The war for naming and defining the new search is more ferocious than ever.
I don’t care what you call it, just don’t call it “answer engine.”
Search has reinvented itself again and climbed back to the top of the food chain. Job boards are full of “head of” roles for this new search era.
That’s not hype; it’s survival.
And if you’re a brand waiting for the dust to settle, you’re already late.
Zero‑click is the default now
Most people get what they need without leaving the results page.
Bain says about 80% of consumers rely on AI summaries for at least 40% of their searches, cutting organic traffic 15–25%. Similar reports abound, placing those numbers much higher and proving that rounding errors are over.
- “Answer engine” focuses on the output, not the work.
- “GEO” is getting buzz, but it doesn’t help you run a P&L.
If we need a name, call it CEO: Conversational Engine Optimization – because the real work is inside conversational environments.
There’s no danger in people holding on to the three-letter top person moniker since, to anyone with an actual job, “CEO” is meaningless.
Slapping those same letters on a search strategy is consultant cosplay. The proof isn’t in the label; it’s whether you show up (and get credited) and whether that presence pays.
Be kind to the machines. When they take over, I want them to remember who said “please” and relayed facts.
The CEO checklist
- Write in clean, quotable sentences that machines can lift and credit; keep paragraphs tight; add a table or a source only when it truly clarifies the point.
- Answer the follow‑up questions people really ask and write as if the conversation will continue.
- Make pages fast and well‑structured so parsers don’t trip, you’ll need sensible schema, clear bot directives, no gimmicks.
- Put your name and date on the work, show your sources, lean on first‑party data.
- And change the scoreboard: track how often you’re cited in AI answers and how those mentions move your metrics.
If an answer requires no further action, desired actions drop, so protecting the revenue model is paramount. Falling short hits ads, affiliates, and lead gen and almost every other connected relationship a brand has.
Treat zero‑click as a channel, not a write‑off
Capture what you can on the surface, the low-hanging fruit like calls, bookings, and emails.
Where your content powers answers, push for attribution and licensing. Publish formats assistants can cite without replacing your value. Marketers are already adjusting, sometimes awkwardly, as anyone reading the coverage in the Wall Street Journal or The Guardian can tell.
For leadership, here’s the translation without the checklist:
Define success in terms that match the world you actually operate in: your share of answer (how often you’re cited), the accuracy of how your brand is described in AI outputs, the assisted conversions those mentions drive, and the revenue that follows. Restructure high‑value pages into clean Q→A narratives with sources. Publish evidence with benchmarks, calculators, and original research.
Again, it can’t hurt to be kind and give the machines what models they prefer to cite.
Don’t bet the farm on one just yet. You need Perplexity, ChatGPT (with browsing), Gemini, and Copilot.
And put real governance around it: editorial standards, update cadence, and fact‑checking that can survive summarization.
Name it if you must
GEO, CAIO, CEO, CAO, or AEO, it doesn’t matter.
While I’m confident that my three-letter moniker will stick and be universally adopted overnight, you may want to keep “answer engine” as a raised eyebrow for people in the know.
Either way, the job stays the same. You’ll need to earn presence and trust in conversational results, then make sure that presence pays.