AI Search · Updated June 2026
AI Overviews are Google’s AI-generated answers shown above traditional results, synthesized from multiple sources with citations. They reduce clicks for simple queries but create new visibility: being cited in an Overview positions your brand as the authority.
Content that gets cited tends to be directly structured around the question, factually specific, schema-marked, and from sites with topical authority. Stats pages, definitions, and step-by-step guides are disproportionately cited.
Generative engine optimization (GEO) is optimizing content to be retrieved, used, and cited by AI answer engines — ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity, Google AI Overviews. Tactics include quotable self-contained answers, explicit statistics, schema markup, llms.txt, and allowing AI crawlers.
Answer engine optimization (AEO) is structuring content to directly answer questions so it gets selected by answer engines — featured snippets, voice assistants, and AI chat. Core pattern: a question as a heading, then a complete 40–60 word answer in the first paragraph.
A featured snippet is the highlighted answer box at the top of Google results, extracted from a ranking page. Winning it requires directly answering the query in a concise, self-contained paragraph, list, or table near a matching heading.