Most marketers treat AEO and GEO like interchangeable strategies.

They’re not.

AEO (answer engine optimization) helps your content show up as a direct answer in featured snippets, People Also Ask boxes, and voice search responses.

GEO (generative engine optimization) helps your content get cited and summarized inside AI experiences like Google’s AI Overviews and ChatGPT.

Both matter, but they serve different goals.

If you're optimizing for AI-driven search in 2026, you need to know exactly when to use each one.

​In this post, I break down:

• The core differences between AEO and GEO
• Which content types perform best for each
• How to structure pages so search engines and AI models can actually use them
• Common mistakes that hold businesses back

​Check out the full breakdown here.​

Cheers,

Neil Patel

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PS: If you’d rather have my team build an SEO strategy that works across Google, AI Overviews, and generative search, book a call now, and let's kickstart the year the right way.​