GEO will change more than Search
Last week Goodtransformer delivered an intelligence presentation for our first enterprise client. The topic was GEO, an emerging yet urgent field set to transform search, marketing and, indirectly, the entire economy.
That is a big claim, but we feel justified in the medium term. Yet before we get to the deeper shift, let's start simple.
What is GEO and why the urgency? Search behaviour is, right now, undergoing a profound shift driven by conversational AI. Increasingly, tools like ChatGPT and Perplexity are replacing traditional search engines, offering detailed answers rather than lists of links. This shift is gathering pace. Users clearly prefer instant answers rather than navigating random sites. Consequently, traditional SEO strategies, which prioritise link rankings, are becoming obsolete.
For marketing, this creates a problem. It means people are reading answers, not clicking links. Suddenly your expensive website is becoming invisible. Bain & Company call this the 'Zero Click World'. Their research is striking, it claims that 80% of consumers rely on zero-click results for at least 40% of their searches. The so what is clear. As people turn AI for search and decision guidance, it means SEO and all of the marketing designed to boost it must change.
Enter GEO—Generative Engine Optimization—the strategic response designed to optimise digital content, specifically for AI-driven search environments. Rather than chasing keyword rankings, GEO ensures your organisation is recognised and influential in AI-generated responses.
Why does GEO matter? In reality, we are likely entering a "low click" search environment, where users rarely click on links but might travel to your site if it is cited by AI as the most useful answer.
According to Goodtransformer's intelligence, good GEO relies on three key pillars:
Entity Authority: A concept introduced by Goodtransformer, Entity Authority is the evolution of SEO's Brand Authority. It refers to how distinctly and authoritatively AI recognises your brand or organisation. Generative AI constructs answers using authoritative sources and structured data. To establish Entity Authority, your organisation must be clearly and reliably represented in these data sources.
Conversational User Intent: Unlike traditional SEO, GEO prioritises content that directly answers conversational user queries. Content should provide clear, useful answers to practical, real-world questions rather than merely targeting keywords.
AI-Friendly Formatting: AI favours structured content it can easily parse and use. Optimising your content means employing clear headings, succinct summaries, and structured data (schema markup), enabling AI tools to interpret and present your content accurately and effectively.
While these rapid changes may sound alarming, many GEO practices do overlap with SEO practices, even if they need a significant tweak. But an even deeper shift is taking place with the coming rise of "agent-to-agent" interactions. This development could represent a fundamental change in internet use and the wider economy.
In this new paradigm, autonomous AI agents—rather than humans—conduct initial research, shortlist suppliers, evaluate products, and even execute decisions. Organisations' digital content will increasingly be assessed, selected, and leveraged by these intelligent agents without direct human oversight or intervention.
The implications are profound. Organisations may soon need to ensure their content is not just accessible to humans, but structured and authoritative enough to be used by machine agents. The impact on fields like retail and procurement will be deep, as much economic activity and purchasing starts to become automated.
In a world where search could become dominated by this 'machine to machine' shift, GEO becomes even more critical in AI-driven business interactions—such as autonomous procurement —begin to reshape the market. Organisations that ignore GEO risk becoming not only invisible to human customers but the AI tools that increasingly do their business.
In summary then, Generative Engine Optimization isn't a passing trend and it is clearly deeper than the nerdy domain SEO once was. Perhaps most impactful, search may no longer be all about human visibility. In the coming market, the automated and agentic economy, GEO will become critical to staying competitive.