Explainer
What is GEO?
Generative engine optimisation, in plain English. What it is, how it differs from SEO, why it's a PR question, and what you can actually do about it.
Short answer. GEO (generative engine optimisation) is the work of understanding and improving how AI tools such as ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude, Perplexity and Google's AI Overviews describe, cite and recommend your brand when people ask them questions about your market.
What GEO is
When someone asks an AI tool "who's the best X for Y?", it doesn't hand back ten links. It writes an answer. That answer names some brands and leaves others out, describes them in particular ways, and often links to the sources it leaned on.
GEO is about that answer. Are you in it? How are you described? Which sources is the AI reading, and who is being cited instead of you? And what, realistically, can you do to change it?
GEO, AEO, AI search: does the name matter?
Not much. You'll see GEO (generative engine optimisation), AEO (answer engine optimisation), LLMO, "AI search" and "AI visibility" used for roughly the same thing. Some people use AEO for Google's AI summaries and GEO for chat tools like ChatGPT. In practice the work overlaps almost completely. I use GEO and AI search interchangeably.
How GEO differs from SEO
SEO is about ranking a page in a list of results. GEO is about whether your brand makes it into an answer that's been written for the reader. They're related, and good SEO still helps, but the overlap is smaller than many people assume.
- In early 2026, only about 38% of the pages cited in Google's AI Overviews also ranked in the top ten for that search, down from about 76% in mid-2025. Around 31% came from pages outside the top 100.[1]
- In Google's AI Mode, 88% of citations weren't in the organic top ten for the same query.[2]
The reason is that AI tools run several related searches behind the scenes and build one answer from all of them. So covering a subject well, in lots of places, tends to matter more than holding one top spot.
Why it's a PR and comms question
Most of what AI says about a brand comes from someone other than the brand. In Muck Rack's analysis of more than 25 million links cited by ChatGPT, Claude and Gemini, 84% were earned media, using a broad definition that takes in journalism, academic and government sources, encyclopaedias and third-party company content. Journalism alone was about a quarter. Paid content was 0.3%.[3]
Other studies sort the data differently and get lower numbers. But the direction is consistent: the coverage, reviews, commentary and reference pages that PR people have always worked on are a big part of what AI reads. That makes GEO at least as much a reputation question as a technical one.
Why it matters now
- The audience is big. ChatGPT alone had 900 million weekly users by February 2026.[4]
- Buyers start there. G2 found 51% of B2B software buyers now start their research in an AI chatbot rather than Google.[5]
- Fewer people click through. The Reuters Institute found only about 4% of people who get news from AI chatbots click through to the source.[6] If the answer is the destination, what it says about you matters more.
None of this means search is dead or that every buyer has moved to AI. It means a growing share of first impressions now happens inside an answer you don't control.
What you can actually do
Nobody outside the AI companies knows exactly how each tool picks its sources, and anyone who says otherwise is guessing. But the evidence points to a fairly sensible set of basics:
- Earn coverage and mentions in the places AI already reads for your market.
- Tell the same clear story about who you are and what you do, everywhere.
- Make your own site easy to read and quote: clear answers, named authors, dates, sources.
- Keep important pages fresh.
- Let AI crawlers in.
- Find out who owns your space in AI answers, and why, before you spend money on fixing it.
My GEO guide sets out twelve practical moves in more detail. The research page has the evidence behind them.
Common questions
Can anyone guarantee my brand will be cited by AI?
No. AI answers are probabilistic and change constantly. In a 2026 study, ChatGPT and Google's AI gave the same list of brands twice less than 1 time in 100 for the same question.[7] Anyone guaranteeing citations or a "ranking position" in AI is overselling. What you can do is improve the odds and understand the pattern.
How do I find out what AI says about my brand?
Start by asking the questions your buyers would ask, across a few AI tools, several times each, and note who gets named and which sources are cited. Do it with unbranded questions ("best X for Y"), not just your own name. Answers also change with who's asking and where they are in their decision, so a few quick checks only go so far. More on why the questions matter. Because answers vary from run to run, look at how often a brand appears across many runs rather than where it sits in one answer.
There are tools that automate this, from dedicated GEO platforms to PR suites like Muck Rack, Meltwater and Onclusive. Some are good. None of them tells you what it means for your brand or what to do next. That part needs a person. My UK landscape page covers the main options.
Why doesn't my brand show up in ChatGPT?
Usually one of four things. The AI hasn't found enough independent sources talking about you in that context. Your story is inconsistent, so it isn't sure what you do. Your own pages are hard to read or blocked to AI crawlers. Or competitors simply have far more coverage in the places that tool reads. Working out which one it is comes before fixing anything.
Does schema markup help with AI search?
It's good housekeeping, but don't expect much from it. An Ahrefs study in May 2026 tracked 1,885 pages that added JSON-LD schema against 4,000 that didn't, and found no meaningful lift in citations on AI Overviews, AI Mode or ChatGPT.[8] Do it once, properly, and spend your effort elsewhere.
Should I add an llms.txt file?
It does no harm, but there's little evidence it helps. Ahrefs found AI crawlers almost never requested llms.txt files on the sites it checked. Don't pay anyone to "optimise" one.
How long does it take AI to cite new content?
Faster than most people expect, when everything else is working. Profound's data suggests half of newly published pages that get cited do so within about a week, and 90% within 37 days. If a page isn't picked up after that, the problem is usually upstream: indexing, retrieval or the lack of independent signals around it.
Which AI tools matter most?
It depends on your audience. ChatGPT is the largest by a distance, and Google's AI Overviews and AI Mode reach anyone who still uses Google. Gemini, Claude, Perplexity and Copilot matter in particular markets and professions. They don't cite the same sources, so a brand can do well in one and be absent in another. I'd start with the tools your buyers actually use.
Is GEO just SEO with a new name?
Partly, and the honest SEO people will tell you so. Crawlability, clear pages and authority still matter. But AI answers lean much more on what others say about you, and much less on where one page ranks. That's why PR and comms people have a bigger role here than they did in SEO.
How often should I check?
Less often than tool vendors suggest. Daily tracking mostly measures noise. For most brands, a proper look once or twice a year, plus a check after major campaigns, launches or crises, is enough to see whether things are moving.
Sources
- Ahrefs, AI Overview citations and the top 10, March 2026 (863,000 keywords). ahrefs.com
- Moz, AI Mode citations study, February 2026 (~40,000 queries). moz.com
- Muck Rack, What Is AI Reading?, May 2026. Announcement
- OpenAI figures reported by TechCrunch, 27 February 2026. techcrunch.com
- G2, 2026 AI Search Insight Report. Covered in Cited, edition 7.
- Reuters Institute, Digital News Report 2026. Coverage in Tech Times
- SparkToro and Gumshoe.ai, AI recommendation consistency study, 2026. Search Engine Land
- Ahrefs, schema and AI citations, May 2026. ahrefs.com
Get in touch
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hello@knownandcited.com