Framework, 2025
MERIT Framework
Cody C. Jensen's five-pillar framework for AI search: Mentions, Evidence, Relevance, Inclusion and Transformation.
"I think what people call AEO or GEO is simply an evolution of SEO."
MERIT organizes the work of earning citations in AI-generated answers, across ChatGPT, Copilot, Perplexity, Google AI Overviews, Claude and Gemini, into 5 pillars and 15 chapters.
- Mentions. Third-party validation on the platforms where AI systems look for signals about a brand: reviews, communities, press.
- Evidence. Original, quantifiable assets that make the brand a primary source: research, case studies, frameworks.
- Relevance. Intent-aligned content in self-contained, citable passages.
- Inclusion. Technical access and semantic precision, so AI crawlers can find and read the content and its entities.
- Transformation. Measurement and continuing optimization that keep visibility through volatility.
I published the whitepaper in October 2025 and updated it on August 13, 2026.