That’s where AEO (Answer Engine Optimization… sometimes referred to as GEO or Generative Answer Optimization) comes in.

Think about how you use the internet. You want information that is easy to consume from reliable sources. If a website is hard to use, you’ll bounce and find another one. If a website looks sketchy, you’ll leave. On the other hand, if a website is easy to navigate and read, while having a ton of positive reviews and trust signals, then you’ll stay for what you need and come back repeatedly in the future.

AI bots are the same, but completely blind to the visual side of the internet. They don’t see colors or typography. They see code structure, text within the code, and trust signals. If the code and schema that hold your website together are not properly structured, AI bots will find it difficult to navigate and will bounce. If the text does not answer common questions that users ask AI, it will leave. If your business does not have reviews, credible backlinks from strong referring sites, or schema detailing out different awards and achievements, then the bots will move on to a site it deems trustworthy.

People will either stop using traditional search, or companies like Google will force us to use their AI search. Users are already ditching traditional search for their favorite AI en masse, and Gemini AI-powered search is being pushed more and more. Plus, whole browsers built with AI directly into them, like OpenAI’s Atlas, are currently being released and adopted.

Great AEO is also great SEO, but the converse is not true. AEO checks all of the boxes for SEO, plus many new criteria that are exclusive to answer engines. Focusing on AEO has no drawbacks because it bridges the transition from traditional search to AI search while being fully ready for an AI-only search future. Now, some of you might be thinking: “We’re good. We get our business through relationships.” I hear that a lot. I get it because our industry is relationship-based. Referrals have always been king.

For better or worse, people trust what AI recommends. Looking at the traffic on my company’s site, we have seen that users who come from traditional Google or Bing searches versus AI searches spend the same amount of time on our site, but the traffic from AI searchers converts THREE TIMES as much as traffic from traditional searches. Why? Because they have higher intent. They asked AI, and AI showed them a quick overview of us with our strengths and trust signals, with a link to book a discovery call. The time they spent on our site was filling out the form to reach out, rather than kicking our tires and leaving.

This is the time to position yourself. Don’t cling to the Yellow Pages of our time. Feed AI the information it needs, in the format it understands, so it can confidently recommend you when someone asks for the best in your field. Done well, this isn’t just protection against losing opportunities; it’s a way to win more of them.

AI isn’t just changing how we work and the supply side of the economy. It’s opening new paths for demand and for how work finds us. For any business, even professional services that thrive on referrals, that’s an opportunity worth acting on.