What Is AEO (Answer Engine Optimisation)? A Complete Guide for 2026

AEO (Answer Engine Optimisation) is the practice of optimising website content to be selected and cited as a direct answer by AI-powered search platforms including ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Google AI Overviews.

If you've noticed your website traffic declining even though your search rankings haven't changed, you're experiencing the biggest shift in how people find information since Google introduced the blue link. Over 60% of Google searches now end without anyone clicking through to a website. AI platforms like ChatGPT serve over 800 million people every week. And when those platforms answer a question, they cite specific sources — the ones optimised for answer engines.

This guide explains what AEO is, how it works, how it differs from traditional SEO, and what Australian businesses can do to start appearing in AI-generated answers.

What Is Answer Engine Optimisation (AEO)?

Answer Engine Optimisation (AEO) is the process of structuring and formatting website content so that AI-powered platforms can easily understand, extract, and cite it as a direct answer to user queries. Unlike traditional search engines that return a list of ranked links, answer engines deliver synthesised responses — pulling information from the sources they consider most relevant, authoritative, and clearly structured.

The key answer engines in 2026 include ChatGPT (by OpenAI), Perplexity AI, Google AI Overviews (and Google AI Mode), Microsoft Copilot, and Claude (by Anthropic). Each platform processes queries differently, but they all share one thing in common: they need well-structured, authoritative content to cite.

Where traditional SEO asks "how do I rank higher on Google?", AEO asks "how do I become the source that AI platforms cite when answering questions in my industry?" It's a shift from competing for clicks to competing for citations.

How Do Answer Engines Work?

Answer engines use large language models (LLMs) to process user queries and generate responses. When a user asks a question — for example, "what's the best CMS for a small business in Australia?" — the AI doesn't just pull up a list of web pages. It runs what's called a "query fan-out" process: generating multiple background searches, evaluating the results, and synthesising information from the most relevant sources into a single conversational answer.

Here's what happens behind the scenes:

1. Query interpretation — the AI analyses the user's question to understand intent, context, and what kind of answer is needed
2. Source retrieval — the platform searches its training data and, in many cases, performs real-time web searches to find relevant content
3. Content evaluation — sources are evaluated for authority, relevance, structure, and freshness
4. Response synthesis — the AI combines information from multiple sources into a coherent answer
5. Citation — the platforms attribute their sources, either through inline citations (Perplexity), linked references (ChatGPT), or source cards (Google AI Overviews)

The critical insight for businesses: your content needs to be structured in a way that makes it easy for AI to extract, understand, and attribute. This is where AEO tactics come in.

Why AEO Matters in 2026

The numbers tell a clear story about why AEO has become essential for any business that relies on being found online.

Three trends in particular are driving AEO's importance. First, zero-click searches have become the norm — the majority of Google queries now end without anyone visiting a website, and that rate climbs to around 93% in Google's AI Mode. Second, AI platforms are capturing a rapidly growing share of information-seeking behaviour, with ChatGPT's share of total internet traffic doubling between January and April 2025. Third, users who do arrive via AI referrals are significantly more engaged — they've already read a summarised version of your content and clicked through because they want more depth, making them higher-quality visitors.

For Australian businesses specifically, the opportunity is significant. The AEO landscape in Australia is still in its early stages — most local businesses and even most digital marketing agencies haven't started optimising for AI search. That means there's a first-mover advantage available right now for businesses willing to invest in structured, citation-ready content.

How AEO Differs from Traditional SEO

AEO and SEO are complementary disciplines, not competing ones. A strong SEO foundation actually helps with AEO — research shows that 99% of URLs cited in Google AI Mode appear in the top 20 organic search results. But there are meaningful differences in approach, measurement, and content strategy.

The practical implication: if you're already investing in SEO, you're not starting from zero with AEO. Many of the fundamentals overlap — quality content, technical excellence, authority signals. AEO adds a layer on top focused on making your content machine-readable, citation-ready, and structured for extraction.

What Makes Content Get Cited by AI?

Not all content is equally likely to be cited by answer engines. Research analysing millions of AI-generated responses has identified specific characteristics that increase citation rates.

Content structure matters most. Pages with self-contained sections of 120–180 words between headings receive significantly more citations than pages with shorter or longer sections. Each section needs to be independently understandable — AI models extract individual sections, not entire pages. Front-loading is critical: 44% of all ChatGPT citations come from the first 30% of an article's content.

Entity density drives citations. Heavily cited content averages around 20% entity density — meaning one in five words is a specific name, number, date, product, or organisation. Compare "marketing tools can improve email performance" with "Dynamics 365 Customer Insights – Journeys enables businesses to build automated email sequences with A/B testing, starting at approximately $1,500 per month." The second version is what AI models extract and cite.

Structured data amplifies visibility. FAQ content with FAQPage schema markup achieves citation rates of 76% or higher. Google AI Overviews cite FAQ schema-marked content in 88% of instructional queries. Schema markup doesn't guarantee citation, but it dramatically increases the odds by making your content's structure explicitly machine-readable.

Freshness is a ranking factor for AI. Content updated within the last 90 days achieves roughly double the citation rate of content last updated over a year ago. AI platforms favour recent information, and 50% of Perplexity citations reference content published within the current year.

The tone that gets cited is "analyst commentary." Not dry facts. Not breathless opinion. The sweet spot is fact combined with interpretation — clear, authoritative analysis that balances objectivity with practical insight. A balanced subjectivity score of around 0.47 on a 0-to-1 scale correlates with the highest citation rates.

How Each Major AI Platform Selects Sources

Different answer engines have different citation behaviours. Understanding these differences helps you optimise for the platforms that matter most to your audience.

ChatGPT

ChatGPT holds approximately 65–68% of the AI chatbot market and generates roughly 78% of all AI referral traffic to websites. It averages about 8 citations per answer and tends to favour mainstream, authoritative sources. Its most cited websites include Wikipedia, Reddit, and established publications. ChatGPT increasingly performs real-time web searches (roughly 31% of prompts trigger a search), especially for queries with local intent (59% trigger a search). For recommendation-style queries, ChatGPT cites comparison pages 78% of the time.

Perplexity

Perplexity positions itself as an AI-first search engine rather than a general chatbot. It processes an estimated 1.2–1.5 billion queries per month and averages roughly 22 citations per answer — nearly three times more than ChatGPT. This means more opportunities for your content to be cited. Perplexity favours Reddit, community content, and recent publications. It cites more diverse sources than any other platform, with only 25% source repetition compared to Google's 58%. Users spending about 9 minutes per session on referred sites makes Perplexity a strong source of qualified traffic.

Google AI Overviews and AI Mode

Google AI Overviews reach 2 billion monthly users globally and appear in up to 60% of US search queries. When AI Overviews are present, 99% of informational keywords trigger them. AI Overviews strongly favour FAQ schema-marked content and tend to cite sources already ranking in the top 10 — making traditional SEO an important foundation. AI Mode, Google's more conversational interface, has 100 million monthly users but generates a 93% zero-click rate. Notably, only 13.7% of citations overlap between AI Overviews and AI Mode, meaning they surface different sources.

Microsoft Copilot

Copilot integrates into the Microsoft 365 ecosystem and Bing search results. While its standalone market share is smaller (around 1%), its integration into Windows, Edge, and Office products gives it significant reach among enterprise users and professionals who rely on Microsoft tools.

How to Get Started with AEO

You don't need to overhaul your entire website to start benefiting from AEO. Here are the practical steps, ordered by impact and effort.

Step 1: Audit Your Current AI Visibility

Before changing anything, find out where you stand. Open ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Google (with AI Overviews enabled) and search for the questions your customers typically ask. Note whether your business or website is mentioned in the AI-generated answers. If you're not being cited, that's your baseline — and your opportunity.

Step 2: Add Structured Data to Your Website

Implement JSON-LD schema markup on your key pages. Start with FAQPage schema for any page that has question-and-answer content, LocalBusiness or ProfessionalService schema for your homepage, and Article schema for blog posts. Structured data doesn't guarantee visibility, but it makes your content significantly easier for AI to interpret and extract. Use Google's Rich Results Test to validate your markup.

Step 3: Structure Content for Extraction

Restructure your key pages so that every section can stand on its own. Add an "answer capsule" — a concise 20–30 word direct answer — at the top of each page or section. Use H2 headings framed as questions (matching what people actually ask AI). Keep sections between 120 and 180 words. Include specific data: names, numbers, dates, and prices rather than vague descriptions.

Step 4: Allow AI Crawlers Access

Check your robots.txt file. Many websites inadvertently block AI crawlers like GPTBot (ChatGPT), ClaudeBot (Claude), and PerplexityBot. Explicitly allow these in your robots.txt — it's a competitive advantage while many businesses still block them by default.

Step 5: Keep Content Fresh

Set a 90-day refresh cycle for your most important pages. AI platforms favour recently updated content. When you update a page, update the dateModified value in your Article schema and make substantive changes — don't just change the date.

Step 6: Monitor and Measure

Establish a monthly routine of testing your key queries across ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Google AI Overviews. Track whether your brand is cited, which URL is referenced, and how the AI characterises your content. In Google Analytics 4, create a custom channel grouping for referrals from chatgpt.com and perplexity.ai to measure AI-driven traffic.

Common AEO Mistakes to Avoid

Having worked with businesses across Australia implementing AEO strategies, I've seen several recurring mistakes that prevent content from being cited by AI platforms.

Hiding content behind JavaScript. If your FAQ answers, key content, or structured data only load via client-side JavaScript, most AI crawlers will never see it. AI crawlers typically don't execute JavaScript — they read raw HTML. Always verify that your important content appears in the page source, not just in the rendered browser view.

Blocking AI crawlers in robots.txt. Some website platforms and security plugins block GPTBot, ClaudeBot, and other AI user agents by default. If these crawlers can't access your site, your content can't be cited. Check your robots.txt and server logs to confirm access.

Writing generic content without specifics. Vague content doesn't get cited. "We provide great marketing services" tells AI nothing extractable. "We implement Dynamics 365 Customer Insights – Journeys automation for training companies, with campaigns achieving 45% open rates across 8 Asia-Pacific markets" gives AI something concrete to work with.

Ignoring content freshness. Publishing a page once and never updating it puts you at a growing disadvantage. AI platforms consistently prefer recently updated content. A quarterly review cycle is the minimum standard.

Treating AEO and SEO as separate strategies. They share most of the same foundation. Quality content, technical excellence, authority signals, and structured data serve both goals. The most efficient approach is to build an SEO-strong foundation and layer AEO-specific optimisations on top.

Key Takeaways

• AEO is the practice of optimising content to be cited as the answer in AI-generated responses from platforms like ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Google AI Overviews
• Over 60% of Google searches now end without a click, and AI search usage is growing rapidly — ChatGPT alone serves 800 million users weekly
• AEO and SEO are complementary, not competing — strong SEO foundations improve your chances of AI citation
• Structured data (especially FAQ schema), content freshness, entity-rich writing, and self-contained sections are the strongest drivers of AI citations
• Australian businesses have a first-mover advantage — relatively few local competitors are optimising for AI search yet
• You can start with free tools and a structured content approach before investing in paid AI visibility platforms
• Monthly monitoring across ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Google AI Overviews is essential for measuring AEO success