Why this matters now

In December 2025, Meta signed new news licensing deals so Meta AI surfaces real‑time news with outbound links. OpenAI launched an in‑ChatGPT app store and enabled Assistant Checkout for commerce. Meanwhile, agent tech from Google and others is rapidly improving browsing and attribution. The direction is clear: answers are the new homepage—and assistants are finally linking out.

If you prepare your site and content for “answer engines” now, you can capture durable, compounding visibility in 2026.

What is “Assistant SEO” (AEO/GEO)?

Assistant SEO is the practice of structuring your content, data, and policies so AI assistants can find, trust, quote, and link to you. It sits at the intersection of SEO and conversational answers—often called Answer Engine Optimization (AEO) and Generative Engine Optimization (GEO).

Unlike traditional SEO, you’re optimizing for short, sourced answers in chat or cards—where clarity, structure, and verifiability win.

The 7‑Step Founder Playbook

1) Map “answer intents” for your brand

List the 25 questions assistants should answer with your brand. Examples:

• “What does [Your Product] do and who is it for?”
• “Pricing and limits for [Your Product]?”
• “Does [Your Store] ship to Canada? What’s the return policy?”
• “Best Shopify gift finder with 1‑tap checkout?”

Turn each into a concise section or FAQ on a canonical page. Use clear H2/H3s that mirror the question and answer it in 2–4 sentences.

2) Structure your pages for answers (and links)

Assistants love clean structure and sources. For each key page:

• Add an on‑page TL;DR with 3–5 bullet facts.
• Include an FAQ block with schema (FAQPage) and, where useful, HowTo or Product schema.
• Use Article/NewsArticle schema for timely posts so assistants can verify dates, authorship, and citations.
• Link to primary sources and to your own evergreen guides.

See our earlier distribution brief on Meta AI’s news deals for a schema and newsroom checklist.

3) Publish a canonical, source‑friendly knowledge hub

Create a hub that centralizes facts assistants need: product overviews, pricing, integrations, data practices, compliance, and contact points. Keep it short, factual, and timestamped. Add a machine‑readable sitemap and ensure fast loads.

Bonus for agent ecosystems: ship an AGENTS.md and adopt MCP endpoints so assistants can discover capabilities and policies. Our primer on the new standards is here: AAIF (MCP, AGENTS.md, goose).

4) Decide your AI licensing posture—and say it out loud

Publish an AI Use & Licensing page that clarifies what assistants may do (summarize, quote, link) and how to attribute. This reduces ambiguity, improves crawl hygiene, and supports compliance as U.S. policy evolves. For context on the December 11, 2025 U.S. order aiming to preempt state AI laws, see our compliance brief and Wired’s report.

5) Optimize for the new surfaces: ChatGPT, Meta AI, Perplexity

• ChatGPT: Treat your assistant listing like an app store page—title, first 150 characters, icon, screenshots. Build actions that return short, shippable answers. If you sell online, wire Assistant Checkout and follow our 60‑minute tutorial.
• Meta AI: Given the new publisher deals, publish timely, source‑rich news posts with correct schema and clear bylines so Meta AI can cite and link out. Start with product updates, incident notes, and shipping windows.
• Perplexity: Keep answers concise and heavily sourced. Use canonical URLs, fast pages, and descriptive titles; Perplexity often displays multiple citations and rewards clarity.

Under the hood, agents are getting better at browsing and citing. See TechCrunch’s rundown on Google’s deeper research agent and OpenAI’s model race for what’s changing in evals and attribution: read more.

6) Measure assistant traffic (so you can double down)

• UTMs: Append ?utm_source=assistant&utm_medium=ai&utm_campaign=[context] to key internal links you place in assistant responses or cards.
• Logs: Watch server/CDN logs for assistant user agents and referers; group sessions with short dwell on news pages + no referrer.
• KPIs: Assistant‑sourced sessions, answer share (how often your TL;DRs/FAQs appear verbatim), and downstream conversions.
• Alerts: Trigger Slack alerts when a page earns multiple assistant referrals in a short window—update it while momentum is hot.

7) Secure and govern the channel

Assistants live in the browser and can perform actions. That raises risks—from prompt exfiltration to mis‑scoped purchases. Ship guardrails early:

• Audit extensions and lock policies; see our 7‑day browser & prompt security plan.
• For iOS apps, follow Apple’s disclosure/permission rules when any third‑party AI is involved. Use our iOS compliance playbook.
• Keep a visible corrections policy and update timestamps; assistants prefer verifiable, recently modified pages.

20‑Minute Quick Start (copy/paste)

1. Create /answers/ with five questions customers ask most; add a TL;DR and FAQ schema.
2. Publish a lightweight AI Use & Licensing page; link it in your footer.
3. Add Article/NewsArticle schema and bylines to your last three updates.
4. Instrument UTMs and create a basic log dashboard for assistant referers.
5. Draft an AGENTS.md with capabilities and policies (start with our AAIF guide above).

Examples to model

• E‑commerce: A “Holiday Shipping & Returns” page with TL;DR bullets, FAQ schema, and clear refund windows. Link it in every product footer.
• SaaS: A “What We Do” page with a 90‑second explainer, pricing table, and a short “Who we’re not for” section to improve assistant match quality.
• AI startup: Concise model release notes with evals and known limits; assistants love quoting exact numbers.

Bottom line

Assistant SEO is no longer theory. With Meta’s licensing shift and ChatGPT’s new surfaces, visibility is up for grabs. If your answers are clear, structured, and source‑friendly—and your policies are explicit—you can win assistant citations and revenue before competitors catch up.

Next steps

• Distribution: Read our ChatGPT app store playbook and browser AI action plan.
• Commerce: Ship Assistant Checkout readiness and launch a shopping app via our 60‑minute tutorial.

Want a head start? Try HireNinja to auto‑generate schemas and FAQs, publish an AI policy, wire assistant analytics, and ship an AGENTS.md—all in days, not months.