If someone has pitched you ASEO (AI Search Engine Optimisation) recently and you wondered whether it's just regular SEO with a new name and a higher invoice, that instinct is not wrong. The term is genuinely new. The underlying work is largely not.

That said, there are real differences between what makes a business visible on Google and what makes it appear in AI-generated answers from tools like ChatGPT, Perplexity, or Google's own AI Overviews. They're not as dramatic as some marketing would suggest, but they're not invented either. This article covers what overlaps, what genuinely differs, and what you should actually prioritise.

The honest answer: most of it is the same work

Both traditional SEO and ASEO reward the same core signals: a technically sound website, content that accurately describes what you do and where you do it, and consistent information across the web. If you've done solid traditional SEO work, you are already a significant part of the way toward AI visibility. The groundwork is not wasted.

Specifically, both approaches respond well to:

A business that has done all of the above is in a strong position for both. The "ASEO is entirely different" framing often comes from agencies who want to sell a separate service. Some of what they're selling is real. Some is repackaging.

Where AI search genuinely differs

There are five areas where the behaviour of AI tools diverges enough from Google that they deserve separate attention.

1. AI tools synthesise answers, not ranked lists. When you search Google for "solicitor in Bristol," you get a list of results and you choose which one to click. When you ask ChatGPT or Perplexity the same question, you get a generated answer that may name one or two businesses, explain why they're worth considering, and include a contact detail. You're either cited or you're not. There's no position two that still gets traffic.

2. Structured data carries more weight. When AI tools pull business information to construct an answer, they rely heavily on machine-readable signals. A LocalBusiness schema block that clearly identifies your business type, location, services offered, and contact information gives AI tools something concrete to cite. Without it, the tool may still find you, but it has to infer and piece together information, which creates uncertainty. Uncertainty typically means you don't get cited at all.

3. Citation consistency is more critical. Google is reasonably tolerant of minor inconsistencies across your web presence. AI tools are less so. If your phone number on Yell differs from the one on your website, which differs from the one on Facebook, an AI generating an answer about your business is working with conflicting data. The result is either a wrong answer or, more commonly, no mention of you at all. Cleaning up your listings matters more in an AI search context than it did in a traditional one.

4. Content written as a direct answer performs better. A page that opens with "We are a family-run plumbing company based in Leeds, serving domestic and commercial clients across West Yorkshire" is more useful to an AI generating a local answer than a page that opens with five sentences about your commitment to customer service before mentioning where you are. This isn't a new concept in SEO, but the reward for doing it well is higher in AI search, because the tool is trying to construct a coherent answer from your text rather than just indexing a page.

5. Backlinks matter less (at the moment). Google's ranking algorithm is substantially built on link authority: who links to you and from where. AI tools don't appear to weight this in the same way. A business with almost no backlinks but complete schema, an accurate GBP, and clearly structured content can appear in AI-generated answers where it would never reach page one of Google. This is one of the more genuine differences, and it's meaningful for small businesses that have never had the budget or the network to build links.

What to actually do, in order

If you're a small business trying to be found both on Google and in AI tools, the practical priority order looks like this:

Steps 2 through 5 are what most people mean when they talk about ASEO-specific work. None of them require a large budget. The schema markup is a one-time technical addition. The citation audit takes a few hours. The FAQ content is something most business owners can write themselves in an afternoon.

What nobody can tell you with certainty

AI search is changing quickly, and much of what's known about how ChatGPT, Perplexity, and similar tools weight their sources comes from observation and testing rather than published documentation. Google has been more transparent about AI Overviews, but even there, the specifics shift regularly.

Anyone claiming precise knowledge of exactly how any AI model ranks or selects sources is overstating what's currently known. The field is genuinely young. The specific signals will change. That's worth knowing before paying for highly specific ASEO "optimisation" that's built on assumptions about black-box systems.

What won't change: a business that is clearly identified, accurately described, and consistently referenced across the web will be better placed than one that isn't, regardless of which AI tool someone uses to find it. That's been true for local SEO for years. It's still true now.

The short version

ASEO is partly real and partly rebranding. The technical foundations of good SEO and good AI visibility are almost entirely shared. The genuine differences are: structured data matters more, citation consistency matters more, backlinks matter less, and direct-answer content performs better. None of those differences require starting from scratch. They require completing the work that solid traditional SEO already points toward.

If someone is charging you a large premium for ASEO as though it were an entirely separate discipline, ask them to break down exactly what they're doing differently. Some of it will be legitimate. Some of it will be steps 1 through 5 above, renamed.