← Glossary
Answer engine
A system that responds to a question with a written answer rather than a list of links, naming sources inside or beneath it.
The category covers conversational assistants such as ChatGPT and Claude, search-native tools such as Perplexity, and the generated surfaces inside traditional search such as AI Overviews and AI Mode.
What unites them is the shape of the output. A search engine hands you candidates and lets you choose. An answer engine chooses for you and shows its working, which moves the competition from ranking to being named.
Related
Generative engine optimization (GEO)The practice of getting a brand named and cited inside answers written by AI assistants, rather than ranked in a list of links.AI OverviewsGoogle's generated summary that appears above the traditional results for many queries, citing a small set of sources.Google AI ModeGoogle's conversational search surface, powered by Gemini, which answers in dialogue rather than returning a ranked list.