Beyond SEO: How Brands Can Win in the Age of AI Search with Answer Engine Optimization (AEO)

The way we find information online has changed forever. Gone are the days when a brand’s only goal was to rank first on a list of blue links. Now, AI-powered search engines are providing direct, conversational answers, fundamentally reshaping how consumers discover brands and products. This isn’t just a tweak to traditional SEO; it’s a new game entirely: Answer Engine Optimization, or AEO.

A recent study by Goodie provides a blueprint for this new digital landscape. The research, which analyzed over 1 million prompts across leading AI models like ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude, Grok, and Perplexity, reveals the key elements that drive brand visibility in AI responses. The findings show us that to succeed in this new era, brands must build a strategy around a new set of principles.

Understanding the AEO Framework: The Elements of Visibility

The study identified 15 core factors that influence how AI models choose which brands to feature. While they all play a part, the top elements form the absolute foundation of any effective AEO strategy.

At the very top is – Content Relevance. This element measures how precisely your content aligns with a user’s explicit or implied question. To a language model, your content is a series of “semantic embeddings”. The closer your content’s embedding matches the query’s embedding, the more likely the AI is to select it as the answer.

Next, with a nearly identical weight, is Content Quality & Depth. AI models prefer comprehensive and insightful information that demonstrates expertise. Think of it as providing a deep dive instead of a shallow overview. Rich, detailed content creates high-quality embeddings that are easier for AI to surface accurately.

Trustworthiness & Credibility is another critical factor. For high-stakes queries, AI models rely on fact-checking mechanisms that weigh a source’s credibility heavily. Brands with information from reputable, reliable sources are more likely to be trusted and cited.

Finally, AI Crawlability & Structured Data is essential. This is the clarity of your website’s structure and your use of semantic markup like Schema.org. Structured data directly creates precise, semantically explicit embeddings, making it much easier for AI to extract and surface your content. It’s a way of speaking the AI’s language.

Other important factors include –

Topical Authority & Expertise – the depth and specialization a brand shows in a particular field—and

Citations & Mentions – which serve as external validation signals within the AI’s training data.

A Look at What Each AI Model Prioritizes

One of the study’s most important takeaways is that each AI model has its own unique priorities. A one-size-fits-all approach just won’t cut it anymore.

• ChatGPT: This model loves deep, nuanced content supported by extensive, credible sources. It strongly favors semantic precision and a logical flow of reasoning, with a high emphasis on content quality and relevance. It still gives some indirect weight to traditional search rankings, but it’s clearly shifting towards a semantic-first approach.
• Claude: Claude’s top priority is trustworthiness, with a near-perfect score of 99. Its internal systems are designed to minimize “hallucinations” by performing strict checks on unverifiable claims. Interestingly, it’s also the only model that puts a uniquely high value on social signals (83), seeing social engagement as a key validation metric.
• Gemini: Much like Claude, Gemini has a “trust-first” approach. It gives perfect scores for credibility (99) and is one of the highest for content relevance (98). It also places a strong emphasis on structured markup, which makes sense given Google’s long history with schema. However, Gemini attributes minimal influence to social signals and localization, preferring to focus on universally credible content.
• Perplexity: Perplexity is a technical standout. It leads all other models with a near-perfect score (99) for its emphasis on AI crawlability and structured data. This model also highly values freshness (93) and data frequency (88), making it especially effective for rapidly evolving topics. It relies heavily on authoritative references like Wikipedia and Knowledge Panels to solidify its knowledge graphs.
• Grok: Grok is all about real-time, community-driven information. It has the highest scores for content freshness (96) and data frequency (92) because it directly pulls from ongoing conversations on X. Its systems use dynamic real-time embeddings that adjust continually to ensure highly context-sensitive answers. Grok also places a significant emphasis on technical performance, citing fast load speeds (LCP < 1.2s) as essential.

Your AEO Playbook: Practical Recommendations

On the basis of this information, here are some actionable steps brands can take to improve their visibility in AI responses.

Universal Strategies

• Focus on Depth Over Breadth: Develop comprehensive, semantically rich content that fully answers a user’s search intent, rather than publishing many shallow articles on different topics.
• Structure Content for AI: Use schema markup like FAQ or How-To to make your content machine-readable and easy for AI to understand.
• Earn Authoritative Citations: Actively seek mentions and citations from recognized authorities and knowledge bases. This external validation strengthens your brand’s credibility.
• Refresh Strategically: Regularly update your most valuable content, particularly on time-sensitive topics, to reinforce its reliability and maintain its freshness.

Model-Specific Tactics

• For Claude: Focus on generating positive social signals and authoritative, factual citations. Also, optimize your content for contextual and localized relevance.
• For Grok: Engage in real-time community discussions and ensure your website has exceptional technical performance and fast load speeds.
• For Perplexity: Keep your content ultra-fresh and implement detailed, structured schema markup to optimize for AI retrieval.
• For Gemini: Prioritize creating deeply trustworthy and semantically precise content from highly reputable sources. Do not rely on social popularity to get ahead with this model.
• For ChatGPT: Deliver richly detailed, nuanced content supported by extensive credible sources, as semantic precision is paramount for this model.

The shift to Answer Engine Optimization is more than just a passing trend. It’s a new standard that rewards brands that are genuinely authoritative, credible, and focused on providing exceptional value. By following these principles, you can stop chasing algorithms and start becoming the trusted answer.