Answer Engine
System that answers a question directly with a synthesized response, rather than listing web pages to visit.
ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Google's AI Overview work as answer engines: they read, summarize, and cite sources to produce a final text, unlike a classic search engine that returns a list of links.
For a brand, appearing inside the answer now matters as much as, if not more than, ranking first on a results page.