For almost three decades, the rules of the internet have been remarkably stable. Whenever we wanted to buy something, learn something or solve a problem, we searched for it. Google pointed us towards a list of websites, we compared our options, weighed competing claims and eventually made a decision. Businesses adapted accordingly, investing heavily in Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) to improve their visibility in search results. The formula was straightforward: the easier your business was to find, the more likely it was to be chosen.
That formula is beginning to change.
As artificial intelligence reshapes the way people search, a new discipline is emerging: Answer Engine Optimisation (AEO). If SEO is the practice of improving your visibility in traditional search engines, AEO is the practice of making your business easier for AI systems to understand, evaluate and recommend. Rather than competing for a place on the first page of Google, businesses are increasingly competing to become the organisations AI chooses to reference, cite and recommend when answering a customer’s question.
Put simply, SEO is about earning the click. AEO is about earning the recommendation.
That distinction might sound subtle, but it reflects a much deeper shift in how people make decisions. Instead of typing a handful of keywords into Google and working through pages of search results, millions of people are now asking AI a question in plain English and receiving a single, synthesised answer. What once involved opening half a dozen browser tabs can now be accomplished in a matter of seconds.
At first glance, this feels like little more than a faster, more conversational version of Google. In reality, AI is changing the internet from a tool that helps us find information into one that increasingly helps us make decisions.
The evidence suggests this shift is already well underway. Bain & Company reports that around 80 per cent of consumers now rely on AI-generated summaries for at least some of their searches, while McKinsey estimates that half of consumers already use AI-powered search and that more than US$750 billion in consumer spending will be influenced by these platforms by 2028.
Research from the Pew Research Center points in the same direction, finding that when Google’s AI Overview appears, users are almost half as likely to click through to traditional search results. Even the websites cited within those summaries receive substantially fewer visits than they once would have.
None of this means search is disappearing, nor does it suggest that SEO has suddenly become obsolete. What is changing is the nature of the competition. Businesses are no longer competing simply to be found. They’re competing to be recommended.
I suspect we’re entering what might best be described as the Recommendation Economy.
For most of the digital era, businesses competed for attention. Success depended on appearing prominently in search results and persuading customers once they clicked through. Increasingly, however, AI is becoming the intermediary between businesses and buyers, shaping decisions before a customer ever visits a website.
For years, businesses optimised for search engines. Today, they’re increasingly optimising to become the businesses AI recommends.
Why AI Thinks Differently
Many organisations assume AI search is simply a more sophisticated version of Google. From the user’s perspective they can appear remarkably similar, but they solve fundamentally different problems. Traditional search engines are designed to retrieve information. AI platforms are designed to interpret it.
Imagine you’re buying your first home and ask Google to recommend the best mortgage broker in your area. You’ll receive a page of search results, review sites, business listings and advertisements, leaving you to compare the options and decide who appears most trustworthy.
Ask exactly the same question of ChatGPT and the experience is quite different. Rather than presenting ten places to begin your research, it is likely to recommend a handful of brokers, explain why each has been suggested and even distinguish between them according to their particular strengths. Before you’ve visited a single website, much of the evaluation has already taken place.
That feels like a modest improvement in convenience, but it fundamentally changes what businesses need to optimise for. AI is no longer asking which webpage best matches a search query. Instead, it is trying to determine which business it can recommend with confidence.
This also changes the value of conventional marketing language. AI has no reliable way of knowing whether your customer service is genuinely “second to none” or whether you really are “industry leading”. Every business makes those claims. Instead, it looks for corroboration. Do customer reviews reinforce what your website says? Have reputable publications written about your work? Do industry bodies recognise your expertise? Does your broader digital footprint consistently point towards the same conclusion?
In many respects, AI behaves less like a search engine than a diligent research assistant. Rather than accepting a business’s claims at face value, it looks for independent evidence before reaching a recommendation. Trust, in other words, is becoming increasingly measurable.
Perhaps the biggest surprise is that artificial intelligence may end up rewarding businesses that become even more human. As the internet fills with competent but increasingly interchangeable AI-generated content, originality becomes significantly more valuable. AI can summarise existing knowledge exceptionally well, but it cannot manufacture genuine experience, proprietary research, distinctive thinking or hard-earned insight.
Organisations that consistently contribute those things won’t simply stand out to people; they’ll also become easier for AI to recognise, understand and recommend.
The ABCs of AEO
Understanding how AI is changing search is one thing. Responding to it is another.
The good news is that succeeding in the age of AEO doesn’t require abandoning everything we know about digital marketing. High-quality content, a strong reputation and a clear value proposition matter just as much as ever. What has changed is why they matter.
The question is no longer, “How do I rank higher?” It’s “How do I become a business that AI can confidently recommend?”
A good place to start is HubSpot’s free AEO Grader: https://www.hubspot.com/aeo-grader. It’s a useful diagnostic for understanding where you stand today.
Beyond that, I’ve found it helpful to think about AEO through three simple principles: Awareness, Breadth and Credibility.
A is for Awareness
Before changing your website, publishing more content or experimenting with AI tools, it’s worth understanding what AI already believes about your business.
Open ChatGPT, Gemini or Perplexity and ask the same questions your customers would ask. Resist the temptation to search for your business by name. Instead, ask questions such as, Who are the best accountants for small businesses?, Who would you recommend for commercial solar installations? or Who are the leading keynote speakers on artificial intelligence? The responses are often revealing. Your organisation may not appear at all. It may appear, but for reasons that don’t align with your positioning. Or AI may describe your business accurately while overlooking capabilities that set you apart.
Treat this as a reputation audit rather than a search audit. Before you can influence how AI understands your organisation, you need to understand the picture it has already assembled.
B is for Breadth
Many organisations assume Answer Engine Optimisation is simply another reason to produce more content. I don’t believe that’s true. As AI-generated articles become increasingly commonplace, volume matters less than originality and consistency.
What matters is the breadth of your digital footprint.
Your website is still important, but it is no longer the only place where your reputation is established. AI draws on podcasts, conference presentations, LinkedIn articles, YouTube videos, customer reviews, media coverage, guest articles and industry publications just as readily as it draws on your own website. Each credible mention becomes another signal that reinforces who you are, what you do and why others trust your expertise.
The businesses that perform well in an AI-driven world are unlikely to be those producing the greatest quantity of content. More often, they’ll be the organisations whose expertise is consistently visible across a broad range of trusted sources.
C is for Credibility
The final question is perhaps the most important.
If AI had to explain why someone should choose your business instead of another, what evidence could it point to?
That question shifts the conversation away from marketing and towards trust.
AI isn’t persuaded by slogans or superlatives. It doesn’t know your customer service is exceptional simply because your homepage says so. Instead, it looks for supporting evidence. Customer reviews. Independent media coverage. Industry awards. Original research. Published expertise. Measurable client outcomes. The stronger and more consistent those signals become, the easier your business is for AI to understand and recommend with confidence.
Credibility has always mattered. What’s changed is that it is becoming far more visible.
Your AEO Action Plan
Understanding the principles behind Answer Engine Optimisation is one thing. Putting them into practice is another.
Fortunately, becoming easier for AI to recommend doesn’t require a complete overhaul of your marketing strategy. Most organisations will make meaningful progress by improving the clarity, consistency and credibility of the digital footprint they already have. Small changes, applied consistently, often have a much greater impact than chasing the latest AI tool or algorithm update.
1. Ask AI what it already knows about your business. Make it a habit to ask ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude and Perplexity the same questions your customers are asking. Compare the responses, note which competitors appear alongside you and identify any inaccuracies or omissions. Repeating this exercise every few months provides a surprisingly useful measure of how your digital reputation is evolving.
2. Rewrite your homepage with clarity in mind. Within a few seconds of landing on your website, a visitor should understand who you help, the problems you solve and what differentiates your business. If someone removed your logo, would they still know exactly what your organisation does?
3. Turn your customers’ questions into content. Every business answers the same questions repeatedly. Pricing. Comparisons. Risks. Timelines. Expected outcomes. Rather than publishing another generic blog article, create content that addresses those questions clearly and honestly. Increasingly, they’re the same questions people are asking AI.
4. Publish something original every quarter. Conduct a customer survey. Develop a practical framework. Release benchmark data. Share proprietary research. AI can summarise existing knowledge remarkably well, but it can’t create genuine originality. The organisations that consistently contribute new ideas will become easier to distinguish from those simply recycling existing ones.
5. Expand your digital footprint. Your website is only one source AI learns from. Look for opportunities to contribute guest articles, appear on podcasts, speak at conferences, participate in webinars and publish on platforms where your expertise can be discovered independently.
6. Align every online profile. Review your website, LinkedIn profile, Google Business Profile, speaker biography and industry directory listings. Do they all describe your organisation consistently? Small inconsistencies that humans barely notice can create unnecessary uncertainty for AI.
7. Collect evidence, not just testimonials. Customer reviews remain valuable, but broaden your definition of proof. Case studies, measurable outcomes, certifications, awards and independent media coverage all strengthen your credibility. The more evidence supporting your claims, the easier they become for AI to verify.
8. Structure your content for understanding. Clear headings, descriptive page titles, concise summaries and logical page structures make your content easier for people to read and easier for AI to interpret accurately.
9. Measure recommendations, not just rankings. Rankings and traffic remain useful metrics, but they no longer tell the whole story. Regularly ask AI whether it would recommend your business for the problems you solve, then ask why. The answers often reveal opportunities that traditional SEO reports never will.
10. Repeat the process every quarter. AI platforms are evolving rapidly, as is your business. Schedule a quarterly review to revisit your AI audit, refresh outdated content and strengthen your digital footprint. Becoming recommendable isn’t a one-off initiative. It’s an ongoing discipline.
The Future Belongs to the Most Recommendable
Increasingly, customers aren’t beginning their journey with a page of search results. They’re beginning with a recommendation. Before someone visits your website, AI may already have compared your business with dozens of alternatives, assessed your reputation, weighed the available evidence and formed a view about whether you’re worth considering. Your website is no longer the first impression. Increasingly, it’s the second.
That’s why I believe Answer Engine Optimisation is about far more than optimising for answer engines. At its heart, it’s about building a business that is easy to understand, easy to trust and easy to recommend. Those have always been the foundations of a strong reputation. AI simply makes them more visible.
The technologies will continue to evolve. Search engines will change. AI models will improve. New platforms, new interfaces and new ways of discovering information will emerge. Through all of that, one principle is unlikely to change: organisations that consistently demonstrate expertise, communicate with clarity and earn trust will always be easier to recommend.
Perhaps that’s the real opportunity hidden within AEO. It encourages businesses to focus less on gaming algorithms and more on building the kind of reputation that deserves to be recognised in the first place.
Whether the recommendation comes from Google, ChatGPT or a satisfied customer, the organisations that thrive will be those that make trust easy to verify.
NOTES
1. Bain & Company. AI Search Is Changing Consumer Behaviour Faster Than Brands Expect. Bain & Company, 2025. Discusses the rapid adoption of AI-generated summaries and the resulting decline in traditional organic search traffic.
2. McKinsey & Company. The Future of AI Search and Consumer Decision Making. McKinsey & Company, 2025. Estimates that approximately half of consumers already use AI-powered search and projects that more than US$750 billion in consumer spending will be influenced by AI-enabled recommendation platforms by 2028.
3. Pew Research Center. How Google’s AI Overviews Are Changing Search Behaviour. Pew Research Center, 2025. Finds that users are significantly less likely to click through to traditional search results when Google’s AI Overview is displayed.
4. HubSpot. The State of AI Search and Answer Engine Optimisation. HubSpot Research, 2025. Explores the differences between traditional SEO and Answer Engine Optimisation, including changing user behaviour and emerging optimisation strategies.
5. Microsoft. The Future of Search: Generative AI and the New Search Experience. Microsoft Bing Blog, 2024. Explains how generative AI changes search from information retrieval to answer generation.
6. Google. AI Overviews and AI Mode. Google Search Central Documentation, 2025. Google’s guidance on how AI-generated search experiences retrieve, synthesise and present information.
7. OpenAI. Introducing ChatGPT Search. OpenAI, 2024. Describes how ChatGPT combines conversational interaction with live web search to synthesise information from multiple sources.
8. Perplexity AI. How Perplexity Generates Answers. Perplexity Documentation, 2024. Overview of Perplexity’s approach to answer synthesis and citation.
9. Anthropic. Claude and Web Search. Anthropic Documentation, 2025. Explains how Claude retrieves and synthesises information from multiple web sources.
10. Gartner. Emerging Technologies: The Future of Search and Generative AI. Gartner Research, 2025. Discusses the evolution from keyword search towards AI-assisted decision making.
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Michael McQueen is a globally recognised trend forecaster, change strategist and keynote speaker.
A bestselling author of 10 books, Michael’s latest release was named by Malcolm Gladwell and Adam Grant as one of the top five must-read new leadership books. He is a sought-after media commentator, with his insights regularly featured in Forbes, The Guardian, and CNN.
To find out more about Michael and his work, click here.
