Answer Engine Optimization (AEO)
Answer engine optimization is the practice of shaping a brand and its product information so it gets quoted directly inside AI-generated answers, such as ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Google AI Overviews, rather than only ranking as a blue link a person has to click through to read.
AEO accepts that a growing share of buying questions are answered on the results surface itself: the model reads sources, synthesises a response, and names a few products or brands. The goal shifts from earning a position in a ranked list to becoming one of the things the answer is built from. That means clear, factual, well-structured content the model can lift a sentence out of, plus consistent product details across the pages it draws on.
The sharpest difference from traditional SEO is the reliance on off-site corroboration. An answer engine rarely trusts a single self-published claim; it leans on the consensus it finds across reviews, retailer listings, forums, and third-party write-ups. So AEO is less about keyword density on your own pages and more about whether independent sources agree on what your product is and who it is for. Getting your existing reviews readable, corroborated, and actually cited by AI is the specific gap BetterReviews works on.
The honest caveat: AEO is hard to measure and partly outside your control. Models change, they may quote you without sending a click, and there is no ranking report. Treat it as influencing the inputs to an answer rather than controlling the output, and read any vendor promise of guaranteed AI placement with suspicion.