What is GEO?

GEO (Generative Engine Optimisation), AEO (AI Engine Optimisation or Answer Engine Optimisation), and AI Search all describe aspects of how businesses appear in AI-powered tools. Some people distinguish between GEO (optimising for conversational AI like ChatGPT and Perplexity) and AEO (optimising for search engine AI summaries like Google AI Overviews). In practice, the strategies overlap significantly. We use AI visibility as the umbrella term and GEO/AI Search interchangeably across the site. What matters isn't the label — it's whether AI recommends your business.

What is generative engine optimisation?

GEO is the practice of optimising your business's presence in AI-generated answers — the responses produced by ChatGPT, Perplexity, Google AIO, and other large language models. When someone asks an AI "what's the best [product] for [need]?", GEO is about making sure your business appears in the answer.

How does GEO differ from SEO?

SEO optimises for search engine result pages — the ten blue links. GEO optimises for AI-generated responses — the conversational answers that are increasingly replacing those links. SEO cares about keywords, backlinks, and page authority. GEO cares about whether AI models have absorbed your business's content, understand your positioning, and consider you relevant enough to cite. They're complementary, not competing. But SEO alone is no longer enough.

Why does GEO matter now?

The landscape is shifting fundamentally:

• 1.2 billion people use ChatGPT every month — global reach growing rapidly (OpenAI, 2026)
• 41% of consumers now start information searches with an AI platform instead of traditional search (Forrester/AIE Reports, 2026)
• 72% of online searches now end without a traditional click-through — rising to 86% when AI Overviews are shown (Similaweb, Q1 2026)
• 64% of B2B buyers now use AI tools in their research and decision-making process — up from 38% in 2023 (G2/SiriusDecisions, 2026)
• AI-generated answers are now the primary discovery mechanism for product research across retail, SaaS, and professional services sectors (Multiple sources, 2026)

The shift isn't coming — it's already here. GEO is how businesses prepare for that shift. Businesses that aren't visible in AI answers are invisible to a growing share of their audience.

What can businesses actually do about it?

Honest framing: Nobody has cracked exactly how AI decides what to cite. But we do know what correlates with citation:

• Structured, authoritative web content that directly answers common questions
• Presence on domains that LLMs already trust (trade publications, review sites, Wikipedia)
• Consistent business narrative across multiple sources
• Schema markup and structured data that helps AI understand your content
• Regular content publication that keeps your business visible and current

This isn't a quick fix. It's an ongoing process of creating the kind of content that AI models recognise as authoritative.

How do you measure AI business visibility?

We use our AI Visibility Strategy (AVS) — a structured framework for measuring how AI talks about your business. Read the full methodology →

Can you guarantee AI citations?

No — and anyone who claims they can is overselling. GEO is a new discipline. AI model behaviour is probabilistic, opaque, and constantly changing. What we offer is structured measurement, educated recommendations, and quarterly tracking to see what's working. We're honest about the uncertainty. The alternative is not measuring at all.