When the machine names you, almost none of it reaches you. This separates what actually happened, what you won't be able to see, and the one thing you can observe in your own conversations.
The inventory, without the diplomacy: which part of your SEO investment still works now that a machine answers, which part stopped paying off, and what was never on the list.
The AI doesn't cite you for backlinks or for ranking first on Google. It cites you for entity authority, triangulated presence, and mention frequency. Here is the mechanism.
Being cited by an AI is when the model names you as a source when someone asks about your topic. This explains what it is, why it matters, and how it differs from SEO.
SEO fights for clicks on Google. AEO works to get the AI to cite you as a source. This explains the difference and why ranking in search engines is no longer enough.