# What is generative engine optimization (GEO)?

> In short: Generative engine optimization (GEO) is the work of making AI systems that write answers, such as ChatGPT and Google's AI Overviews, mention your brand and cite your content. The name comes from a 2023 research paper. In practice it means the same job as AEO.

Definition from Keats, published 2026-11-12, updated 2026-11-12. Canonical: https://getkeats.com/glossary/geo

Generative engine optimization, or GEO, is the practice of improving how often AI systems that generate answers mention you and cite you. A "generative engine" is the paper's term for what most people now call an answer engine: a search tool that writes a reply from the sources it finds.

The term was coined in a paper submitted to arXiv on 16 November 2023 by Pranjal Aggarwal and colleagues, "GEO: Generative Engine Optimization". The researchers tested which changes to a page made generative engines more likely to use it, and measured visibility as how much of an answer drew on each source.

## GEO or AEO?

They name the same job. Some people use GEO for the content side and [AEO](https://getkeats.com/glossary/aeo) for the whole practice; most use them interchangeably. Search demand is close: about 7,100 US searches a month for "generative engine optimization" and 7,300 for "answer engine optimization" (Ahrefs, read 2026-11-12), and about 1,900 people a month search "aeo vs geo" to find out whether there's a difference.

There isn't one worth arguing about. Whatever you call it, the measure is how often the answers to your buyers' questions name and cite you, and the work is the same four steps. We use AEO on this site because it's the term buyers use for tools. For how both relate to SEO, see [AEO vs SEO vs GEO](https://getkeats.com/guides/aeo-vs-seo).


## Sources

- [Aggarwal et al., GEO: Generative Engine Optimization (arXiv 2311.09735)](https://arxiv.org/abs/2311.09735), read 2026-11-12
- [Keats: US search volume and difficulty for 40 AEO terms (CSV, from Ahrefs)](https://getkeats.com/data/aeo-keywords-2026-11-12.csv), read 2026-11-12