What is GEO, and why your brand is invisible to AI

GEO, or generative engine optimisation, is the work of making your brand show up, accurately, inside answers written by AI systems like ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity and Google’s AI Overviews. It sits on top of SEO rather than replacing it: AI answers draw on pages that can be found and read, then favour sources that are clear, specific and credible. If your brand is invisible to AI, it is usually because your site says little that is quotable, proves little that is checkable, and is not described consistently anywhere else.

Where the term comes from

The name comes from a 2023 research paper, GEO: Generative Engine Optimization, by researchers from Princeton University and partners, later published at KDD 2024. The authors defined “generative engines” as search systems that answer with written responses built from multiple sources, and tested which changes to a web page make it more visible inside those answers.

Their headline finding: GEO methods can boost visibility in generative engine responses by up to 40%.

The more useful findings are in the detail.

What the research says actually works

The paper tested a range of edits to source pages and measured how much of the AI answer drew on each page. From the full paper:

• Adding citations, quotations and statistics performed best. The top methods, Cite Sources, Quotation Addition and Statistics Addition, achieved a relative improvement of 30 to 40% on the paper’s position-adjusted word count measure.
• Clarity helped too. Improving fluency and making text easier to understand produced visibility gains of 15 to 30%.
• Keyword stuffing did not work. The authors found traditional keyword tactics offered little to no improvement in generative engine responses.
• Smaller sites can benefit most. In their tests, the Cite Sources method lifted visibility for websites ranked fifth in the search results by 115.1%, while visibility for the top-ranked site fell by 30.3%.

That last point matters for challenger brands. In classic search, the top of page one takes most of the attention. In an AI answer, a well-evidenced page lower down can be quoted ahead of the leader.

One caveat. This is a research setting with its own benchmark and engines. Real AI products change constantly. Treat the findings as direction, not a formula.

Why this matters now

AI answers change what happens after the search. The Pew Research Center tracked the real browsing of 900 U.S. adults in March 2025 and found that users who saw a Google AI summary clicked a traditional result in 8% of visits, against 15% for those who did not. Users clicked a source cited inside the summary in just 1% of visits. Around one in five searches in the study produced an AI summary.

So the answer itself is becoming the shop window. If your brand is not named in it, many buyers will never reach your site. If it is named inaccurately, they will believe the summary.

What Google says

Google is clear that there is no secret switch. Its documentation on AI features and your website says there are no additional requirements to appear in AI Overviews or AI Mode, nor special optimisations necessary. To be shown as a supporting link, a page must be indexed and eligible to appear in Google Search with a snippet.

Read that as good news. GEO is not a trick. It is SEO fundamentals plus content that is genuinely worth quoting.

Why your brand is invisible to AI

When we audit brands for AI visibility, the same problems come up again and again.

Your site says nothing specific

“We deliver innovative solutions for growing businesses” gives an AI system nothing to quote. “We supported more than 80 dealers with turnkey marketing toolkits” does. Specific, verifiable claims are what answer engines can use.

The answer is buried

If someone asks “who does equipment dealer marketing in Canada,” the answer needs to be on a page, in plain language, near the top. Not implied across a carousel and three tabs.

No proof, no sources

The research favours pages that cite sources and include statistics. Case studies with real names and outcomes, and claims backed by links, give AI something to trust.

You are inconsistent off-site

AI systems learn about you from more than your site: directories, reviews, press, partner pages, social profiles, Google Business Profile. If your name, category and location differ across them, the picture gets blurry.

The page cannot be read

Content locked inside images, scripts that never render, slow pages and blocked crawlers all reduce what can be indexed. If it is not indexed, it cannot be cited.

A practical GEO checklist

1. Write answer-first. Open each key page with two or three sentences that directly answer the question a buyer would ask. Name your brand, your location and your offer.
2. Make claims checkable. Use real numbers, named clients you are permitted to name, and dates. Link to sources for any market facts.
3. Build proof pages. One case study per meaningful piece of work, with the problem, what you did and what changed.
4. Structure for reading. Clear H2s and H3s, short paragraphs, lists and tables where they help. FAQs with direct answers.
5. Get the fundamentals right. Indexable pages, fast load, clean titles and descriptions, sensible internal links, structured data where appropriate.
6. Align your entity everywhere. Same name, description, address and category on your site, Google Business Profile, directories and social profiles.
7. Test the answers. Ask the main AI assistants the questions your buyers ask. Record who gets named and what is said. Repeat monthly.

None of this is exotic. It is the discipline of saying clearly what you do, proving it, and making it easy to find.

How we approach GEO

At Culture Cartel we treat SEO and GEO as one practice, built into website design from the sitemap up rather than bolted on later. For Prairie Ag we carried SEO and GEO continuity through a full rebrand so customers could still find a 30-year dealer under its new name. For CanBuyCars we paired local search with geo-fencing so sellers nearby find the business first.

We also build AI into how marketing teams work. See AI marketing integration, and the Brand Teardown and Cartel Lens we launched on this site.

Want to know what AI says about your brand today? Start here.