Terminology war
The terminology war is the industry argument over what to call the work of getting named in AI answers: GEO, AEO, LLMO, AI SEO and more.
The terminology war is the running argument over what to call the work of getting your brand named in AI answers. GEO, AEO, LLMO, AIO, AI SEO and AI search optimisation all describe much the same thing, and nobody has won.
You'll meet it when you hire an agency, buy a tool or explain the work to your boss. Different people use different names, and sometimes the same name for different things.
The main names
- GEO, generative engine optimisation, comes from academic research and is popular with agencies
- AEO, answer engine optimisation, puts the focus on the answer itself, and some people used it for featured snippets before AI answers
- LLMO, large language model optimisation, puts the focus on what models learn and remember
- AIO and AI SEO treat it as a branch of search engine optimisation
Each of them has its own entry in this glossary if you want the details.
Does the name matter?
Mostly no. The work underneath is the same: find out which questions your customers ask, see what the platforms answer, learn which pages they read, and improve what those pages say about you.
Where the name does matter is in what people expect. For example, Kestrel Roasters gets two agency proposals, one for "GEO" and one for "AEO." They sound different. When Kestrel asks each one which questions they'll track, on which platforms, how often, and what they'll change, it turns out the plans are close. The questions told Kestrel more than the labels did.
Picking one for your team
Choose the term your team and your customers already use, write down what you mean by it, and stick to it in your reports. That saves the argument from being had again at every meeting.
In AnswerOrbit
In these docs we mostly say AI search and AI visibility, because they describe what you see: how often the AI platforms name you.