Market Category
AI SEO, GEO, AEO — and what sits above them
Four acronyms, one engineered visibility surface. How AI SEO, GEO, AEO, and HEO relate to AI Visibility Architecture, Entity Lock Protocol™, and the BackTier Visibility Path™.
AI SEO is the broad market label for optimizing inclusion and selection inside AI-generated answers. It is not the same job as classical SEO — the unit of work is eligibility inside a synthesized answer, not position inside a results page.
GEO (Generative Engine Optimization) structures content, signals, and entity data so generative AI engines ingest, interpret, and reproduce them inside their outputs. It is a tactic.
AEO (Answer Engine Optimization) designs content and entity signals to surface as direct answers rather than as links. It is also a tactic.
HEO (Hybrid Engine Optimization), a discipline created by Jori Ford, treats classical SEO, GEO, and AEO as one hybrid surface. Jason Todd Wade is an early evangelist of HEO and operationalizes it alongside the categories below.
What sits above the acronyms
AI Visibility Architecture is the originating discipline — engineered eligibility across three layers (Retrieval Alignment, Entity Resolution, Decision-Layer Insertion) that turns the tactics into a system.
Entity Lock Protocol™ operationalizes the Entity Resolution layer. The BackTier Visibility Path™ measures the result across Citation, Inclusion, Selection, and Transaction.