Answer engine
A search product that returns direct answers with cited sources, rather than a list of links to click through — Perplexity, ChatGPT search, Claude's citations, Google's AI Overviews.
An answer engine takes a natural-language query, retrieves relevant sources from the web, and synthesizes a direct answer with inline citations. The reader gets the answer immediately; the sources are one click away if they want to verify or dig deeper.
The shift from search engine to answer engine changes the reader's behavior. On a traditional search results page, the reader scans, clicks, reads, back-buttons, clicks the next result. On an answer engine, the reader reads the synthesized answer and decides whether they need to click any source at all. Fewer clicks flow to publishers. The published content still gets used — it's the source of the citation — but the site visit doesn't happen unless the answer feels incomplete.
The publisher-side implication: content optimized for "click me from a SERP" is losing traffic. Content optimized for "cite me from an answer engine" is gaining influence, even if raw traffic drops. This is why GEO matters as a specific practice distinct from SEO.