AI Search Optimization / AI SEO
The umbrella label for all optimisation aimed at AI-mediated search. It has no single originator and no agreed boundary, which makes it useful as a category heading and unreliable as a definition.
What it actually covers
AI SEO is the container that holds AEO, GEO, entity work, visibility measurement and everything else on this A to Z. As a heading it is genuinely useful: it names a field that did not have a name.
As a description of work it is close to empty. Telling someone you do AI SEO conveys roughly what telling them you do digital conveys.
Google's position on the label
Google's 2026 guidance on generative AI features holds that AI Overviews and AI Mode run on the same ranking and quality systems as classic Search, and states that optimising for generative AI search is optimising for the search experience, and thus still SEO.
Whether that settles the question depends on whether you think a shared ranking substrate implies shared practice. Practitioners who observe pages ranking first without being cited generally think it does not.