From 2004–2010, in joint work with Terence Tao and Tamar Ziegler, he developed so-called higher order Fourier analysis. This theory relates Gowers norms with objects known as nilsequences. The theory derives its name from these nilsequences, which play an analogous role to the role that characters play in classical Fourier analysis. Green and Tao used higher order Fourier analysis to present a new method for counting the number of solutions to simultaneous equations in certain sets of integers, including in the primes. This generalises the classical approach using Hardy--Littlewood circle method. Many aspects of this theory, including the quantitative aspects of the inverse theorem for the Gowers norms, are still the subject of ongoing research.