If you’ve been working in marketing lately, you’ve probably noticed a change in how people search. A page can still rank well on Google, yet receive fewer clicks than it used to. Search results now often put a written answer at the top, generated from information across the web, before the usual list of links. Your page might be part of what shaped that answer, or it might not be, and there’s no ranking number to tell you either way.
This shift is driving interest in Generative Engine Optimization, or GEO. It is still an emerging area, and there is no fixed formula for how it works across different AI search platforms. Understanding what the research actually tells us is more useful than treating GEO as just another SEO buzzword.
What Generative Engine Optimization Actually Is
Generative Engine Optimization is the practice of shaping content so that AI tools — ChatGPT, Google’s AI Overviews, Perplexity, Gemini, and similar systems — are more likely to reference it when generating an answer. Instead of aiming for a top ranking spot, the goal is to be one of the sources an AI model actually pulls from and mentions.
The term was introduced in a 2023 research paper by researchers from Princeton, Georgia Tech, IIT Delhi, and the Allen Institute for AI. The researchers were looking at a simple problem: as AI-powered “generative engines” began answering questions by pulling together information from different web sources, content creators had little control over whether their work would actually be used. Even a well-written and accurate page could be overlooked while another source was selected instead.
To study this, the researchers built a test set of roughly 10,000 real search queries and tried different ways of rewriting content to see what changed. Some techniques made a real difference — the strongest ones boosted a page’s visibility in generative engine responses by up to 40 percent compared to unedited content. That’s a meaningful jump, but the effect varied a lot depending on the topic, and no single tactic worked the same way across every subject area.
Since that paper, GEO has grown from a research concept into something marketing teams actively think about. It’s not a fixed formula, though. It’s closer to an evolving set of best practices that different agencies and marketers are still testing and comparing notes on.
How GEO Is Different From Traditional SEO
It’s tempting to think of GEO as “SEO but for AI,” and there’s some truth to that. Both disciplines care about relevant, well-structured, technically sound content. A slow website or a page buried under poor site architecture can hurt visibility in either case. However, different AI systems use different methods to find and retrieve information, so the relationship between traditional SEO and GEO isn’t exactly the same across every platform.
The real difference comes down to what you’re actually optimizing for.
SEO optimizes for ranking position
Traditional search engine optimization is built around getting a page as high as possible in the results for a given keyword, because higher rankings have historically meant more clicks and more visitors.
GEO optimizes for being referenced
Generative Engine Optimization isn’t about where a page sits in a list. It’s about whether a specific fact, explanation, or statistic on that page ends up quoted or paraphrased inside an AI-generated response — sometimes with a link back to your site, sometimes without one.
This is a real shift in mindset. A page can rank #1 on Google and still be skipped by an AI tool if another source is considered more useful, relevant, or better supported for the answer being generated. The Princeton researchers specifically found that pages including citations, statistics, and quotes from credible sources were referenced more often. This suggests that providing clear, well-supported information can matter when content is being evaluated for inclusion in generative engine responses.
It’s also worth being honest that GEO doesn’t work the same way across every platform. ChatGPT, Google’s AI Overviews, and Perplexity all retrieve and evaluate sources somewhat differently, and Google itself has stated that optimizing for its generative AI search features is still, fundamentally, part of SEO rather than something entirely separate.There isn’t one universal playbook that guarantees visibility everywhere.
Why This Is Worth Paying Attention to Now
It’s easy to overstate how big this shift already is, so it’s worth being specific. Direct traffic from AI tools — someone clicking a link inside a ChatGPT or Perplexity answer — is only one part of the picture. Generative AI platforms are growing rapidly, and Similarweb’s latest data shows that visits to these platforms increased 70% year over year between June 2025 and May 2026.
There’s also a measurement problem worth knowing about. Someone may see a brand recommendation in an AI answer without clicking the link and later search for that brand directly. That visit can appear in analytics as search traffic rather than as a direct AI referral, making some of AI’s influence difficult to measure.
For B2B companies, this matters because buyers already do a lot of research before they ever reach out. If more of that research is now happening inside a chat window instead of a search results page, then whether your business gets mentioned — and mentioned accurately — during that phase is a real question worth asking, even if it’s tough to measure right now.
What You Can Actually Do About It
None of this means throwing out your existing SEO work. Think of GEO as a layer added on top of solid content, not a replacement for it.
Answer the question directly and make the main information easy to find. Clear, well-organized content makes it easier for readers to understand the page and helps search systems interpret what the content is about.
Back up claims with real numbers and named sources. This is one of the more consistently supported findings from the original research. A vague statement carries less weight than a specific figure attributed to a credible source.
Write in a way that’s easy to lift out of context. If a single paragraph or sentence can stand on its own as a complete, accurate answer, it’s more useful to an AI system trying to summarize your page.
Use structured data as a support tool, not a shortcut. Schema markup — the code that helps describe what a page is about — can help search engines understand your content more accurately. It doesn’t guarantee a citation on its own, and it can’t fix genuinely weak or thin writing.
Keep important pages current. Content that is clearly outdated may be less useful for AI-generated answers than information that reflects the current state of a topic. Regularly reviewing and updating key pages helps keep the information accurate, useful, and relevant.
Build a presence beyond your own website. AI tools often draw on third-party sources — review sites, industry publications, and forums — alongside a company’s own content. Getting mentioned accurately in those places matters too, not just on-site content.
A Few Things to Avoid
Some early GEO efforts end up wasting more time than they save. Treating this purely as a technical schema project, without improving the actual writing, is unlikely to be enough on its own. Marking up content with schema that doesn’t match what’s visibly on the page tends to look inconsistent rather than helpful. And building an entire strategy around how one specific AI tool currently behaves is risky, since these platforms can change how they retrieve and cite sources over time.
It’s also worth resisting the idea that any of this comes with guarantees. Even the researchers who introduced the term never claimed there’s a formula that gets a brand cited every time. GEO improves your odds. It doesn’t remove the uncertainty entirely.
Where This Leaves Marketing Teams
Generative Engine Optimization isn’t here to replace SEO, and it’s not some trend that’ll fade in a year. It reflects a real change in how people find and judge information — and it still rewards the same things that have always made marketing work: clear writing, sources people can trust, a site that’s technically solid. What’s changed is simpler than it sounds: ranking well used to be the whole game. Now it’s just one part of it.
If you’re trying to figure out where your own content stands, whether it’s genuinely useful to both readers and AI tools, or whether your search strategy and content are actually working together, this is exactly the kind of question LeadFynix helps B2B businesses work through as part of their SEO and digital marketing services. Feel free to reach out if it would help to talk through where your current approach stands and what’s worth prioritizing first.