Answer
What is GEO (Generative Engine Optimization)?
GEO, or generative engine optimization, is the practice of getting a brand named and cited in the answers AI assistants give — ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Perplexity and Google's AI Overviews. Where SEO competes for a position in a list of links, GEO competes for a place in the single answer the assistant returns.
For twenty years, being found meant ranking. A buyer typed a query, got ten blue links, and chose one. Optimising for that meant competing for a position in the list.
Assistants do not return a list. They return one answer, with the recommendation already made. If your brand is not in that answer, the buyer never sees a set of options to choose from — they see a conclusion, and it is about someone else.
What GEO actually optimises for
Three things determine whether an assistant names a brand: whether it can read and understand your site at all, whether the sources it trusts talk about you, and whether you have content that directly answers the question being asked. GEO is the work of improving all three, measured against the answers assistants actually give rather than against rankings.
The gap most brands do not know they have
Ask an assistant about a brand by name and it will usually speak well of it — there is enough material about almost any company to produce a positive summary. Ask the way a real buyer asks, by describing the problem rather than naming a supplier, and the same brand often disappears entirely while competitors are named.
Only the second number is a commercial risk, and it is the one that never shows up in analytics. There is no referral, no impression, no bounce — the buyer was simply never told you existed.
Related questions
Is GEO the same as AEO?
They overlap. AEO (answer engine optimization) usually refers to answer features inside search results — AI Overviews, featured snippets, People Also Ask — where the box shows its sources and being cited is the win. GEO usually refers to conversational assistants, where being named in the answer is the win. Most practical work improves both.
Does GEO replace SEO?
No. Assistants still lean heavily on crawled and indexed content, so a site that search engines cannot read will not be cited by an assistant either. GEO builds on technical SEO rather than replacing it — but it changes what you write and where you seek authority.
How do you measure GEO?
By asking assistants buyer-style questions repeatedly, across engines, and recording what comes back: whether your brand is mentioned, whether your site is cited as a source, and how much of the answer competitors occupy. Rankings are not a proxy — a brand can rank well in Google and be absent from AI answers entirely.