May 2025

The world has changed forever since the revolutionary launch of ChatGPT, an AI-driven search engine. This new change has introduced the digital marketing world to a new term: generative Engine Optimization (GEO).Generative Engine Optimization is the newest and revolutionary way people search for the latest information on the internet. As the AI-driven search engine is still a new phenomenon to many, GEO is constantly evolving. This means there’s a lot to learn about it, and it’s an ongoing process as days pass. However, we will cover the following helpful information about GEO to help you navigate the change and keep up with what’s new. What exactly is GEO (Generative Engine Optimization)? Have you ever used AI-driven search engines, like ChatGPT, Grok, Gemini, Copilot, or Perplexity? Did you notice how quickly and accurately they answer your queries? Where do the answers come from? AI models fetch the information from millions of web pages available on the internet and match it with your query. However, these AI models do not randomly take any content from the web pages; they do have their criteria, and one such criterion is Generative Engine Optimization (GEO). Generative Engine Optimization is quite similar to Search Engine Optimization (SEO). How? You may wonder. Simply put, digital marketers do SEO to rank websites and blogs on search engines like Google, Bing, etc. However, GEO is done in a way that it boosts your website content’s visibility in AI-driven search engines like ChatGPT, Perplexity, Copilot, Gemini, Grok, etc.Therefore, whenever you give a prompt to any AI-driven search engines, if you have optimized your website’s content as per the GEO standards, it will show your content in response to the prompt. As these AI-driven search engines become smart, they do provide the source of the information in the form of website links, meaning it’s an opportunity for you to be discovered and stay relevant in an AI era without seeing a constant decrease in your website traffic. Why is GEO important? The Google search engine holds 90% market share on desktop, meaning that about 9 out of every 10 searches are conducted using Google. Since the launch of AI-driven search engines, especially Gemini by Google, it has completely taken over control by quickly answering the user’s query at the top of the search engine result pages. According to Bounteous, AI Overview could lead to an 18-64% decrease in organic traffic for some websites, particularly those involving informational-type queries. Impact on organic search Recently, Ahrefs conducted a 300,000 keyword analysis and found that there was a 34.5% drop in position 1 CTR when AI Overviews were present. Similarly, The Wall Street Journal’s article talked about studies showing as many as 40% of searches are now completed without a click-through to the source website, with AI summaries providing direct answers at the top of the page. Evolution in user search behavior Devesh Khanal, co-founder of Grow and Convert, recently posted on LinkedIn about a rapid shift in user search behavior: “Everyone in marketing is talking about how to show up in AI tools like ChatGPT, but there’s a key difference we haven’t seen anyone talk about:People enter short, broad terms in Google, but they have ultra-specific conversations with ChatGPT. As a result, AI tools like ChatGPT have a ridiculous amount of context about the user that Google doesn’t, so they recommend incredibly specific solutions, something Google won’t and can’t ever doFor example…Someone may search “running shoes,” and Google will show them any and all shoes. Whoever bids the highest for the Google shopping listing (or spends the most on link building for SEO) shows up first. But in ChatGPT, users will have a long conversation where they tell it: their gender their running experience their injury history that they have wide feet what previous shoes did they use and like And ChatGPT will then recommend running shoes that have been mentioned online as being a good solution to those pain points. This means if you want ChatGPT (and Perplexity, Claude, and Grok) to recommend your brand and products, you need to produce and publish content that positions it with that level of detail. Detail around problems it solves, who it’s for, use cases, benefits, differentiators, and more. The more of that detail it has, the more likely it is to recommend you in the most appropriate chats.” To summarize, users are experiencing a rapid decrease in their attention span, resulting in spending less time on long, over-explained blogs/articles and consuming bite-sized, informational content on AI Overviews. What are the benefits of GEO? Increased reach: Properly implementing GEO strategies can surface your content not only in SERPs but also in AI-driven overviews and chat responses. Enhanced user experience: Answering users with crisp and exact details to their queries boosts user satisfaction and brand perception. Competitive advantage: History tells us that the one who grabs the early opportunity rules the market. Therefore, GEO is still in the early phase, and establishing a solid base will benefit it in the long run. Brand authority and credibility: By adapting to the new and demanding structure of content—crisp and to the point—you will help gain the users’ trust, further building an authority and credibility for your brand. Data-driven insights: AI interfaces often provide feedback on which answers they choose, enabling precise optimization of content. Future-proofing your SEO strategy: Walking with the trend is better than staying put. Therefore, adapting to this new GEO trend will only strengthen your SEO strategies, making your SEO strategies effective. GEO vs. Traditional SEO: Key Differences and Similarities If SEO is your legs, then GEO is your hands; you need both to function properly. SEO helps brands get visibility on search engines like Google, GEO helps brands appear in the content on AI-driven search engines like ChatGPT. Apart from this basic difference, there are multiple differences one should learn to master and understand the key concept. How is GEO different from traditional SEO? Both SEO and GEO have different work to do.