Answer Engine Optimization (AEO) targets the surfaces that resolve a question into a single spoken or written answer rather than a page of blue links: ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity, Google AI Overviews, and voice assistants. The unit of success is being the answer, or being cited inside it, not ranking beneath it.
AEO and GEO (Generative Engine Optimization) overlap heavily and are often used interchangeably; the practical distinction is emphasis. AEO frames the goal around the answer surface and question intent, while GEO frames it around the generative model's retrieval and grounding behavior. Both reward clean structure, explicit claims, citable sources, and unambiguous entities.
For behavioral health, AEO means writing the answer a caregiver actually needs — "how do I choose an ABA provider," "does insurance cover ABA" — in a format an engine can lift verbatim and attribute, rather than a keyword-stuffed page that no engine will quote.