Expert Summary
AI SEO is the practice of structuring content so AI systems such as ChatGPT, Google AI Overviews, Gemini and Perplexity cite it in a generated answer. It is also called GEO or AEO, depending who you ask. In 2026, with more Australian searches ending in an AI summary instead of a list of links, it sits alongside traditional SEO, not instead of it.
The Situation in 2026
Google has been folding AI Overviews into standard results across Australian search for over a year, and a meaningful share of those searches now end without a single click to any website. At the same time, Perplexity, Gemini and ChatGPT have all become places Australians go to research a purchase before opening a search engine. For a business built entirely around ranking in ten blue links, that is a genuine structural shift, not a trend to wait out.
Key Considerations
- The terminology hasn’t settled, and that’s fine. AI SEO, generative engine optimisation (GEO), answer engine optimisation (AEO) and large language model optimisation (LLMO) mostly describe the same goal from different angles: getting cited inside an AI-generated answer. Don’t let a vendor sell four separate services for one job.
- The overlap between what ranks on Google and what gets cited by AI is shrinking fast. GEO research firm Brandlight found the overlap between top Google results and AI-cited sources dropped from around 70% to below 20% within a year. Ranking well on Google no longer guarantees a mention inside an AI answer.
- Crawlability is the first filter, and plenty of businesses fail it without knowing. Some hosting providers and security plugins block AI crawlers by default, and Cloudflare changed its default crawler settings in ways that caught site owners off guard in 2026. If the crawler can’t reach the page, nothing else on this list matters.
- Structure now carries more weight than keyword density. AI systems lean heavily on a page’s opening section and on content that reads like a direct, well-organised answer: clear headings, defined terms, a summary near the top, rather than a slow build to the point.
| Term | What it usually means |
|---|---|
| SEO | Ranking in traditional search results |
| AI SEO | Umbrella term for optimising for any AI-generated answer |
| GEO (generative engine optimisation) | Same goal, more common in research and US industry use |
| AEO (answer engine optimisation) | Originally about voice search, now mostly folded into GEO |
Overlap between top Google search results and AI-cited sources. Source: Brandlight GEO research, cited across 2026 industry visibility tracking.
ROI and Growth Perspective
ROI Growth Agency treats AI SEO as an audit-first problem before it’s a content problem. Before rewriting anything, we check whether AI crawlers can reach a client’s site, then look at what ChatGPT, Gemini and AI Overviews currently say about that business and its competitors. Most of the early wins are less glamorous than “AI content strategy” suggests. They’re usually a robots.txt fix, a schema cleanup, and a rewritten opening paragraph.
Published by ROI.COM.AU: Australia’s business growth resource.