AEO and GEO glossary

The AI-visibility category is still naming itself, which makes shared vocabulary genuinely useful. These are the working definitions we use - short, practical, and free of acronym soup.

• Answer engine An answer engine returns a generated answer to a buyer's question instead of a list of links. ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, and Copilot are examples.
• AEO AEO (answer-engine optimization) is the practice of being named in AI-generated answers. It is measured at the answer level: mention, position, and citations.
• GEO GEO (generative engine optimization) is improving how generative engines represent, recommend, and cite your brand. It overlaps with AEO and builds on SEO.
• AI visibility AI visibility measures how often answer engines name, recommend, and cite a brand for buyer questions - and who they name instead.
• Share of voice Share of voice in AEO is the proportion of answers that name your brand versus the competitors you track, across the prompts and engines you monitor.
• Citation A citation is a source URL an answer engine leaned on when generating an answer. Changing the cited page is often the fastest way to change the answer.
• Prompt In AEO, a prompt is a buyer question run against answer engines. One tracked prompt slot is one prompt text, brand, country, and language combination.
• Visibility score An AI visibility score compresses mentions, position, and citations into one number. Useful for a dashboard, but it cannot be audited on its own.

Start with the AEO and GEO guide for B2B SaaS, or see engines on the cheapest paid plan.