Glossary · Core disciplines
Generative Engine Optimization (GEO)
Also called: GEO, generative engine optimisation
Generative Engine Optimization (GEO) is the practice of engineering content and entity signals so that generative AI engines — ChatGPT, Perplexity, Claude, Gemini — cite, quote and name your brand inside the answers they generate.
GEO shares roughly 80% of its structural work with AEO: the same extraction-friendly format, the same schema layer, the same named-expert authorship. The 20% that differs is distribution — GEO leans harder on entity authority (Wikidata presence, verifiable sameAs, mentions in trusted publications) because generative engines weigh who you are, not only what a page says.
The term emerged from the research community around generative retrieval, while AEO emerged from the SEO community around featured answers. In 2026 they describe the same practice against an overlapping set of engines, which is why most agencies sell both.
GEO and AEO are ~80% the same rewrite; GEO emphasises entity authority for generative chat, AEO emphasises schema validation for boxed answers.
A law firm applies GEO by publishing named-partner author pages with schema.org Person and sameAs to their bar-association profiles, so Claude and Perplexity attribute regulatory claims to a credentialed human rather than to an anonymous domain.