What is Answer Engine Optimization?
Answer Engine Optimization (AEO) is the practice of making your business the one an AI answer engine names when a customer runs a search like “who is the best plumber in Austin, TX” and gets one or two recommendations instead of a page of links. Because the customer clicks straight through from the answer, traditional organic and paid listings see far less of that traffic.
AEO is done by adding the elements answer engines rely on — an llms.txt file, structured schema, answer pages and FAQ pages — each customized around what AI is actually saying about your company right now. If you are not the answer, you never get the chance to compete.
How is AEO different from SEO?
SEO is about ranking blue links so people click through to your site. AEO is about being the answer — the business the AI actually names when someone asks for a recommendation. With AI answers increasingly zero-click, if the AI does not name you, you never get the chance to compete.
The two are complementary, not opposed. The structured data, clear entity signals and well-organized content that help AEO also help classic search. The difference is the target: SEO optimizes for a ranking position, AEO optimizes for being cited inside the synthesised answer itself.
Which engines does AEO cover?
A serious AEO program measures every engine a buyer might use. MyFast.ai tests seven: ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, DeepSeek, Grok, Meta AI and Google’s AI Overviews.
That breadth matters because each engine draws on different sources and phrases its answers differently. A business can be named consistently in ChatGPT and completely absent from Gemini. Testing all seven is the only way to know where the gaps actually are.
How do you measure AEO?
MyFast.ai generates 100+ real buyer searches people actually type — “near me”, “best”, price and comparison queries — and runs every one through all seven engines. For each search it records whether your brand is Cited, Named or Not Found, then rolls the results into a single Findability Score from 0 to 100.
The Findability Score is built from five equally weighted parts: Foundation, Brand Recognition, Authority, Content Coverage and Ranking Share. Holding the same prompt set constant across runs is what makes month-over-month comparison meaningful rather than noise. A 100-search report takes roughly 6 minutes to run.
What do you do with the results?
Measurement is only useful if it leads to a fix. For every buyer search, MyFast.ai shows which specific engine recommended you or a competitor, the exact phrase that triggered it, and the AI’s word-for-word answer — so you can see precisely where you are Cited, Named or Not Found.
From there, the Developer Bundle turns findings into action: a one-time package of ready-to-publish files — your llms.txt, structured schema, answer and FAQ pages and sitemap — each custom-written from the actual AI answers about your business, with a plain-English START-HERE guide. Hand it to your web developer or publish it yourself.