The answer to this question is Simple. Yes. Yes AI Is changing everything About SEO That we once knew.
First of all there’s the new acronyms.
New Acronyms:
LLMO – Large Language Model Optimisation
AEO – Answer Engine Optimisation
AIO – Artificial Intelligence Optimisation
GEO – Generative Engine Optimisation
All of these acronyms point to the fact we are no longer optimising just for a search engine but instead optimising for engines that generate answers or for the foundational models that make them run.
The Search Results Pages that we used to optimise for are changing with AI summaries replacing the top results leading to a drop in traffic for many of the sites that traditionally occupied these positions. And Google
has recently released AI mode meaning you can change your search experience to AI mode with a single click from the front page.
These changes alone mean that any SEO Strategy is incomplete if it doesn’t Include elements that target these new aspects of search engine results pages. That being pages with an AI Summary or completely different answer engines.
The challenge for Search Engine Marketers now becomes ‘how do I get these answer engines to include me in their answers.” You are trying to secure a brand mention or product mention within the answer the engine returns as results for a query.
To Secure brand mentions on the answer engines it seems that having a lot of brand mentions on authoritative sites helps So search marketers can start with this approach when embarking on the task of starting their AEO Journey. Authoritative sites that click with answer engines include Reddit.com Linkedin.Com And Quora.com just to mention a few.
So Although GEO and SEO are two fundamentally different things you may spend your time doing similar tasks.
Securing brand mentions is not to dissimilar to SEO Link Building Other than instead of trying to secure a backlink you are trying to secure a brand mention.
AI Is its own technology stack and to gain confidence in optimising for it you really need to study the whole stack from LLMs to agents the more you study the underpinning technology the more confidence you will have optimising for it.
So even though some tasks remain similar that you may engage in while practicing the new SEO, SEO has fundamentally changed. Your targets have changed and if you don’t figure out how to gain visibility in the LLMs you will remain invisible.