Search is changing. Increasingly, people can ask AI-powered services to explain their options, compare providers and recommend businesses rather than simply presenting a list of websites.
That creates an important question for businesses: how do you make sure your company can be discovered and accurately represented when customers use AI to research their options?
Generative Engine Optimisation, usually shortened to GEO, is one name for the work involved.
But understanding GEO requires separating practical search improvements from the considerable hype surrounding AI.
What does GEO mean?
Generative Engine Optimisation (GEO) is the practice of improving how effectively a business, brand or its content can be discovered, understood, cited and represented within AI-generated search experiences.
These experiences include ChatGPT search, Google’s AI Overviews and AI Mode, Perplexity and other AI-powered discovery tools.
Traditional search engines commonly present ranked links that users can explore. AI-powered search experiences may also synthesise information from multiple sources, answer questions directly and provide supporting citations.
For businesses, that introduces several possible visibility outcomes:
- Being discovered: Your business is identified as relevant to a customer’s question.
- Being understood: Its products, services, location and expertise are described accurately.
- Being cited: Your website or another relevant source is referenced in an AI-generated answer.
- Being recommended: Your business is presented as an option worth considering.
These outcomes are related, but they are not interchangeable. Being cited does not necessarily mean being recommended, and being mentioned does not guarantee a customer will visit your website.
How is GEO different from SEO?
Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) traditionally focuses on helping search engines crawl, understand, index and rank relevant content.
GEO considers how businesses and information appear within AI-assisted discovery.
The distinction is useful, but it should not be exaggerated.
Both depend heavily on clear information, accessible websites, useful content and trustworthy evidence.
Google explicitly states that its established SEO best practices remain relevant to AI Overviews and AI Mode. It does not require a separate set of special optimisations for inclusion in those experiences.
However, AI search introduces additional questions worth investigating.
For example, a business might rank well for a conventional search query but rarely appear when someone asks an AI assistant to compare suitable providers.
That doesn’t automatically indicate a technical problem. The systems may be considering different information, interpreting the question differently or using different sources.
GEO is therefore best understood as an extension of a broader search visibility strategy, not a replacement for SEO.
What does GEO involve in practice?
There is no single universal GEO checklist. Different platforms retrieve, evaluate and present information differently.
However, several areas deserve attention.
1. Technical accessibility
Important pages should be accessible to the relevant search crawlers, internally linked and technically eligible for indexing where appropriate.
A website that prevents discovery of its most useful information creates an unnecessary obstacle.
2. Clear business information
A business should explain what it offers, who it helps, where it operates and what distinguishes its services.
That information should be consistent across its website and relevant public profiles.
3. Useful, specific content
AI-assisted search often involves detailed questions.
Content explaining services, processes, comparisons, limitations, pricing considerations and common customer concerns can help make a business easier to evaluate.
The objective is not to publish large quantities of AI-generated text. It is to answer relevant questions accurately and comprehensively.
4. Credibility and independent evidence
Relevant third-party sources can help establish context around a business.
Depending on the industry, these might include professional associations, reputable directories, editorial coverage, independent reviews or authoritative industry publications.
The emphasis should be on genuine relevance and credibility, not manufacturing mentions.
5. Structured information
Appropriate structured data can help search engines interpret content and business details.
However, schema markup is not a guaranteed mechanism for inclusion in AI answers, and Google does not require special AI-specific schema.
Structured data should accurately describe information that is genuinely present on the page.
6. Measurement
Businesses need a way to assess whether they are being mentioned, cited and represented accurately.
That requires more than testing a single prompt.
Results may vary by platform, wording, location, personalisation and time. A meaningful assessment should consider a representative set of customer questions and distinguish observations from reliable trends.
Can GEO guarantee that ChatGPT recommends your business?
No.
No consultancy can legitimately guarantee that a particular AI system will recommend a business.
AI-generated responses are influenced by multiple factors, and different systems may reach different conclusions.
What a business can do is improve the quality, accessibility, consistency and credibility of the information available about it.
It can also examine where it appears, identify gaps and prioritise improvements supported by evidence.
That is a more defensible objective than promising a particular AI ranking.
Should small businesses invest in GEO?
The answer depends on the business and its customers.
If customers increasingly use AI-powered services to research suppliers, compare options or understand unfamiliar products, examining AI visibility may be worthwhile.
However, a business with a poorly structured website, incomplete service information or unresolved technical SEO problems may have more immediate priorities.
For many SMEs, the sensible starting point is not a separate GEO campaign. It is a review of existing search foundations and the customer questions that matter most.
Where should you begin?
Start with three questions:
- What questions might prospective customers ask when researching businesses like yours?
- What information is publicly available to help search and AI systems understand your business?
- What evidence do you have about how your business currently appears across relevant search experiences?
The answers provide a foundation for deciding whether further optimisation is worthwhile.
GEO is not about finding a secret way into AI answers. It is about improving the information and evidence that support discovery, understanding and informed recommendations.