What Is Answer Engine Optimization (AEO)?

In 2025–2026, a rapidly growing percentage of consumers get business recommendations not from Google search alone, but from AI assistants. When someone asks ChatGPT "who is the best plumber near me?" or Gemini "recommend a website developer," the AI decides which businesses to mention—and most businesses are invisible because their websites actively block AI crawlers. AEO fixes this by implementing: • llms.txt and llms-full.txt files—AI-readable indexes of your site • robots.txt configured to allow 40+ AI crawlers (GPTBot, ClaudeBot, PerplexityBot, etc.) • 7+ JSON-LD schema types for machine-readable structured data • Answer pages with direct 50-word answer blocks at the top • FAQ pages with FAQPage schema for Google FAQ rich results • SpeakableSpecification for voice assistants • Comprehensive structured data including business details, services, reviews, and locations The fundamental principle: AI assistants can only recommend what they can see. If your website blocks their crawlers or lacks structured data, you are invisible. AEO makes you visible. Every MyFast.ai website includes complete AEO as part of the build—not as an add-on. We also offer the AEO Platform (aeo.myfast.ai) for ongoing AI visibility audits and tracking.