Generative Engine Optimisation: The future of search visibility

Search is changing faster than ever. 80% of consumers rely on "zero click" results at least 40% of the time (Source). People are no longer scrolling through endless results pages — they're getting what they need instantly from AI overviews and platforms like ChatGPT, Gemini and Perplexity. In March 2025, 13.14% of all search queries triggered AI overviews, up from 6.49% in January 2025 (Source). These generative engines don't just list options; they provide confident, conversational answers that often remove the need to look elsewhere.

For businesses, this shift poses both a challenge and an opportunity. Being visible on search results pages is no longer enough; your content also needs to surface within AI-generated responses. That's where Generative Engine Optimisation (GEO) comes in. The latest development in revolutionising the way people search and interact with information online. But what does this all mean for SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) and marketing?

Generative Engine Optimisation, or GEO, is the practice of shaping your content so that AI engines recognise it as authoritative, quotable, and trustworthy, ensuring your brand is recommended in the answers your prospects are reading. Where traditional SEO ensures your website ranks on search results pages, GEO focuses on visibility inside the outputs of platforms like ChatGPT, Gemini, and Perplexity.

Instead of delivering long lists of blue links, generative engines crawl and interpret multiple sources of information. They extract content that is authoritative, well-structured, and clearly written, then compose it into conversational responses that users increasingly trust as the final word. When your content is surfaced and cited, your brand becomes part of the answer itself.

GEO builds on the foundations of SEO - experience, expertise, authority, and trustworthiness (E-E-A-T) - but it goes further. Generative engines look for topical depth and context, not just keywords. They reward content that answers nuanced questions, anticipates intent, and provides clarity for complex or niche queries.

In short, GEO ensures your business isn't just visible on the search engine results page (SERP), but also woven directly into the AI-powered conversations where decisions are being made.

Both GEO and SEO are central to marketing. While SEO has long helped brands gain visibility on platforms like Google and Bing, GEO is reshaping how content appears within AI-driven search experiences such as ChatGPT. Understanding how they align is crucial for building a strategy that ensures visibility across both traditional and generative search.

Despite serving different platforms, GEO and SEO share several core principles:

• Visibility: Both aim to present your content to the appropriate audience.

• Keyword Strategy: Effective and strategic keyword usage is essential.

• User Experience: Both prioritise websites that are clear, intuitive, and engaging for users.

• Content Quality: Producing high-quality, relevant, and authoritative content is fundamental.

• Authority Building: Trustworthiness and credibility are key drivers of visibility in both contexts.

• Technical Optimisation: Factors such as page speed, mobile responsiveness, and structured data are important.

• Data: Performance is tracked and analysed to refine strategies.

• Adaptation: Both require the agility to keep up with evolving algorithms.

Essentially, SEO lays the groundwork for GEO. A site that already follows SEO best practices, aligned with E-E-A-T, provides a strong foundation that AI engines rely on when crawling and extracting information. Without these fundamentals in place, AI models are less likely to recognise your content as credible, let alone quote it in their responses.

Where SEO is about ranking well in lists of links, GEO is about being cited in AI-composed answers. The differences are significant.

• Response Style - SEO targets ranking on search results pages, GEO optimises for inclusion in AI-generated responses.

• Content Contextualisation - SEO leans heavily on keyword optimisation, while GEO requires clear, contextual, and conversational content, and AI can quote.

• Information Synthesis - SEO boosts individual pages' rankings in search results. GEO ensure AI integrates your content as part of a broader answer.

• User Intent - SEO matches keywords to queries, GEO anticipates nuanced intent that AI interprets conversationally.

• Algorithm Adaptation - SEO responds to search engine updates; GEO evolves alongside AI models and their citation patterns.

• Content Formatting - SEO uses tags, headings and metadata; GEO focuses on formats that natural language processing can easily parse.

• Performance Metrics - SEO tracks rankings and traffic; GEO measures citations in AI outputs and referral traffic from answer engines.

It is essential to recognise that GEO should not be viewed as a replacement for SEO, but rather as a progression. Together, they form an approach that can maximise visibility where it matters most. By combining GEO and SEO, the result is stronger brand awareness, deeper trust and greater influence over customer decision-making.

• Unified content strategy: Craft content that serves both traditional search engines and AI platforms.

• Holistic keyword research: Include conversational, semantic and long-tail phrases to satisfy AI queries.

• Technical excellence: Maintain strong site health for crawling, indexing and AI parsing.

• Continuous learning: Monitor both SEO algorithm updates and AI evolutions to stay ahead.

• Data-driven optimisation: Combine SEO and GEO insights for a full picture of performance.

While GEO is still in its early stages, it is progressing rapidly. As AI becomes a default part of search, GEO will evolve from being an experimental advantage to an essential pillar of digital strategy. Generative engines will become increasingly sophisticated in how they gather, interpret, and present information, making it more crucial for brands to create content that is insightful, reliable, and easily referenced by AI.

That doesn't mean SEO is going away. In fact, SEO will remain the foundation on which GEO is built. Search engines still play an important role in discovery, and the technical standards of SEO - the three core web vitals - are the very signals AI engines use to assess credibility. Without strong SEO fundamentals, GEO has little to build upon.

Looking ahead, the most successful brands will be those that integrate SEO and GEO into a single, future-proof strategy. SEO will continue to ensure visibility in traditional searches, while GEO will expand that visibility into AI-powered conversations where consumer trust and decision-making increasingly lie. Together, they create a dual presence that not only adapts to today's search landscape but also positions your brand to thrive in the future, driven by AI.

• Search is shifting to AI. With zero-click searches on the rise and AI overviews appearing more frequently, users are getting their answers directly from generative engines like ChatGPT, Gemini, and Perplexity.

• GEO builds on SEO. Strong SEO remains essential — it provides the technical and content foundations that allow AI to recognise, trust, and quote your brand.

• Visibility now means being cited, not just ranked. Generative engines don't list endless results; they highlight a small number of authoritative sources. If you're not included, you're invisible to prospects.

• GEO is an evolving strategy. Success comes from ongoing auditing, content refinement, technical optimisation, and consistent monitoring of how AI platforms reference your brand.

• Future-proof your presence. SEO ensures discoverability in traditional search, while GEO positions your brand within AI-powered answers where decisions increasingly happen. Together, they create a dual strategy for lasting visibility, authority, and trust.