SEO used to be about climbing to the top of Google’s results. If you nailed the right keywords, had some decent backlinks, and kept things ticking over, you could get your content in front of people.
People aren’t searching the same way they did traditionally; they’re getting their answers directly from AI. According to early 2025 data reported in the Wall Street Journal, around 40% of brand-site traffic is now being routed through AI tools rather than traditional search. That means fewer clicks, more summaries, and a new kind of competition. The goal now is not just to rank, but to be the answer.
Whether it’s Google’s AI Overviews, ChatGPT, or Perplexity, search is evolving into something more conversational, more intelligent, and more invisible. Instead of showing a list of links, AI tools often pull together answers from across the web and your content either gets included, or it doesn’t.
So, where does that leave SEO?
The Four Pillars of AI-First Visibility
1. Generative Engine Optimisation (GEO)
GEO is about helping AI tools like ChatGPT or Google’s Gemini AI Overviews understand and surface your content. That means presenting information in a way that’s structured, credible, and easy for machines to parse.
What matters most:
- Use clear headings, bullet points, and short, well-structured paragraphs
- Link to high-authority sources
- Include visuals (charts, product images, short videos)
- Make sure your technical setup is clean: metadata, mobile friendliness, and fast load speeds
- And, just like in traditional SEO, prioritise Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness and Trust (EEAT) throughout
If AI can’t trust or clearly understand your content, it simply won’t use it.
2. Answer Engine Optimisation (AEO)
AEO focuses on making your content useful in answer-based formats. AI tools are favouring pages that directly respond to user questions quickly and clearly.
Key things to do:
- Structure your content around specific questions your audience is asking
- Use FAQ, How-to, and Product schema markup
- Align subheadings with long-tail, natural language search terms
- Provide straightforward, scannable answers within each section
Good AEO content doesn’t waffle. It gets to the point and answers properly.
3. AI Interaction Optimisation (AIO)
AI Interaction Optimisation is about structuring your content so that it’s easy for users to engage with, especially when it's shown inside AI tools like ChatGPT or Google’s AI Overviews, where users might not even visit your website. Your content needs to work well in those environments, not just on your site.
That includes:
- Clear TL;DR sections
- Bullet points, numbered lists, tables, and pros and cons. Anything that helps break information into skimmable, structured formats AI can easily interpret
- Logical blocks of content that can stand on their own
- Anticipating follow-up questions and including the answers
- Structured calls to action that guide the user towards the next steps
All things that are geared towards being genuinely useful.
4. Search Experience Optimisation (SXO)
Once someone does land on your site, the experience needs to work.
This means:
- Fast page speed, especially on mobile
- Clean layout and intuitive design
- Accessibility baked in, not tacked on
- A journey that matches what the user came for, with no dead ends
Why You Can’t Skip Any of These
It’s tempting to focus on just one or two of the pillars. Maybe you’ve nailed traditional SEO (GEO) or your team writes great content that answers questions (AEO).
But in an AI-first search world, leaving one out means your content is either invisible, ignored, or ineffective. Here's how it breaks down:
Miss out GEO?
AI won’t understand or trust your content, and it won’t cite it. You won’t appear in answers, summaries, or sidebars.
Miss out AEO?
Your content might get noticed, but not selected. If you don’t structure it to answer questions clearly, AI tools will move on to someone else who does.
Miss out AIO?
Even if you get surfaced, your content might look like a wall of text or feel unhelpful. No one’s reading dense paragraphs when they’re after a quick answer. Worse, AI tools might struggle to break your content into usable chunks.
Miss out SXO?
You get the click, but the experience falls flat. The site is slow, hard to use on mobile, or fails to guide the user to the next step. That means lost opportunities and lower return on everything you've invested.
10-Step AI-First SEO Checklist
Start with these few things for your GEO
1. Check if your pages are being cited in AI tools like ChatGPT, Perplexity, or Bing Copilot. If not, review how your content is structured and whether it's clearly answering specific queries.2. Add external links to credible sources (.gov, .org, well-known publishers) to build trust and help AI understand your content’s authority.
3. Include product comparisons, pros and cons, and real use cases. AI engines favour practical, helpful content over vague statements.
Then move on to these for your AEO
4. Use schema markup (FAQ, HowTo, Product) to structure your pages so that AI and search engines can clearly interpret them.5. Write your subheadings as questions this aligns your content with how people naturally search and how AI interprets queries.
6. Give direct, scannable answers beneath each section, short paragraphs, bullet points, and stats work well.
Then, these steps for AIO
7. Add TL;DR summaries at the top or bottom of your pages to help users and AI quickly grasp your key points.8. Break content into clear, standalone blocks like Q&As, tables, or numbered lists. These formats are easier for AI to lift and re-use.
9. Include structured calls to action throughout your content, not just at the end. Help users know what to do next.
And finally, this step for your SXO
10. Run a speed and mobile-friendliness audit using tools like Google PageSpeed Insights or Core Web Vitals. Make sure your content not only gets found, but also actually works when users land on it.
What’s Coming in 2026/27
- Citation signals will get smarter
AI tools will start to favour content that’s mentioned consistently across trusted sources like news sites, reputable blogs, and partner websites.
It won’t just be about what you say on your site, but who else is reinforcing it. The more aligned and visible your brand is across the web, the more likely AI will trust and surface you in answers.
- New formats for AI-first web content
We’ll likely see new technical standards emerge, things like llms.txt (similar to robots.txt) or AI-specific metadata added to your website’s code. These would help AI tools understand how you want your content to be used, cited, or summarised.
Forward-thinking SEO will start to include this sort of “AI-readiness” alongside traditional optimisations.
- UX will carry more weight
Getting visibility from AI is only half the job. If the user experience on your site is poor, like slow load times, cluttered layout, hard-to-use mobile flow, then people will bounce.
AI will likely start to factor in those user signals, so brands will need to treat Search Experience Optimisation (SXO) as a core part of performance strategy. Expect growing importance on accessibility, voice navigation, and even real-time feedback loops from AI tools.
To wrap it all up
Search, discovery, and visibility are evolving fast. As AI continues to shape how content is found and presented, relying on traditional SEO alone won’t cut it. Brands need a joined-up approach across GEO, AEO, AIO, and SXO to stay relevant and get results.
Each pillar does something different, but they’re strongest when used together. Drop one, and your chances of being seen, cited, or clicked fall away. Get them working in sync, and you create a solid foundation for visibility that actually leads somewhere.
August 8, 2025
