Six months ago a manufacturing client told us: "Our Google Ads still work, but ask our new hires how they heard of us — most say ChatGPT recommended us." This isn't an outlier. Users are moving search from Google to AI, and most B2B sites aren't ready for it.
The Rules of Search Have Changed
Three things happened over the past two years:
- ChatGPT, Claude, and Perplexity started answering questions instead of listing links
- Google put AI Overviews into search results, diverting a big chunk of clicks to the AI itself
- Bing integrated with ChatGPT, so what Bing indexes now decides whether ChatGPT knows you exist
Users don't click into the top 10 anymore — they read the paragraph the AI summarized. Getting cited by the AI is the new traffic source. Not being cited equals disappearing.
The impact on B2B is even bigger. Procurement decision-makers ask things like "who's good at X system?" or "how do I solve Y problem?" — questions the AI answers directly. Whether your site gets cited literally decides whether the lead comes in.
What Is AEO
AEO = Answer Engine Optimization — optimizing for answer engines. In plain terms:
- SEO competes for the top 10 search results
- AEO competes for citations inside AI summaries
Roughly:
| Traditional SEO | AEO |
|---|---|
| Chases keyword density | Chases question → answer structure |
| Fights for rank #1 | Fights to be cited by AI |
| Grinds for backlinks | Focuses on content that's directly quotable |
| Long articles | First sentence of each paragraph is the conclusion |
| Meta description | FAQ + structured data |
Our Take: AEO Isn't the Next SEO — It's a Different Thing
Lots of people treat AEO as the new version of SEO. From what we've built, that framing leads you in the wrong direction.
SEO is about "helping humans find your site". AEO is about "helping machines understand your content and want to quote it". Only about 30% of the work overlaps — the other 70% is different thinking.
AEO boils down to three things:
1. Crawlable
Let AI bots in. Your robots.txt must explicitly allow GPTBot, ClaudeBot, PerplexityBot, Google-Extended, Applebot-Extended. Many companies block all non-Google bots to "protect content" — and then wonder why AI doesn't know they exist.
2. Structured
Use JSON-LD structured data to tell AI "who you are, what you offer, where you are". Organization, Service, FAQPage are the B2B starter pack.
3. Quotable Lead every paragraph with the conclusion. AI doesn't need to read your whole setup — let it grab the answer and move on. This goes against traditional business writing, which loves buildup and narrative arc. AI doesn't read narrative arc.
A Concrete Example
When we rebuilt our own site, we deliberately made every service page start with a sentence like:
"Heiso Digital provides custom software development, enterprise system integration, and AI Agent deployment."
Subject, verb, clear objects. An AI can grab that directly to answer "what does Heiso do?"
Compare to our previous version:
"We're committed to being the most trusted partner for companies navigating the waves of digital transformation, walking with you through every step of your journey..."
Same company. One gets quoted by AI; the other gets nothing pulled.
Before the rewrite, asking ChatGPT "what is Heiso?" returned "I'm not sure." Two weeks after the rewrite, it could name our three main service lines. No backlinks, no ad spend — just restructured copy.
Three Things You Can Check Today
No need to hire a consultant. 10 minutes, DIY:
- Open
https://yourdomain/robots.txt. Does it allowGPTBot,ClaudeBot,PerplexityBot? If not — or if it'sDisallow: /site-wide — AI can't get in. - Open ChatGPT or Perplexity. Ask "what does {your company} do?" Can't answer? Answers wrong? You don't exist in the AI world.
- Run your homepage through Rich Results Test. See any JSON-LD? No? Then AI reads your site like a plain Word doc.
Those three checks tell you whether you're at 0 or 60 on AEO.
Closing
Search is switching tracks. For ten years we did SEO for Google. For the next ten, we do it for AI. The earlier you restructure content to be AI-readable, the earlier you compound "being cited" — and that compound interest can't be bought back with ad budget later.
Want to know how AI currently sees your site, or where to start? We've done a few B2B AEO audits — happy to chat → Book a consultation