Introduction to AI Search Optimization
Scientists are using AI to research lab instruments and equipment before they get to your website. Are you showing up in ChatGPT? We asked two experts about how scientific brands can improve their AI Search Optimization to make sure they’re visible to LLMs.
What do we call this shift?
Is it AI SEO? AEO? GEO? AISO?
Our panelist, Jose Nunez from Bio-Rad, favors “AISO”, with the “S” specifically referring to search. Unlike “AIO”, which refers more broadly to optimization for AI, AISO focuses on optimization for AI search, specifically. AIO may have been fine to use before, but now that Google has introduced AI Overviews, the definition has shifted.
Jose commented that there are now several “children” applications, such as AEO and GEO, which, in his opinion, fall under the overarching umbrella term of AISO.
GEO refers to “Generative Engine Optimization”, while AEO means “Answer Engine Optimization”. One could be considered the technology side of things, while the other focuses more on the answer itself. For some, AEO wins because it speaks to the human end-user, the person who is asking questions and wants answers.
If you’re feeling confused about the terminology, don’t worry. The truth is, the industry hasn’t settled on a single term yet. But what both our panelists agreed on is that we’re evolving into a new search ecosystem, and there is still a lot of figuring things out along the way. For this blog, let’s go with AISO.
What’s the difference between traditional SEO and AI Search Optimization?
According to Jose, the difference is that SEO is now feeding the AI models. The role of SEO hasn’t died; it’s evolved. SEO is still critical for AI Search Optimization.
As panelist Paul Avery from Supreme Group put it: “AEO now is like the early days of SEO.”
Where SEO is about getting clicks to your website, AEO is about ensuring your products and services are cited in AI answers. Paul believes that the core components underlying both are the same. Google’s renowned EEAT framework (Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness) still stands, and content that fits this standard is the most likely to be rewarded.
However, our experts agreed that AI needs to understand the complex web of signals that suggest a product or service is the best answer. It’s a little more complicated than the traditional metric of getting backlinks. Now, AI is paying attention to where you’re being mentioned across a broad landscape of media. That might include whether you feature in a scientific article on PubMed, whether you’re on YouTube talking about a subject, or whether you’re active in discussions on community forums like Reddit and LinkedIn.
In other words, we need to keep showing up in as many relevant places as possible, with good quality content.
Does gated content work for AI Search Optimization?
Should I gate my content for AI to be able to pick it up? Gated content typically involves a piece of content being hidden behind a form on a company’s website or landing page. The viewer is asked to provide their contact information to access the content. It’s a value exchange, and it can work well for long-form content, like reports or whitepapers.
Gated content is ideal for generating new leads, but it lacks power when it comes to showing up in AI answers. You might get 50 leads from a piece of gated content, but you could miss out on being cited many more times in an AI answer.
On the other hand, ungated content is open to anyone and does not require any information to be handed over; think short-form blogs, summaries, and FAQs. Ungated content helps boost brand visibility and trust, but it is less likely to generate as many immediate leads as gated content.
In simple terms:
- Gated content = fewer AI citations
- Ungated content = greater visibility and authority
So, which is best? It really depends on your own content marketing strategy and goals. If your priority is lead generation, gated content still has a place. If your priority is showing up in AI answers, your content needs to be accessible.
Jose Nunez had some useful advice on this. “What we need to do now in 2026 is dramatically shift the placement of the gate.”
Jose suggested that if you have a great piece of unique content, it can still be worth gating it on a landing page, but you should also create an accessible, SEO-friendly executive summary that can be picked up by LLMs. Similarly, you could gate your “golden” content in a PDF, but break it down into smaller chunks that can be picked up by AI.
These smaller, bite-sized pieces of content should directly answer the kinds of questions users are asking AI tools. This hybrid approach helps strike a balance between discoverability, building trust in your expertise, and generating leads.
How to show up in AI answers
Optimizing content for AI doesn’t mean replacing SEO. It means building on strong SEO foundations and making your content easier for AI tools to find, understand, trust, and cite.
A good starting point is to ask: “Is this page optimized for AI?”
That does not mean every section has to do the same job. One part of a page might support GEO by giving clear, product-led information, while another might support AEO by answering common questions in a more concise way.
AI tools are looking for useful, extractable answers, so content should be clear, specific, and strategic. Paul recommends that, rather than taking a “wild west” approach by publishing lots of content and hoping something gets picked up, it’s better to create well-organized content that directly answers buyers’ questions and demonstrates real authority.
💡Tip: Test your visibility by asking AI tools the questions your product should answer. You can look at ChatGPT’s responses to see where it is picking up information and try to fill any gaps.
It can take time to show up in AI answers. According to the panel, LLMs may carry out a discovery crawl to pick up new information, before doing a confirmation crawl to check that the information is still there and still useful. So keep testing, monitoring, and improving your content over time.
Format matters too. On-page HTML should be the priority. PDFs aren’t useless, but they should usually support content rather than be the main source of information. LLMs are “lazy”; they prefer well-structured HTML because it is faster and easier to consume. If you have a report or whitepaper, create an HTML landing page that summarizes the key insights, then use the PDF as the deeper asset.
💡Tip: Turn on Liquid Mode for PDFs to enhance accessibility and readability.
Show up on multiple platforms for AI Search Optimization
Having a great website is important for visibility, but AI looks to more than that. Mentions on platforms like YouTube, LinkedIn, Reddit, scientific publications, and industry media can all help reinforce your authority. If competitors are talking about a topic in more places than you are, they may be more likely to be cited.
So, start showing up. Think about where your audience goes to ask questions. Make sure your brand is present in those places, whether that’s through educational content, webinars, scientific articles, social posts, videos, community discussions, or industry commentary.
Measuring AISO performance
“Analytics are the goldmine of everything we do.” – Jose Nunez
As we’re still in the early days of AISO, measuring its performance can be tricky. You can track referrals that come from ChatGPT, but our panelists agreed that many users ask AI a question, then go to Google to find the brand afterwards. That means AI chatbots may not always show up as a direct referral in your analytics. Paul advised that search volume, product name searches, direct traffic, and demo requests are also important signals to track.
Our panel revealed another helpful tip: website speed is no longer just important for users; it is also important for AI tools trying to access and understand your content. AI uses an error code, 499, if your content is too slow to load. Server logs can help reveal whether crawlers are running into technical issues, timing out, or abandoning requests. Try to avoid hiding valuable content behind barriers. It can be tempting to include stylish JavaScript elements like accordions, infinite scroll, or “load more” buttons, but these may be harder for AI to crawl. If a point is important, make sure it is visible in HTML.
Advice for starting from scratch
We asked our experts for their best advice for anyone starting from scratch with AISO. Here’s what they said:
- Build your website around your commercial requirements. It should be easy for people to find the information, products, and services they need.
- Follow traditional SEO best practices, but keep AISO in mind from the outset.
- Turn larger pieces of content into clear chunks and summaries that directly answer your customers’ questions.
- Use schema, such as FAQ schema and article author schema, to help LLMs understand your content more easily.
- Focus on creating a human-driven website experience.
- Use your analytics. If you have access to server logs, look at those too. They may reveal technical issues that are preventing AI tools from picking up your content.
Ultimately, the goal remains the same for SEO and AISO. As Paul advised: “If you had to have a North Star, it’s to become the authority on a given topic.”
So get started, build authority, and get your message out there as much as possible. AISO boils down to becoming the most trusted voice in your niche by making your expertise easy for both people and AI tools to find, understand, and trust.
Watch the full, on-demand webinar on AI Search Optimization on our YouTube channel.