What is AEO (Answer Engine Optimization)?

AEO, short for Answer Engine Optimization, has one goal: to become the answer a machine chooses to show. Whether that is a featured snippet in Google or the summarized answer in an AI engine, your content has to answer the question so clearly that it can be taken over directly.

Is AEO the same as GEO?

They overlap strongly, but the emphasis differs. AEO is broader and includes classic answer formats such as featured snippets, while GEO specifically aims at a mention within generative AI answers. In practice you work on them together: the same clear, structured content performs on both.

How do you optimize for answer engines?

It comes down to question-and-answer that a machine can hardly ignore:

• Pose the literal question as a heading and give a short, complete answer right after.
• Keep that answer concise and factual, without detours.
• Build the deeper explanation below it, so both the machine and the reader are served.

That way your page becomes the logical source for the answer, including in an AI Overview.

What does AEO mean for B2B?

For B2B companies, AEO is a way to appear early in the orientation process, the moment a decision-maker asks a concrete question. At Customer Impact we build that answer layer around commercial questions that genuinely lead to enquiries. We work only in B2B, never for webshops, and steer on customers and revenue instead of isolated visibility.