AI Search Academy: learn AI search optimization from the ground up
A structured, free curriculum that teaches how AI engines choose and cite sources, and how to make your content one of them. Start with the fundamentals and progress to advanced Generative and Answer Engine Optimization.
Curriculum maintained by the team behind an AI Search Intelligence Platform monitoring six major engines.
What you will learn
AI search optimization is the practice of improving how a brand appears in answers generated by AI engines. The Academy teaches it as a discipline with its own concepts, methods, and vocabulary. The curriculum moves in a deliberate order: it begins with how AI engines work, covers the core concepts GEO and AEO depend on, works through step-by-step methods, and closes with best practices drawn from observed engine behavior.
The concepts everything else builds on
Five terms, understood clearly, make every later lesson easier to follow.
Generative Engine Optimization (GEO)
The practice of earning mentions and citations inside answers produced by generative AI engines. It is the discipline concerned with being selected as a source. Read the full guide.
Answer Engine Optimization (AEO)
The practice of structuring content so answer engines can extract, quote, and reference it directly. Read the full guide.
Entity SEO
Making the people, products, organizations, and concepts in your content clearly identifiable and consistently described, so engines can resolve who and what you are talking about.
Semantic SEO
Focuses on meaning and relationships between topics rather than exact keyword matches, helping engines understand context instead of just matching words.
Knowledge Graph
A structured map of entities and the relationships between them, which engines use to understand how a brand relates to its category and competitors.
How to apply what you learn
Five steps carry the concepts above into a working program for a real brand.
Map the questions
Identify the real questions buyers ask when researching your category, not the keywords you would type into a search bar. These questions become the backbone of everything that follows.
Audit current presence
Check how AI engines answer those questions today: which brands they mention, which sources they cite, and where your brand is missing entirely.
Structure the content
Apply Answer Engine Optimization methods so each piece answers its question directly, in language an engine can extract and quote cleanly.
Strengthen the entities
Apply Entity SEO and Semantic SEO so your brand, products, and concepts are described consistently and connected clearly to your category.
Measure the change
Track citations, mentions, and Share of Voice over time to confirm whether the work actually moved the numbers, then repeat the cycle on the next set of questions.
Practices that hold up across engines
- 1
Answer the question in the first sentence.
- 2
Define terms explicitly.
- 3
Keep entities consistent across your site.
- 4
Cover topics thoroughly rather than thinly.
- 5
Measure continuously, because AI search optimization without feedback is guesswork.
Learning through worked examples
Every core lesson includes a practical example so the method is concrete, not theoretical.
Before and after
A weak product description rewritten into one an engine can quote cleanly.
Disambiguation
A brand mention made unambiguous.
Trend to action
A citation trend read and acted on.
Where to go deeper
The Academy connects to the rest of Citationly's material: the pillar guides on Generative Engine Optimization and Answer Engine Optimization, the blog for newer tactics, and the documentation for running the measurement steps inside the platform.
Questions, answered.
Everything learners usually ask before starting the curriculum. If yours is not here, reach out directly.
Yes. The entire curriculum, from fundamentals through advanced GEO and AEO, is free to work through. The platform itself has a separate free trial for when you are ready to apply what you learn to your own brand.
Learn the discipline, then measure your progress
The fastest way to learn AI search optimization is to apply it to your own brand and watch the numbers move.