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Generative Engine Optimization vs AEO: What To Prioritise, Which Tactics Belong Where, And The Agent OS Triage Loop
Generative engine optimization vs AEO has a short practitioner answer: prioritise GEO when your buyers ask AI "who is the best", and prioritise AEO when they mostly ask quick "how" or "what" questions.
Either way, start with the shared tactics, because they lift both scorecards at once.
GEO is getting your business named inside answers that AI writes, and AEO is getting your page picked as the one direct answer.
This quick start gives you the tactics table, a priority test and the triage loop I'd hand an agent in an Agent OS.
If you want help first, book a free one-to-one GEO, AEO AI audit and get a custom game plan.
Generative engine optimization vs AEO: the tactics table
This table shows which tactics belong to GEO, which belong to AEO, which help both and how much an agent can prepare.
| Tactic | GEO only | AEO only | Both | Can an agent prep it? |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Allow crawling, indexing and snippets on key pages | Yes | It can list blocked pages for you to fix. | ||
| Question as the heading, answer in the first two lines | Yes | It can redraft the opening of each page. | ||
| Short lists or tables under the answer | Yes | It can turn steps into a clean list. | ||
| Voice-friendly answers that read well aloud | Yes | It can flag answers that sound awkward spoken. | ||
| A real case study with real numbers | Yes | It can only format your notes, never invent results. | ||
| Cited sources, quotes and statistics | Yes | It can suggest where a source is missing. | ||
| Other sites describing you the same way | Yes | It can draft different-angle versions for your other platforms. | ||
| Disclosed listicles with your offer first | Yes | It can draft the list, and you approve the disclosure. | ||
| Identical business facts everywhere | Yes | It can compare every page against your fact file. | ||
| A human fact-check before publishing | Yes | It can flag claims, but a human must check them. |
The "Both" rows are where I'd start, because they lift both scorecards with one piece of work.
The two terms in one line each
GEO, or generative engine optimisation, is getting your business named or cited when an AI writes the answer.
The term comes from the 2023 paper GEO: Generative Engine Optimization by Pranjal Aggarwal and colleagues, which was accepted to KDD 2024.
AEO, or answer engine optimisation, is getting your page chosen as the direct answer, the way featured snippets show one descriptive snippet first.
For the full history of both terms, read my comparison of generative engine optimization vs answer engine optimization.
Which one to prioritise
The fastest way to decide is to look at the questions your buyers actually ask.
| If most buyer questions look like this | Prioritise | First agent job |
|---|---|---|
| "Who is the best ___ for ___?" | GEO | Log who the AI names today across your prompt list. |
| "How do I ___?" or "What is ___?" | AEO | Check who holds the featured snippet for each question. |
| "Best ___ in [town]" plus quick practical questions | Both, GEO first | Check that your name, service and town match everywhere. |
| News and fast-moving topics | AEO, plus be first | Flag new topics within 24 hours. |
Recommendation questions are where I've seen the biggest wins on my own sites.
In my GEO examples video, Google's AI Overview for "best HARO agency" lists five suppliers and links Goldie Agency first.
Quick start: the triage loop in five steps
This is how I'd set it up in an Agent OS so an agent does the sorting and logging.
- Save 20 to 50 real buyer questions to shared memory, written in the words customers use.
- Ask the agent to label each one as a GEO-type or AEO-type question, then check its labels yourself.
- Export your Google Search Console data to a CSV and drop it into the workspace, which is free.
- Ask the agent to analyse the data and, based on what's actually working, suggest keyword and topic ideas to rank inside AI search engines, which is the prompt I use in my video.
- Let it draft the top three pages using the tactics table above, then fact-check every line before you publish.
In my video I run this with Hermes Agent, which is free and open source, with OpenCode as the free brain.
When I recorded it, DeepSeek V4.1 Flash was free inside OpenCode, but free offers change, so check first.
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The shared base the agent should check first
Before the agent touches GEO or AEO tactics, it should check the base that both jobs need.
Google's AI features and your website page says a page must be indexed and eligible to show with a snippet to be a supporting link in AI Overviews or AI Mode.
The same page says there are no additional requirements, no special schema and no AI text files needed.
For other AI tools, have the agent compare your robots.txt with OpenAI's crawler documentation, Perplexity's crawler page and Anthropic's crawler help page.
OpenAI says OAI-SearchBot controls appearing in its search results separately from GPTBot, which relates to training.
Perplexity says PerplexityBot surfaces and links websites in its search results and isn't used to crawl content for AI foundation models.
Anthropic says blocking Claude-SearchBot may reduce your visibility in Claude's search results.
The GEO side of the loop
GEO-type questions get routed to evidence work, because that's what the research rewards.
The GEO paper found citing sources, adding quotations and adding statistics were its top methods, with a 30% to 40% relative improvement on its main measure.
It also found keyword stuffing didn't help, so the never line in the skill file below bans it.
The most important GEO input is a real case study, and the agent can format your notes but must never invent one.
I call this be the source, and it sits alongside be everywhere and be first in the system I call the answer engine.
The AEO side of the loop
AEO-type questions get routed to format work, which is quicker.
The agent rewrites the opening of each page so the question is the heading and the answer sits in the first two lines.
It turns steps into short lists and options into small tables, because those are easy for a snippet to lift.
It also adds the follow-up questions people ask next, because Google notes snippets can appear inside People Also Ask.
The tools the agent works with
You can run the whole loop on free tools and add paid trackers later if you need scale.
| Tool | Job | Cost | How the agent uses it |
|---|---|---|---|
| Google Search Console | Both | Free | It reads your CSV export to find topics that already get clicks. |
| A prompt log in shared memory | GEO | Free | It records names and citations per prompt on every run. |
| Rich Results Test | Both | Free | You run it on pages the agent flags for structured data checks. |
| A manual results-page check | AEO | Free | It records who holds each featured snippet. |
| Ahrefs Brand Radar | GEO | Paid | Its page says it tracks brand visibility across AI answers, YouTube and Reddit. |
| Semrush AI Visibility Toolkit | GEO | Paid | Its knowledge base page describes it as a toolkit for brand visibility in AI search. |
I've described the paid tools only from their own pages and left prices out.
Google says AI Overviews and AI Mode traffic is counted inside Search Console's performance report under the "Web" search type.
In my Hermes GEO video I point out that Google and the AI engines don't yet report AI traffic well, which is why the prompt log stays in the loop.
🔥 Want the exact AI SEO setup I run inside my Agent OS?
Inside the AI Profit Boardroom you get the installable Agent OS, step-by-step video tutorials, four coaching calls a week and 3,400+ members building real automations.
The skill file I'd hand the agent
This is the skill file that runs the triage loop every week.
GEO vs AEO TRIAGE SKILL (weekly)
1. Load the buyer question list, the brand fact file and last week's log from shared memory.
2. Label each question: GEO-type ("who is the best", "best X for Y") or AEO-type ("how do I", "what is").
3. For GEO-type questions, record the names and cited pages in Google AI Mode, ChatGPT and Perplexity.
4. For AEO-type questions, record who holds the featured snippet and the People Also Ask answers.
5. Route each missing question: GEO-type -> case study + sources + other-platform version; AEO-type -> answer-first rewrite + list/table.
6. Read the latest Search Console CSV and rank the routed questions by what already gets clicks.
7. Draft the top three pages and flag every number, name, title, description, schema field and alt text for a human check.
8. Report: questions won, questions lost, and the three drafts waiting for approval.
NEVER: invent case studies or results, add "AI files" or special AI schema, stuff keywords, publish without approval, or promise placements.
The labelling step is the one I'd check most often, because a wrong label sends a question to the wrong tactics.
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Proof from my own screens
In my GEO examples video, Google's AI Overview for "best geo expert" names me first and cites several of my pages.
In the same video, AI Profit Boardroom ranks first for "best AI SEO community", and that article was three days old when I checked.
In my Hermes GEO video, AI Mode lists me first when asked for the best GEO experts to follow in 2026.
One of my sites went from zero to more than 1,300 clicks a day.
Those are my results from my own screens, not a promise for yours.
Where Google's 1 October 2026 guidance fits
Google's updated page on using generative AI content says it's "critical to manually factcheck and review all AI-generated content" before publishing.
That review also covers titles, meta descriptions, structured data and image alt text.
So in this loop, the agent drafts and flags, and you check and approve.
What's inside the AI Profit Boardroom for this
The full version of this workflow lives inside the AI Profit Boardroom.
You get my Agent OS, my SEO skill, which is a checklist of about 100 points written from a case-study angle, and the AI SEO automation section.
You also get four coaching calls a week alongside 3,400+ members.
Limits you should know
Nobody can guarantee what an AI answer will say, and that includes me.
The GEO and AEO labels are a guide, and plenty of questions sit in between.
If you'd rather not guess, book a free strategy session and see the questions you're closest to winning.
Where to go next on agentos.guide
My AEO audit guide shows how to take a baseline first.
My free GEO audit guide checks whether your pages are worth citing.
My Claude AI SEO rank #1 guide shows the AI SEO workflow in more depth.
Also On Our Network
FAQ
Should I do generative engine optimization or AEO first?
Do the shared tactics first, then prioritise GEO if your buyers ask AI for recommendations and AEO if they mostly ask quick factual questions. Most businesses end up doing both.
Can an agent decide whether a question is GEO or AEO?
It can label questions as recommendation-style or quick factual questions, but you should check its labels, because plenty of questions sit in between.
What is a GEO-only tactic?
Adding real case studies, cited sources, quotes and statistics, getting other sites to describe you the same way and publishing disclosed listicles are mostly GEO work.
What is an AEO-only tactic?
Formatting answers as short lists or tables and writing answers that make sense read aloud are mostly AEO work.
Do I need paid tools for GEO and AEO?
No. Google Search Console, the Rich Results Test and a prompt log cover most of it. Paid trackers like Ahrefs Brand Radar and the Semrush AI Visibility Toolkit can help at scale.
Is the free strategy session a written report?
No. It is a one-to-one call where my team looks at your site, your competitors and the keywords you're closest to winning, then gives you a custom game plan.
Final word on generative engine optimization vs AEO
Save your buyer questions, run the triage loop and let the agent keep both scorecards up to date.
When you want a second opinion, book a free AEO SEO strategy session and get a plan for Google and AI search.
That's the practical way to settle generative engine optimization vs AEO for your own business.
About Julian
I'm Julian Goldie, an AI entrepreneur, SEO expert and the founder of the AI Profit Boardroom, which has 3,400+ members.
I help business owners scale with AI agents, automation and SEO.
My YouTube channel has 400,000+ subscribers, and I run Goldie Agency, a seven-figure SEO agency.
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