GEO, generative engine optimisation, is the practice of getting a business named in the answers AI engines generate. It is the same discipline we sell as AEO: measure who the engines recommend today, diagnose why, fix it, and re-measure to prove the change. The GEO label comes out of the academic and US marketing world; AEO grew out of the answer-engine world. Two names, one job. If a provider tells you they are meaningfully different products, ask them to name the deliverable that differs.
What a GEO agency actually does
Generative engines do not answer from memory alone. Asked a buying question, they rewrite it into hidden searches, retrieve candidate pages from live web indexes, weigh which sources corroborate each other, and generate an answer naming the businesses with the strongest corroborated evidence. GEO work is therefore evidence work: making your pages machine-readable and answer-shaped, keeping your public record consistent everywhere the engine checks, and building the independent corroboration that decides competitive questions. None of it is magic, and all of it is checkable, which is why the buyer's questions matter more than the acronym. Our buyer's guide lists the six questions to demand of anyone selling this, whatever they call it.
How GEO relates to SEO
They share a substrate: crawlability, structure, credible sources. They differ in what gets measured. SEO is measured in rankings and clicks; GEO is measured in whether the generated answer names you, which we score across engines as recommended, mentioned or absent. Rankings can be strong while the answers ignore you, the practical difference is worked through here, and an engine's answers change between identical runs 19% of the time, which is why measurement has to be repeated, not screenshotted.
Searched for a different name?
This discipline is young enough that the market has not settled on one name for it. The same work is sold as: AEO agency · AI SEO agency · LLM SEO · AI visibility agency · AI search optimisation agency. GEO is simply the newest coat of paint; judge whoever wears it by the four steps: measure, diagnose, fix, re-measure.
Common questions
Is GEO different from AEO?
Not in practice. GEO (generative engine optimisation) and AEO (answer engine optimisation) both mean getting a business named in AI-generated answers. Some marketers slice definitions so GEO covers chat answers and AEO covers featured snippets, but in the UK in 2026 the firms, the work and the buyers are the same. Judge any provider by what they measure, not by which acronym they trade under.
Does GEO actually work?
It can be made to work and it can be proven, but nobody controls the engines. AI answers change between identical runs 19% of the time in our published data, so a screenshot before and after proves nothing. Demand repeated measurement against untouched control queries; that is the only honest proof this work caused any change.
What does a GEO agency cost in the UK?
The same as an AEO agency, because it is the same service: published 2026 rates run £1,500 to £5,000+ per month at traditional agencies, and some proposals are still SEO retainers with the AI label added. Aeova Partners charges from £500 one-time for a measured pilot, then from £700 per month, published in full on the pricing page.
Whichever acronym you searched, the starting point is the same: the free ten-question audit. We run the ten questions your customers ask AI and show you who each engine names in your trade today. If there is nothing worth fixing, we say so before you have spent anything. Pricing is public: pilot from £500, monthly from £700.
Updated July 2026