Google Says AEO And GEO Are Still SEO

By Chuck McCarthy · October 1, 2026 · 34:00 read

Category: News & Politics

Show: To The Power of X

Everyone's talking about AEO and GEO like they're brand-new disciplines. Google's own guidance says otherwise: optimizing for generative AI search is still SEO. Chuck, Kayleigh, and Jenna from the Xpo

Everyone's talking about AEO and GEO like they're brand-new disciplines. Google's own guidance says otherwise: optimizing for generative AI search is still SEO. Chuck, Kayleigh, and Jenna from the Xponent21 marketing team break down what Google actually said at the 2026 I/O and why most of the "new" playbook is either the old playbook or a fad that's already dying.

They cover the llms.txt hype cycle and why it never actually mattered, the sloppy habits that have made webpages worse instead of better, and why AI Overviews trust has followed its own bell curve as users start questioning what gets surfaced. They also dig into commodity versus non-commodity content and how personalization means writing for actual customers instead of an algorithm. The episode closes on scaled content abuse: why high-volume, low-quality publishing feels productive right up until it tanks performance.

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