Glossary · A
Answer engine
An answer engine is a system that responds to a question with a generated answer, citing or naming the sources it drew on, rather than with a ranked list of links.
Extended definition
In more detail.
ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Perplexity, Microsoft Copilot and Google’s AI Overviews and AI Mode are answer engines. Each retrieves material from the web or an index, selects passages it judges to answer the question, and composes a response that names some of its sources. Because the user reads the answer rather than scanning a list, being named inside it matters more than ranking beneath it. The engines differ in how they retrieve, how they cite and which crawler they use.
In our work
Where it appears.
Every GEO and AI visibility engagement begins by establishing which answer engines matter for the organization’s buyers and measuring presence in each through prompt share-of-voice tracking.
By David Selakovic · Published 2026-10-16 · Revised 2026-10-16 · Reviewed every 180 days