- Category
- AI search
- Level
- Intermediate
- Also called
- LLM
- Examples
- GPT, Gemini, Claude, Llama and Grok models
- Knowledge
- Training data up to a cutoff, plus search when connected
- Check it free
- AI Visibility Check
What is a large language model?
An LLM is a neural network trained on very large collections of text to predict the next word in a sequence. At a large enough scale, that ability becomes general-purpose: the model can answer questions, summarize, compare, translate and write.
On its own, an LLM knows only what was in its training data, up to a cutoff date. AI assistants add tools, most importantly web search, so they can look things up and cite current sources.
Why it matters for brands
An assistant's answer about your brand comes from two places: what the model learned in training, and what it finds when it searches. AEO works on both: consistent facts across the web shape what future models learn, and crawlable, clear pages shape what search-connected answers say today.
How LLMs use the web
- Training. Crawlers such as GPTBot and ClaudeBot collect public pages that may be used to train future models.
- Retrieval. When search is on, the assistant fetches relevant pages at answer time and quotes or summarizes them (retrieval-augmented generation).