Your website shows up on Google. Good. But when someone asks ChatGPT "best headless development agency in Europe" or Perplexity "which CMS to choose for B2B e-commerce," does your brand appear in the answer?
If the answer is no (or you don't know), you have a problem that grows every month. According to Similarweb data, AI platforms generated 1.13 billion referred visits to websites in June 2025 alone, a 357% increase over the same month the previous year. And the number keeps climbing.
Traditional SEO is still essential. But it's no longer enough. You need AEO: Answer Engine Optimization.
What Is AEO and How Does It Differ From SEO
SEO (Search Engine Optimization) optimizes your content to appear in Google's results: the classic 10 blue links. You compete for position on a list.
AEO (Answer Engine Optimization) optimizes your content so that AI-powered answer engines (ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, Copilot) cite you as a source or recommend you directly when someone asks a question.
The fundamental difference: in SEO, you compete to be on a list. In AEO, you compete to be the answer.
They are not mutually exclusive. In fact, they reinforce each other. But the rules are different. An AI engine doesn't read your meta title or count your keywords. It reads context, evaluates authority, looks for verifiable data, and decides whether your content deserves to be cited.
A BrightEdge study of 500,000 queries found that brands optimized for AI engines appear in 18% of relevant responses, compared to just 3% for non-optimized brands. The difference between doing AEO and not doing it is a 6x factor in visibility.
The Numbers That Justify Investing in AEO Now
Before getting into the how, here are the data points that explain the why:
- ChatGPT surpassed 800 million weekly active users in October 2025 (Sam Altman, OpenAI) and continues to grow. Gemini exceeds 400 million monthly users.
- Google's AI Overviews now appear in 48% of monitored queries according to BrightEdge, nearly double compared to a year ago.
- 60% of Google searches now end without a click (SparkToro/Datos, 2025). Users get the answer directly on the results page or in an AI summary.
- Referred traffic from AI platforms grew 357% year over year (Similarweb, June 2025). And these visitors convert better than average traffic.
- 85% of companies plan to increase their investment in AI search optimization in 2026 (Conductor).
The market is moving. The question is not whether AEO matters, but how much ground you're losing while you're not doing it.
How AI Engines Decide What to Recommend
The LLMs (Large Language Models) powering these engines don't work like Google. They don't have an index with numbered positions. They generate answers by synthesizing information from multiple sources, and they choose whom to cite based on specific criteria.
Content Freshness
This is the most decisive factor. An AirOps study of more than 4,000 pages cited by ChatGPT revealed that 95% of citations come from content published or updated within the last 10 months. Pages with a visible "last updated" date receive 1.8 times more citations.
If your last blog post is from 2023, AI engines are ignoring it.
Structure and "Citability"
LLMs prefer content they can fragment: a paragraph that answers a specific question, a list with clear steps, a comparison table with data. According to an SEOMator analysis of 177 million AI citations, list-format articles account for 32% of all citations. The Q&A format delivers the highest performance.
This doesn't mean everything should be a listicle. But each section of your content should be self-contained: if an AI engine extracts just that paragraph, does it make sense on its own?
Brand Mentions in External Sources
Here the difference with SEO is significant. In traditional SEO, what matters are backlinks. In AEO, unlinked brand mentions also count. When a publication, an industry directory, or a LinkedIn article mentions your company by name, LLMs register it as an authority signal.
AI engines build an entity graph. If your brand consistently appears associated with a topic ("Kiwop" + "headless development" + "Astro"), the model reinforces that association and reproduces it in its responses.
Original Data and Verifiable Experience
Content that says "SEO is important" contributes nothing that the LLM doesn't already know. Content that says "we implemented this strategy with an e-commerce client and organic traffic grew 47% in 4 months" is citable because it provides a data point the model cannot fabricate.
AI engines prioritize content with proprietary statistics, real case studies, and documented results. It's the algorithmic version of Google's E-E-A-T: Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness. Only LLMs apply it even more strictly because they need concrete data to generate concrete answers.
Technical Accessibility
Your website needs to be readable by AI crawlers (GPTBot, PerplexityBot, ClaudeBot, among others). If you're blocking them in robots.txt, you're invisible. Additionally, websites with good structure (hierarchical headings, schema markup, fast loading) are easier for models to process.
AEO Audit: How to Know Where Your Brand Stands Right Now
Before optimizing, you need a diagnosis. This audit takes 30 minutes and gives you a clear map of your current situation.
Step 1: Ask About Your Industry
Open ChatGPT, Gemini, and Perplexity. Ask questions a potential client would ask:
- "What is the best [your service] agency in [your area]?"
- "Which company would you recommend for [problem you solve]?"
- "Compare the best options for [your product/service category]"
Note whether you appear, where in the response, and what they say about you.
Step 2: Ask Directly About Your Brand
- "Do you know [your brand]? What do they do?"
- "What are the reviews of [your brand]?"
- "Is [your brand] a good option for [specific use case]?"
If the engine doesn't know you, you know you have work ahead. If it knows you but says something inaccurate or incomplete, you need to correct the sources.
Step 3: Compare With Competitors
- "[Your brand] vs [competitor]: which is better for [use case]?"
- "Alternatives to [competitor] for [need]"
This shows you whether AI engines position you as a viable alternative or don't even mention you.
Step 4: Use Perplexity to Verify Sources
Perplexity is especially useful because it shows the exact sources for each claim. Search for your brand there and you'll see which websites it pulls information from. Those sources are the ones you need to strengthen (or create if they don't exist).
Step 5: Document and Establish Your Baseline
Create a document with: where you appear, where you don't, what they say, which sources they cite, and how it compares to your direct competitors. This is your starting point. Repeat the audit every month to measure progress.
10 Actionable Steps to Improve Your AEO
1. Create Content That Answers Specific Questions
Not "Digital marketing guide." Instead, "How to reduce customer acquisition cost by 40% with algorithmic SEO." AI engines look for answers to concrete questions. Your content needs to be that answer.
Every article should target a question a real user would ask ChatGPT. If you can't formulate that question, the content is probably too generic for AEO.
2. Implement Rich Schema Markup
AI engines process content more effectively when it comes with structured metadata. This isn't optional; it's infrastructure:
- Article with author, datePublished, and dateModified
- Organization with name, logo, location, and social profiles
- Person for authors (with credentials, LinkedIn links, published articles)
- FAQPage for frequently asked questions sections
- HowTo for step-by-step guides
Schema doesn't just help Google. It helps any system that processes your website programmatically, including LLMs.
3. Get Mentions in External Sources
LLMs build authority from distributed mentions. It's not enough for your own website to say you're an expert. You need others to say it:
- Publish guest articles in industry publications
- Keep profiles updated on professional directories (Clutch, GoodFirms, G2)
- Respond to journalists and bloggers covering your sector
- Participate in podcasts and webinars (transcripts get indexed)
Every mention is a vote of confidence that AI models register.
4. Keep Your Google Business Profile Updated
Google Business Profile remains one of the primary sources that LLMs consult for local and company information. Recent photos, accurate hours, precise categories, and above all, authentic client reviews. AI engines weigh ratings as a trust signal.
5. Publish Content With Proprietary Data
Internal statistics, project results, industry benchmarks, client surveys. AI engines prioritize data they can't find anywhere else. If you publish an original, verifiable data point, you become a primary source, and primary sources get cited.
An example: instead of saying "SEO improves conversions," say "in a project with a fashion e-commerce client, we implemented content optimized for transactional intent and organic conversions increased 34% in the first quarter."
6. Maintain an Active LinkedIn Presence With Authority Content
LinkedIn is one of the sources that LLMs index frequently. Publishing professional content regularly (trend analysis, lessons learned, summarized case studies) reinforces the association between your name (personal and company) and your area of expertise.
This isn't about posting for the sake of posting. It's about ensuring that when an LLM searches for information about your area of specialization, it finds your name linked to relevant content across multiple platforms.
7. Ensure Your Website Is Technically Accessible to LLMs
AI engines send specific crawlers. Check your robots.txt and make sure you're not blocking GPTBot, PerplexityBot, ClaudeBot, Google-Extended, or other AI crawlers.
Beyond that, technical fundamentals matter: loading speed, clean hierarchical headings (H1 > H2 > H3), server-rendered content (not dependent on client-side JavaScript), and semantic URLs. According to AirOps data, descriptive URLs of 5-7 words receive 11.4% more citations than generic URLs.
8. Implement WebMCP So AI Agents Can Interact With Your Website
This is the next level. WebMCP is a standard proposed by Google and Microsoft that allows AI agents to interact directly with your website: search products, request quotes, filter results, all without simulating clicks.
It's not just visibility (being cited). It's functionality (agents being able to operate with your website). Companies that implement WebMCP early will have a significant competitive advantage in the autonomous agent ecosystem that is already emerging.
9. Create Author Pages With E-E-A-T
LLMs look for author authority signals, not just domain authority. Every person who publishes content on your website should have an author page with:
- Professional photo
- Bio with relevant experience and credentials
- Link to LinkedIn
- List of published articles
- Areas of specialization
This isn't vanity. It's a direct signal to AI models that the content is written by someone with real knowledge, not automatically generated.
10. Monitor Your Presence in AI Engines Regularly
AEO is not something you set up once and forget. Models get updated, sources change, and competition moves. Establish a monthly routine:
- Repeat the audit from the previous step
- Compare with last month's baseline
- Identify new questions where you should appear
- Detect changes in what engines say about you
- Adjust your strategy based on results
Pages that are not updated quarterly are 3 times more likely to lose citations in ChatGPT (AirOps, 2025).
What Does NOT Work in AEO
Knowing what to avoid is just as important as knowing what to do.
Keyword stuffing. LLMs understand semantics; they don't count word repetitions. Saturating text with the target keyword doesn't improve your AEO. In fact, it makes it worse: the content sounds artificial and models detect it.
Generic content copied from others. An Ahrefs analysis revealed that 67% of the pages most cited by ChatGPT are sources that marketers cannot replicate (Wikipedia, government sites, academic institutions). The brands that earn citations do so with original content and proprietary data, not by repeating what already exists.
Optimizing only your website without external presence. If your brand is only mentioned on your own website, LLMs won't consider it an entity with authority. You need distributed presence: directories, media, professional networks, review platforms.
Walls of text without structure. A 3,000-word article with no headings, no lists, and no short paragraphs is difficult for an LLM to fragment. And if it can't fragment it, it can't cite it. Structure is not decoration: it's functionality.
Blocking AI crawlers. It may seem contradictory, but some companies block GPTBot or ClaudeBot in robots.txt out of caution. If you want to appear in these engines' responses, they need to be able to read your content.
AEO + SEO: The Complete Strategy
AEO doesn't replace SEO. It complements it. And the good news is that well-crafted content works for both.
BrightEdge data shows that the overlap between AI Overview citations and organic results has grown from 32% to 54.5% in 16 months. That is, more than half of the content Google cites in its AI summaries also ranks in the top organic results. Doing good SEO puts you in position to be cited by AI.
But there's a crucial data point: 83% of AI Overview citations come from content that is NOT in the organic top 10. This means you can be cited by AI without ranking first on Google. AEO opens a door that traditional SEO doesn't have.
The practical difference: if you search "headless web development agency" on Google, you compete with 10 results. If you ask ChatGPT, there are only 1-3 recommendations. Being there has disproportionate value.
The optimal strategy is to do both in parallel. The same content, well-structured, with real data and demonstrable authority, works for Google and for ChatGPT. The difference is one of focus, not duplicated effort.
How We Do It at Kiwop
We're not writing this article from theory. AEO is part of what we do with clients and on our own website.
Our website is built with a headless architecture (Astro + Payload CMS), which means server-rendered content, structured schema markup on every page, and clean semantic URLs. It's exactly what AI crawlers process best: accessible content with no dependency on client-side JavaScript.
We implement Article and Person schema on all blog posts, with links to the authors' LinkedIn profiles. We publish content with proprietary data from real projects, not recycled theory. And we monitor our clients' presence in AI engines as part of the SEO service we offer.
We have also analyzed WebMCP and are preparing implementations so that our clients' websites are not only visible to AI agents, but can interact with them directly.
The reality is that most companies still haven't heard of AEO. That's not a problem. It's a window of opportunity that will close when the competition catches up.
Quick Checklist: The 10 AEO Actions at a Glance
If you take away just one thing from this article, let it be this list. Save it and review it every month:
- [ ] Create content that answers concrete questions (not generic topics)
- [ ] Implement rich schema markup (Article, Person, Organization, FAQ, HowTo)
- [ ] Get mentions in external sources (directories, media, guest posts)
- [ ] Keep Google Business Profile updated with recent reviews
- [ ] Publish content with proprietary data (case studies, statistics, real results)
- [ ] Maintain an active LinkedIn presence with authority content
- [ ] Verify that AI crawlers are not blocked in robots.txt
- [ ] Implement WebMCP for direct interaction with AI agents
- [ ] Create complete author pages with E-E-A-T
- [ ] Monitor presence in ChatGPT, Gemini, and Perplexity every month
The Time Is Now
AI answer engines are not the future. They are the present, with over 800 million weekly users on ChatGPT alone. Every month that passes without optimizing for them is a month of invisibility to a segment of customers who no longer search on Google the way they used to.
The good news: since AEO is still new territory, the competition hasn't moved. Companies that start now will have an advantage that will be difficult to replicate once the market matures.
If you want to know where your brand stands in AI engines and what to do to improve your position, let's talk. The AEO audit we describe in this article is the first step, and the results are usually eye-opening.
Sources cited:
- Similarweb, "AI Referral Traffic to Top Websites" (July 2025) -- via TechCrunch
- Conductor, "2026 AEO/GEO Benchmarks Report" (November 2025)
- BrightEdge, "AI Overview Citations Study" and "AI Search Visits Surging in 2025"
- AirOps, "The Impact of Stale Content on AI Visibility" (2025)
- SparkToro/Datos, "State of Search" (Q2 2025)
- Ahrefs, "67% of ChatGPT's Top Citations Are Off-Limits" (2025)
- SEOMator, analysis of 177 million AI citations
- OpenAI, active user data (Sam Altman, October 2025)
