Generative AI search is reshaping how people find information, make decisions and interact with brands. Generative AI tools like Google’s AI Overviews now provide users with a tailored, contextually rich response for many of their queries in an attempt to offer a more seamless and personalized experience. This shift in search is redefining how consumers engage with search engines and the digital world. In fact, Google expects its AI Overviews to reach 1 billion searchers before the end of the year.
What Is Generative Engine Optimization?
Generative engine optimization is the process of building content and digital assets that influence generative AI search outputs. The most common ways to improve brand performance in AI overviews is through using customer inputs to produce high quality content, owning asset development to maintain asset control and continuing to optimize for search.
This also means it’s changing the ways that consumers learn about products and brands.
As generative search continues to develop as a pivotal touchpoint in the buyer's journey, it will inevitably impact consumer decision-making and brand understanding. But how much control can brands really have over these AI-generated narratives?
Why It’s Time to Focus on Generative Engine Optimization (GEO)
Generative engine optimization (GEO) is focused on building content and digital assets that influence generative AI outputs for users. Compared to SEO, which is focused on influencing the ranking of a page within organic search, GEO allows brands to be cited within composed responses — in Google, but also in other generative search platforms like ChatGPT.
Ultimately, this additional visibility positions brands as helpful and authoritative guides, understanding and supporting user needs with relevant information quickly. It also injects more control for brands in a space where more and more consumers are asking questions. Compared to traditional organic search results, these strengthened touch points offer more personalized, immediate responses for consumers: positive experiences that have never been more important for brands.
A recent American Customer Satisfaction Index study found that less than two years ago, customer satisfaction in the United States was at its lowest point in 20 years. I believe one major reason is that consumers today expect brands to anticipate their needs and deliver authentic and relevant insights in real-time, and they reward those that do with their business and long-term trust.
Generative search, when approached strategically, can help brands restore and strengthen this critical element of the customer relationship.
How Does GEO Work?
GEO is an opportunity to bridge the trust gap by becoming visible as an authoritative resource and injecting control into a brand’s online narrative.
Generative search results are typically generated in two ways. First, large language models (LLMs) are trained on a wide, sedentary repository of information. Second, generative models use retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) models to pull information from organic search results and ranking pages. These two approaches are what influence generative compositions. Therefore, content that ranks well in organic search, answers specific consumer queries, and adds to a vast web of authoritative brand content, is more likely to be pulled into those AI Overviews.
Brands can strategically shape generative AI search results by:
- Using consumer intent insights to create high-quality content: These data points should inform and power high-quality content that meets the unique needs of your consumers and earn their trust.
- Owning asset development to assert control: Brands that create and maintain high-quality content can influence how generative AI search represents them. Think about chatbots that rely on generative AI to craft responses, ensuring alignment with their messaging and values while establishing the brand as an authority in AI-driven interactions.
- Using strategic search optimization to build visibility: By optimizing content specifically for search, brands can increase their chances of being featured in GenAI search models. For example, Terakeet’s research has shown a strong correlation between a domain’s Google ranking and its likelihood of being included in Google AIOs.
GEO vs. SEO: What’s the Difference?
While traditional SEO remains a cornerstone of digital strategies, GEO introduces a forward-thinking approach to ensuring brand visibility and influence in generative AI-driven searches.
However, strong marketers shouldn’t see this as an either-or conversation: traditional SEO and GEO efforts must cross over.
Brand assets establish authority on topics supporting both SEO and GEO efforts simply because organic and generative searches aim to serve the right content to the right users at the right time. The success of each plays a significant role in increasing brand controllability.
Keep in mind that the measurement of impact will be different between the two methods. Since SEO measurement has had more time to grow, it is easier to measure metrics that actually matter to businesses, like leads, revenue, traffic and SERP controllability. As GEO evolves, we will be looking to measure the same metrics, but it will take a while for the platforms and tools to get to the same level of granularity that we have today with SEO.
As with any technological advancement, there is no need to overreact. Proceed with caution and rely on the predictability that the digital landscape is unpredictable. In the meantime, make sure your brand management strategy is diverse. Don’t abandon SEO. Instead, optimize it for the new way your customers are searching.
Navigating the Future of Search with GEO
Integrating GEO into your digital strategy isn’t just about keeping pace with technological advancements; it’s about maintaining control over your brand narrative and building connections with consumers in an era of diminishing trust. By creating high-quality, data-driven content, exercising control over owned assets and strategically optimizing for search visibility, brands can enhance their relevance and authority in this new search ecosystem.
Embrace this revolution, and your brand can build trust, strengthen consumer relationships, and stay ahead in an increasingly AI-centric world. The future of search is here — it’s time to learn, experiment, and optimize for it.
