Here is the short answer. SEO (search engine optimisation) is the work of ranking on a page of Google links. AEO (answer engine optimisation, also called AI visibility) is the work of being the business an AI assistant names when it answers out loud, with no page of links, just three or four recommendations. They are close cousins, a lot of the work overlaps, and in 2026 most local businesses need both. The rest of this explains why.
The core difference: a list of links vs a spoken answer
With traditional search, Google hands back a page of blue links and the customer clicks through and decides. SEO is how you climb that page. With an AI assistant, there is no page to climb. You ask ChatGPT or Google AI for the best plumber in your suburb and it confidently names a few businesses, then stops. AEO is how you become one of those names. The stakes are higher because the assistant has already narrowed the field before the customer lifts a finger, so being named is close to everything.
Where SEO and AEO overlap
The good news for your budget: the foundational work overlaps by roughly two thirds. Consistent business details across the web, genuine reviews, a fast and crawlable site, and clear structured content all help you rank on Google and help an AI quote you correctly. That is why doing them together costs far less than buying them as two separate retainers, and why we bundle them.
Where they part ways
- SEO leans on Google-specific signals: backlinks, on-page keywords, Core Web Vitals, and your Google Business Profile for local.
- AEO leans on a different layer: your Bing Places listing (the direct feed for ChatGPT local), how consistent your details are everywhere, your reviews, and content written in a format an assistant can lift cleanly.
- SEO ranking factors are mature and well understood. AEO is newer and probabilistic, there is no paid placement and no single lever, so it is earned over weeks, not bought.
SEO vs AEO at a glance
| SEO | AEO (AI visibility) | |
|---|---|---|
| Where you appear | A page of Google links | Named inside an AI assistant answer |
| The win | Rank on page one | Be one of the three or four businesses it names |
| Main signals | Backlinks, on-page keywords, Core Web Vitals | Bing and Google listings, reviews, consistent details, quotable content |
| Maturity | Established and well understood | New and probabilistic, no paid placement |
| Customer behaviour | Clicks through and chooses | Often acts on the answer without clicking |
The trap: ranking on Google but missing from ChatGPT
This catches a lot of business owners out. You can rank well on Google and still be completely absent when someone asks ChatGPT, because AI assistants do not read your Google rankings. They build their answer from listings, reviews and quotable content. So paying only for SEO can leave a growing slice of your customers, the ones who now ask AI first, seeing your competitors and never you. Doing only AEO has the opposite gap: you leave the Google traffic on the table. The honest answer in 2026 is both.
So, do you need both?
For most local businesses, yes. If almost all your customers still find you on Google and none use AI, classic SEO is enough for now. But that share is shrinking fast: around 45% of consumers now use AI to find a local business, up from just 6% a year ago. The practical move is to do the overlapping foundation once, then cover both fronts. That is exactly how Clearway Found is structured: Found by AI ($349/mo) covers the AI assistants, and Found Everywhere ($499/mo) adds local SEO and Google Business Profile work so you are found on Google and on AI from one engagement, only $150 more because the Google work rides the same foundation.