds. AEO and GEO make sure your company is among the sources that get named.
The consulting covers five areas: answer-ready content structure with clear questions and direct answers, structured data and schema markup such as FAQPage and Organization, an llms.txt with clean crawl rules for AI bots, building entities and recurring citations across several sources, and measurement of which answer engines name you. We start where your biggest lever is and work with your existing content.
No. Clean technical setup, good content and a clear site structure remain the base that AI systems also rely on. AEO and GEO build on top of that. They add a question and answer structure, machine-readable data and recurring mentions across many channels. Both run in parallel.
We align content and data with the common answer engines: ChatGPT, Perplexity, Google AI Overviews and Gemini. The core principles apply broadly, because all of these systems prefer clear answers, verifiable evidence and machine-readable structure. We add new systems as they become relevant for your audience.
We set up measurement that tracks whether and how you appear in AI answers. This includes a fixed set of test questions, regular checks of the answers in the relevant systems, analysis of referrals from AI sources in your web analytics, and monitoring of mentions in forums and comparisons. That makes it visible which measure works, rather than guessing.