Forget SEO. The hot new thing is 'AEO.' Here are the startups chasing this AI marketing phenomenon.

SEO, oregon hunt motor optimization, is the creation and subject of crafting websites and different online contented truthful it shows up prominently erstwhile radical Google something.

A monolithic manufacture of experts, advisors, gurus (and charlatans) has grown up astir the interplay betwixt Google, which purposely sets opaque rules, and website owners tweaking worldly and trying to enactment the system.

The emergence of generative AI, ample connection models, and AI chatbots is changing each this — radically and quickly.

While SEO has agelong been a cornerstone of integer selling strategy, a caller paradigm is rapidly threatening to instrumentality its place: "answer motor optimization," oregon AEO.

As AI chatbots specified arsenic ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, and Perplexity go the beforehand doorway to online discovery, AEO is emerging arsenic a strategical imperative for growth. There's been an detonation of AEO startups and tools successful caller months, each promising to assistance online businesses amusement up erstwhile chatbots and AI models reply idiosyncratic questions.

"There indispensable person been 30 AEO merchandise launches successful the past fewer months, each trying to bash what SEO did 20 years ago," said David Slater, a main selling serviceman who's worked astatine Mozilla, Salesforce, and different tech companies. "It's perfectly going to beryllium a blistery space."

What Is AEO?

AEO is SEO adapted for the satellite of conversational AI, says Ethan Smith, CEO of integer selling steadfast Graphite Growth. He wrote an fantabulous blog precocious astir this caller trend.

Where accepted SEO focused connected optimizing for static keyword-driven queries, AEO centers connected influencing however AI chatbots respond to idiosyncratic questions, helium says. With tools similar ChatGPT progressively integrating real-time web hunt and surfacing clickable links, chat interfaces present relation similar hybrid hunt engines. The effect is simply a accelerated feedback loop that makes influencing LLM outputs not conscionable possible, but indispensable for online businesses.

Unlike SEO, wherever a landing leafage mightiness people a azygous keyword, AEO pages indispensable code clusters of related questions. Smith shares an example: Instead of optimizing a webpage for "project absorption software," AEO pages mightiness reply dozens oregon adjacent hundreds of variations specified arsenic "What's the champion task absorption instrumentality for distant teams?" oregon "Which task absorption platforms enactment API integration?"

Why ChatGPT's unrecorded web entree makes AEO important

This displacement didn't hap overnight. When ChatGPT launched successful precocious 2022, its responses were generated from outdated grooming information with nary unrecorded web access. But implicit the past year, LLMs person started utilizing retrieval-augmented generation, oregon RAG, and different techniques that assistance them incorporated much real-time information. They often execute a unrecorded online search, for instance, and past summarize results successful existent time. This makes AEO some faster to power and much dynamic than its SEO predecessor, Smith writes.

There's been immoderate involvement successful AEO for astir a twelvemonth oregon so. But successful aboriginal 2025, OpenAI's ChatGPT and different generative AI services began surfacing salient links and citations successful answers a batch more. That's erstwhile AEO truly took off.

Now, AEO startups are raising task capital, immoderate online businesses are seeing conversion spikes from AI traffic, and there's been a Cambrian detonation of AEO analytics, tracking, and contented tools.

Check retired this database of AEO startups and tools, identified by Smith from Graphite Growth. There are a fewer established players successful here, too, including HubSpot. (Overall, determination are a lot, truthful click connected the fastener successful the apical close of this array to spot each the options!)

Looking into the 'brain' of an AI model

There's already a contention to effort to find however these AI chatbots spit retired results and recommendations, truthful website owners tin hack their mode to amended online organisation successful the caller epoch of generative AI and ample connection models.

GPTrends is 1 of these up-and-coming AEO providers. David Kaufman, 1 of the entrepreneurs down the firm, shared an absorbing analysis precocious connected LinkedIn.

He said that AI hunt results from tools specified arsenic ChatGPT and Perplexity are unpredictable. They tin alteration adjacent erstwhile you inquire the aforesaid question aggregate times. Unlike Google, wherever hunt results enactment mostly the same, AI tools springiness antithetic answers depending connected however the exemplary responds successful the moment, Kaufman writes.

For example, Kaufman and his colleagues asked ChatGPT this question 100 times: "What's the champion enactment ticketing software?" Then they tracked which providers appeared astir often. Here are the results of the test:

David Kaufman, GPTrends

Zendesk showed up successful 94% of answers, portion different companies, including Freshworks and Zoho, appeared little often and successful antithetic positions. This randomness gives little well-known brands a amended changeable astatine being seen, astatine slightest immoderate of the time.

"Strategically, this means brands request to rethink however they optimize for discovery, focusing little connected accepted SEO tactics and much connected comprehensive, authoritative contented that AI systems admit arsenic valuable," Kaufman writes.