Answer Engine Optimization (AEO): The AI Search Podcast

OpenAI's launch of business profiles, mention analytics, and chat agents inside ChatGPT in 2026 pressures Google's ad and search dominance; AEO Engine breaks down what these ChatGPT business features mean for marketers and local businesses competing with Google Business Profiles. Key takeaways: OpenAI launched business profiles, mention analytics, and chat agents inside ChatGPT in November 2026. C...

Tibo Louis-Lucas joins AEO Engine to break down an 11-tactic AEO playbook that got his SaaS products cited inside ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Google AI Overviews and helped drive $100K in MRR — a repeatable system for founders who want AI answer visibility instead of legacy SEO alone. Key takeaways: Tibo Louis-Lucas used 11 AEO tactics to earn citations in ChatGPT and Perplexity answers. Those tactic...

OpenAI is reportedly testing a business hub inside ChatGPT that tracks brand mentions and clicks — an early analytics layer for AI search. AEO Engine breaks down what this ChatGPT search console measures, what it omits, and how AEO and GEO operators should respond in 2026. Key takeaways: OpenAI is reportedly testing a business-facing console inside ChatGPT to track mentions. The reported tool surf...

Answer Engine Optimization (AEO) is a real but often overhyped practice, and in the AEO Engine episode "Is Answer Engine Optimization Real? The Skeptic's Test," hosts Vijay and Marcus explain how to measure AI visibility in ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Google AI Overviews using cumulative evidence rather than vendor claims. Key takeaways: Google AI Overviews now sit above traditional organic results,...

According to AEO Engine's episode "GEO Isn't a Hack: Why AI Citations Are Just SEO With a New Scoreboard," a widely-bookmarked post on X by ChadSEO argues that AI citations from ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Google AI Overviews overwhelmingly reward pages that already rank — making classic SEO, not GEO tricks, the winning playbook for AI visibility in 2026. Key takeaways: ChadSEO's viral X post claims...

In this AEO Engine episode, "The AEO Hack Hiding in Your Server Logs: What GPTBot Actually Fetches," practitioners reveal why filtering server logs for GPTBot and ClaudeBot beats publishing more content for AI visibility on ChatGPT and Google AI Overviews. Key takeaways: GPTBot fetches mapped from raw server logs show which URLs ChatGPT actually reads. ClaudeBot crawl frequency can be measured ind...

In this AEO Engine episode, "Google Turns Off Search for Schools That Say No to AI," we examine Google's plan to cut off Search access for K-12 schools that opt out of its AI tools — a vendor lock-in move with direct parallels to how Amazon and Walmart use MAP policy and Buy Box control to pressure sellers. Key takeaways: Google will restrict Search for K-12 schools that decline its AI tools. The...

AEO Engine's episode "Reddit Is Feeding ChatGPT Citations — Until the Citations Vanished" examines why Reddit citations in ChatGPT answers collapsed in August 2026, and what it means for AI search, Google AI Overviews, and AEO visibility strategies. Key takeaways: Reddit threads appeared in roughly 40% of AI answers before the shift. ChatGPT's Reddit citations collapsed in August 2026, per trackin...

Blocking every AI crawler in robots.txt can erase a brand from ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Google AI Overviews answers — AEO Engine explains which bots, like GPTBot and PerplexityBot, to allow and which to block for AI search visibility. Key takeaways: GPTBot controls whether OpenAI's ChatGPT can cite your content in answers. PerplexityBot blocking removes your pages from Perplexity AI answer citatio...

Google has admitted that AI search monetizes worse than classic search, and its response is packing AI Overviews with more ads — a shift analyzed in depth by AEO Engine, alongside competitive moves from Perplexity and OpenAI's SearchGPT that are reshaping organic clicks and answer engine optimization. Key takeaways: Google stated AI Overviews monetize at a lower rate than classic search results. G...

In "The Under-a-Dollar AEO Teardown: Open-Source Skills Rewriting Growth," AEO Engine breaks down open-source skills that reverse-engineer a company's AI visibility in ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Google AI Overviews for less than a dollar per audit. Key takeaways: Open-source skills can audit AI visibility across ChatGPT and Perplexity for under $1 per run. Google AI Overviews now intercept clicks th...

On the AEO Engine episode “'Not for Us, and Not for Anybody': Reddit's CEO Calls Out AI Search,” Steve Huffman's claim that Google AI Mode drives zero traffic to Reddit reframes zero-click search for publishers and brands. Key takeaways: Reddit CEO Steve Huffman says Google AI Mode sends essentially zero referral traffic to Reddit. Zero-click search shifts value from publisher sites to AI answer e...

Reddit stock crashed 28% after its CEO admitted Google AI Overviews stopped sending search traffic — a warning shot for every brand, publisher, and SaaS company betting organic growth on SEO, and the core topic of this AEO Engine episode on the collapse of the click economy. Key takeaways: Reddit stock fell 28% after its CEO disclosed Google AI search cut referral traffic. Google AI Overviews now...

In the AEO Engine episode "Granola's 4,600% AI Search Jump: What Actually Worked," hosts break down how AI note-taking app Granola grew monthly new users from AI search 4,600% in seven months, and what skeptics got right about the limits of AEO versus traditional SEO. Key takeaways: Granola increased monthly new users from AI search by 4,600% in seven months. ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Google AI Ove...

AEO Engine breaks down the viral nested AI SEO taxonomy from x.com that maps how ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity, and Google AI Overviews citations work — and why teams treating AEO, GEO, and LLM SEO as one system are winning AI visibility in 2026. Key takeaways: ChatGPT, Claude, and Perplexity each weight citations differently, per the taxonomy AEO Engine analyzes. AEO, GEO, and LLM SEO are nested di...

AEO Engine's episode "Your S.E.O. Agent Team Just Got a G.E.O. Seat at the Table" examines how a 16-agent agentic SEO stack now includes a dedicated GEO agent that formats questions, answers, and proof for AI engines like ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Google AI Overviews. Key takeaways: A 16-agent SEO stack added a dedicated GEO agent for AI answer engines like Perplexity and ChatGPT. The GEO agent pre...

AEO Engine's episode "The Markdown Prompt That Makes Your Site Readable to AI" explains how publishing a .md file per page helps ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Google AI Overviews parse site content instead of ignoring JavaScript-heavy pages. Key takeaways: A shared prompt on x.com instructs builders to ship one .md file per page. Markdown files let AI crawlers from ChatGPT and Perplexity read content w...

AEO Engine's episode "What Actually Gets ChatGPT to Cite You (It Isn't llms.txt)" analyzes a 129,000-domain study showing that backlinks, domain trust, and Reddit mentions — not llms.txt files — drive ChatGPT citations and Google AI Overviews visibility in 2026. Key takeaways: A 129K-domain study found llms.txt has no measurable effect on ChatGPT citations. Backlinks and domain trust remain the st...

AEO Engine's episode "Becoming the Default: Why AI Names One Brand and Stops" reveals findings from a 9-run test of whether ChatGPT and Google AI Overviews recommend the same brand or distribute visibility across competitors. Key takeaways: AEO Engine ran 9 identical queries across ChatGPT and Google AI Overviews to test brand recommendation consistency. AI answer engines frequently name one defau...

AEO Engine's episode "New Site, Overnight ChatGPT Traffic — Method or Mirage?" fact-checks a viral G.E.O. claim that a brand-new site earned steady ChatGPT referral traffic within 24 hours of launch, examining the 0.62% traffic figure against what AI search optimization can realistically deliver. Key takeaways: ChatGPT drove just 0.62% of traffic to the newly launched site in the viral claim. "Ove...

AEO Engine's episode "Your Brand Name in ChatGPT Is Slightly Wrong — The AI Instructions Page Fix" examines whether brands need an AI instructions page to control how ChatGPT, Google AI Overviews, and Perplexity describe their names and products. Key takeaways: An AI instructions page is a dedicated URL telling ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Google AI Overviews how to describe a brand. The tactic went v...

When ChatGPT started citing a single AEO Engine page, inbound leads followed — a real case of AI search visibility driving AI powered lead generation, examined alongside how Google AI Overviews and Perplexity reshape SEO attribution. Key takeaways: ChatGPT cited one AEO Engine page and inbound leads resulted — but attribution remains incomplete. AI search ranking factors differ from traditional SE...

The AEO Engine podcast episode "The Free Toolkit That Maps What AI Actually Cites" breaks down a viral open-source AEO toolkit that tracks which pages, authors, and domains AI answer engines like ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Google AI Overviews actually cite. Key takeaways: The open-source AEO toolkit went viral on x.com for mapping AI citation sources. ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Google AI Overviews cit...

On the AEO Engine episode "Why ChatGPT Skips Brands That Rank Themselves First," the hosts break down why AI answer engines like ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Google AI Overviews cite third-party rankings such as G2 and Reddit threads instead of brands' own published lists. Key takeaways: ChatGPT cites third-party sources roughly 3x more often than brand self-published content, per AEO Engine data. Goo...

In this AEO Engine episode, hosts break down how Josh Pigford's reply-with-your-URL post on x.com turned free same-day SEO and AEO audits into a repeatable format — one OpenSEO cloned within days. Key takeaways: Josh Pigford's X post offered free same-day SEO and AEO audits to anyone replying with their URL. OpenSEO cloned Pigford's audit-thread format within days of the original post. Reply-with-...