Search engines reward pages. Answer engines reward sources. That single shift changes almost everything about how you write, structure, and link your content.
SEO optimised for click-through. AEO optimises for citation. A page that ranks first on Google can be entirely absent from an answer engine's response if it does not also read like a defensible source.
Three implications.
First, your content has to be quotable. Short, specific, falsifiable claims earn citations. Long paragraphs of hedged language do not.
Second, your authority signal has to extend beyond your own domain. Answer engines triangulate. If you only show up on your own site, you are a single source. That is fragile.
Third, your category positioning matters more than your keyword positioning. Owning a category is what gets you cited as the canonical reference.
The firms that internalise this early will own the category answers in their space. The rest will keep optimising for a search box that fewer people are using.