Is AEO (Answer Engine Optimization) more important than SEO now?

What's your goal?
We know that your goal is not the same as Google so if you're OK with AEO and having GOOG pillage and plunder your content without anyone visiting your site, then AEO is for you.

As publishers, we are required to share our content with Google AI if we want to be included in Google search results, and it would be an utter death sentence to not be in Google. We might as well figure out a way to get some traffic out of it. Otherwise we're just giving it up for nothing.

However, not only content publishers are considering AEO these days. E-commerce sites also want a piece of the action, and they're not giving up anything in exchange. Don't assume that the OP is a publisher.

AEO isn’t more important than SEO, but it’s becoming a useful addition to it. SEO is still the foundation for ranking on search engines like Google.

What’s changing is how people search. With AI tools, users ask full questions and expect quick answers. Because of that, optimizing content to answer questions clearly can help you show up in those results. In simple terms, SEO helps you rank and AEO helps your content become the direct answer.

I am not an expert but from what I have been learning recently, I don’t think AEO is replacing SEO. It feels more like a natural extension of it.

Search behaviour is definitely changing. People are asking full questions now and using AI tools more. But those answers still come from content that is already well optimized. So if your SEO basics are strong, you are already on the right path. AEO just means writing content in a clear and direct way so it can answer questions easily. Include FAQ's, optimize content for featured snippets, include questions in h2, h3's of your blog, build topical authority by writing about a topic in detail. all these helps you to rank on AEO.

In my view, SEO is still important. AEO is just adapting to how people search today.