Glossary
The AI visibility glossary
Plain-language definitions for the terms that come up when contractors ask how ChatGPT, Gemini, and Google's AI decide who to recommend. Every claim names its source, and where nothing has been measured, we say so.
12 terms defined
- AI OverviewsAI Overviews is Google's AI-generated summary that appears above the organic results for many searches, answering the query directly and citing a handful of sources instead of showing ten ranked links.
- AI VisibilityAI visibility is how consistently a business gets named when AI systems like ChatGPT, Gemini, and Perplexity answer a customer's buying question, measured across repeated prompts and multiple engines rather than a single check.
- Answer EngineAn answer engine is an AI system, such as ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, Google's AI Overviews, or Copilot, that responds to a question with a direct written answer naming a small number of options instead of a page of ranked links.
- Answer Engine Optimization (AEO)Answer Engine Optimization (AEO) is the practice of structuring content so answer engines such as ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Google's AI Overviews can extract a direct answer from it and attribute that answer to your business.
- Citation (AI answer)In an AI answer, a citation is a source the engine references or links to while generating its response, and the number of sources cited per answer varies widely by engine, from about 2.5 for Copilot up to about 7.7 for Google AI Overviews.
- Generative Engine Optimization (GEO)Generative Engine Optimization (GEO) is the practice of shaping content so AI chatbots like ChatGPT, Gemini, and Perplexity cite or recommend it when they generate an answer, rather than optimizing for a ranked list of links.
- GroundingGrounding is when an AI model bases its answer on live, retrieved information, such as a web search result, instead of relying only on what it learned during training, which is meant to make answers more current and accurate.
- Hallucination (AI)A hallucination is when an AI system states something as fact that is false, unsupported by any source, or not actually said by the source it appears to cite, presented with the same confidence as a correct answer.
- Large Language Model Optimization (LLMO)Large Language Model Optimization (LLMO) is the practice of making content easy for a large language model to retrieve, understand, and repeat accurately, so it names your business when answering a customer's question.
- llms.txtllms.txt is a proposed text file, similar in format to robots.txt, that a site can publish to summarize its content for AI models, but as of mid-2026 no major AI system reads or uses it, so it has no effect on AI visibility.
- Prompt VolumePrompt volume is the number of times a buying question gets asked across an AI engine in a measurement, and it needs to be high enough, repeated over time and across engines, to produce a share-of-voice reading you can trust.
- Share of Voice (AI)AI share of voice is the percentage of tracked AI answers that name your business instead of a competitor's, measured per engine and across repeated prompts, since a single AI answer isn't a reliable sample.
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