For years—and still today—ecommerce teams have relied on SEO to improve rankings, increase visibility, and drive traffic. But the rules of engagement are expanding. As shoppers adopt voice assistants, generative AI, and more conversational habits online, the way they ask questions—and expect answers—has evolved.
Welcome to the age of answer-first commerce, where the goal isn’t just to rank—but to respond.
What is answer engine optimization?
Answer engine optimization (AEO) is the practice of preparing digital content so that AI-powered platforms like Google, Bing, and ChatGPT can deliver direct, relevant answers to shopper questions. Instead of ranking a page in a list of links, AEO aims to provide the one best answer, often pulled from structured, enriched product data or FAQ-style content.
AEO doesn’t replace SEO—it complements it. While SEO helps you rank in traditional search results, AEO ensures you’re equipped to answer natural-language queries directly, especially on AI-driven platforms.
In ecommerce, AEO is about being discoverable—before a shopper even visits your site. Whether it’s “best hiking boots for icy terrain” or “sunscreen safe for coral reefs,” retailers that optimize content for conversational queries are gaining visibility in a new kind of search experience.
But what happens once the shopper clicks through and lands on your site?
That’s where on-site conversation becomes just as critical.
Conversational commerce at the PDP level
Shoppers are asking more questions than ever—before and during the buying journey. They’re using natural language to search, evaluate, and compare products. But once they land on a product detail page (PDP), they don’t want to scroll endlessly for specs, sizing, or answers tucked away in long descriptions.
This is especially true in a world increasingly shaped by AI assistants. Shoppers are being trained by tools like ChatGPT to ask questions and get answers immediately. The expectation now is that information should come to them, not the other way around.
They want clarity and they want it fast.
That’s where Asklo comes in.
Meet Asklo: Athos Commerce’s conversational shopping assistant
Asklo isn’t a general chatbot and it isn’t designed for off-site AEO. It’s designed to reduce friction at a critical moment in the shopper’s journey—when a decision is near but clarity is lacking. Whether a shopper is on desktop or mobile, Asklo minimizes effort and provides fast answers without additional scrolling, tapping, or second-guessing. It’s a product-specific answer engine built to live directly on your PDPs where it delivers helpful responses to real shopper questions—right when and where they’re needed most.
Developed by the team behind Klevu and now part of the Athos Commerce platform alongside Searchspring and Intelligent Reach, Asklo uses advanced AI to interpret natural language and pull answers from the PDP content itself. That includes materials like product specs, descriptions, and attribute data—without requiring deep integrations or custom training.
Asklo doesn’t roam your site or search your catalog. It’s tightly focused on helping shoppers evaluate the product they’re viewing and giving them the confidence to add to cart without opening a new tab or bouncing to a competitor. For mobile shoppers in particular, Asklo also surfaces suggested questions, guiding the interaction and reducing the effort required to get answers on smaller screens.
Real-world use cases for Asklo
Let’s say a shopper is looking at a chandelier for their dining room. They may ask:
- “What type of bulbs does this chandelier use?”
- “Does this chandelier give off warm light or cool light?”
- “How wide is it?”
Instead of forcing them to scan for details, Asklo surfaces an instant, clear answer—keeping momentum and guiding them forward. This is the future of product discovery: not filters and categories, but straightforward, product-specific conversations.
Why it’s time to think answer-first
We’re at a turning point. Answer engine optimization is becoming essential to how shoppers discover products. But once they land on your site, your PDPs need to work harder than ever to inform and convert.
Asklo helps you do exactly that. The tool:
- Leverages the content you already have on your PDP
- Provides instant, intuitive answers in natural language
- Reduces friction and hesitation during product evaluation
The result? When shoppers feel understood and well-served, they’re more likely to buy—and more likely to return.
AEO and Asklo: Two sides of the same (shopper) journey
While AEO focuses on helping shoppers discover your products through off-site platforms like Google, Bing, or ChatGPT, Asklo plays a different but equally important role: assisting those same shoppers once they arrive.
Rather than driving visibility across the web, Asklo helps you enhance the product detail page experience, answering real-time questions using the content already available on the page. It’s not about broad reach—it’s about depth and relevance in the moment that matters most.
Think of it this way: AEO gets them to your product. Asklo helps them decide.
The future is answer-driven
Athos Commerce is redefining how ecommerce teams think about product discovery—from off-site visibility to on-site performance. With solutions spanning feed optimization, AI-powered search, merchandising, and now PDP-level conversation, we’re helping retailers meet shoppers where they are—and where they’re going.
Asklo is more than a chatbot. It’s an answer engine that transforms product curiosity into confident conversions by making answers effortless.
Discover what Asklo can do at asklo.ai.
