Listen: What is GEO?
Generative Engine Optimisation (GEO) is a term used to describe SEO for AI assistants and generative search engines, often based on a single research paper.
Transcript
You might have heard a new buzzword lately: GEO, which stands for Generative Engine Optimization. The marketing community coined the term generative engine to describe AI assistants like ChatGPT, Claude, and Gemini when they function as search engines. But if you look closely at where this new acronym comes from, the foundation is incredibly shaky.
Much of the term's legitimacy came from a recently deleted Wikipedia article. The page cited a nonexistent paper and was filled with promotional links to marketing blogs, all quoting each other in a loop. While there is one actual research paper on the topic, a single paper does not justify inventing a whole new industry.
The reality is simpler. Search engines are incorporating AI, and AI assistants are using search. But we do not need a confusing alphabet soup of new terms.
Some marketers are trying hard to make these new acronyms stick, but we do not need to reinvent the wheel. We already have a perfectly good, well-established term for getting visibility where your audience is paying attention. It is SEO, Search Engine Optimization.