Answer engine optimisation (AEO)
The work of trying to get named in those answers. Whether it is a discipline or a rebrand of existing work is genuinely disputed, including by people who sell it.
Contested term · no agreed definition
What it means
AEO covers making your pages readable by machines, making your business facts consistent everywhere, and earning the third-party mentions these systems draw on. Every one of those was already a thing before answer engines existed, which is the root of the dispute.
Why it matters for an HVAC company
It decides whether you are buying a new service or a second invoice for work you already pay for. One agency on our board says outright that the signals overlap almost entirely with search work and refuses to bill it twice. Others sell it as a separate line item. Both positions are defensible and you should know which one you are being sold.
What would settle it
By its method rather than by its name. A fixed prompt set, named engines, a stated cadence and a written failure condition make it measurable. Without those it is an activity being described to you.
A worked example
A contractor is quoted $1,800 a month for AEO on top of $2,400 for existing search work. The right question is which deliverables in the first appear nowhere in the second. If the answer is schema, citations and content, those are in most search retainers already.
The limit on that
The term is barely three years old and no standards body defines it. Treat any agency's definition as that agency's definition.