HopkinsAEO University

Lesson 1 · 5:33

What is AEO?

What answer engine optimisation is, and why it decides which brands AI recommends.

Summary

Buyers now ask AI

More and more shoppers start with a question to an AI assistant instead of a search box: which moisturiser should I buy, which store delivers fastest, which one is worth the price. The assistant replies with a short written answer that names a handful of brands. That shortlist is where the decision now gets made.

What AEO means

Answer engine optimisation (AEO) is the work of getting your brand named, and your pages cited, in the answers AI assistants give: ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, Claude, and Google's AI Overviews and AI Mode. You will also hear it called GEO, generative engine optimisation. It is the same job.

How it differs from SEO

SEO competes for a place in a list of links, and the shopper still does the choosing. AEO competes for a place inside one answer, where the assistant has already chosen. On a results page, the fourth link still gets clicks. A brand left out of the answer isn't considered at all.

Two ways to appear

AI can mention you, by naming your brand in the answer, or cite you, by linking one of your pages as a source. They don't always come together, and you want both.

What the course covers

The lessons follow the NAMED framework: the five checks a brand has to pass before AI names it. Navigable, Answerable, Mentioned, Exact fit and Durable. The last two lessons show how to set up the questions you track and read whether it's working.

Key takeaways

  1. 01

    What is AEO?

    Answer engine optimisation is the work of getting your brand named and cited in the answers AI assistants give: ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, Claude and Google's AI Overviews.

  2. 02

    How is it different from SEO?

    SEO competes for a place in a list of links. AEO competes for a place inside one written answer, where only a handful of brands are named.

  3. 03

    Why does it matter now?

    Shoppers increasingly ask AI what to buy and act on what it recommends. A brand that isn't in the answer isn't in the decision.

  4. 04

    Does AEO replace SEO?

    No. It builds on it. Pages that search engines can find and read are the starting point for everything AI does with them.

  5. 05

    Where do you start?

    With what AI depends on: pages it can reach, answers it can lift, and other sites that vouch for you. The NAMED framework takes each in turn.

FAQs

Answer engine optimisation: making your brand the one AI assistants name when people ask them a question.

Yes. GEO, generative engine optimisation, is another name for the same work. Both are about appearing in AI-written answers rather than in a list of links.

Every assistant that answers buying questions: ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, Claude, Microsoft Copilot, and Google's AI Overviews and AI Mode. Each one picks its sources differently, so check each one on its own.

Yes. AI picks the best answer to the exact question it was asked, not the biggest brand. A store that answers a specific buyer's question better than anyone else can be the one it names.

Ask the assistants the questions your buyers ask and see who is named. AI changes its answer from one ask to the next, so ask each question many times, or track a set of prompts with a tool that does.
Youssef Abolatta

Your instructor

Youssef Abolatta · Founder, Hopkins

Youssef is the founder of Hopkins, the AI visibility platform that measures how ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, Claude and Google's AI recommend online stores. He works hands-on with e-commerce brands on answer engine optimisation, turning what AI assistants say about them into traffic and sales, and built the NAMED framework from thousands of measured AI answers.

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