SEO still matters, but how people discover brands is changing faster than your keyword rankings. AI-powered search replaces lists of links with personalized, summarized answers, delivered before anyone clicks.

This shift - from search results to suggested responses - is as seismic as the leap from homepages to social feeds. Or, if you prefer your metaphors with popcorn: it’s Blockbuster vs. Netflix. One still lives in the past. The other meets you where you are.

This is where GEO (generative engine optimization) comes in. GEO isn’t about climbing a rankings ladder; it’s about ensuring your brand is cited, trusted, and surfaced when AI answers the question. In a world where zero-click searches are the norm — 59% in the U.S. and EU, rising to 70%+ on AI-heavy topics (according to SparkToro and Similarweb) – this is the new game you have to play.

One major headline made this shifting reality feel even closer last week: Reuters, CNBC, Bloomberg, The Wall Street Journal, and others reported that Perplexity AI made a $34.5 billion all-cash bid for Google’s Chrome browser. Will it happen? Probably not. But the signal is clear: browsers are becoming AI launchpads. And when the front door to the internet changes, everything behind it gets rerouted.

From Google to AI-native challengers, whoever controls the interface controls the influence and the answers your customers see.

If you’re still optimizing for rankings alone, you’re playing by yesterday’s rules. The brands that win now? They appear before the click: referenced, quotable, and already in the conversation.

SEO still matters, but it’s not where the decisions are happening

All of this means that brands are no longer competing on a single Search Engine Results Page (SERP). You’re competing to be the trusted voice that shows up (or gets quoted) when the engine answers for you.

And while AI may be rewriting the distribution rules, it’s still building on SEO’s foundation: crawlability, structured data, entity clarity, and credible sources. If you neglect that, you risk being invisible.

But hygiene isn't enough if you want to win in this new ecosystem. Your brand needs to be mentioned, cited, and favored even when there’s no click.

Let’s take the homepage-to-social feed analogy mentioned earlier.

SEO is still your homepage: a vital foundation that tells the internet who you are, what you do, and how to find you. But GEO is your feed. It’s where discovery happens.

Here’s the thing about feeds: people don’t go just to look around. They expect what matters (or what’s relevant) to find them.

That’s the dynamic AI is recreating. Search used to serve up options. Now, it serves up answers. And increasingly, people trust those answers enough to skip the click entirely.

This isn’t just a feeling:

• A July Pew study found that when users saw an AI summary at the top of results, only 8% clicked a link compared to 15% when there was no summary.
• Meanwhile, Bain & Company reports that 80% of consumers now rely on AI-generated summaries for at least 40% of their searches, resulting in a 15–25% drop in organic traffic.

And, if you haven’t guessed it yet, paid isn’t immune either. Google is testing ads inside AI Overviews, which already appear on 13% of queries, according to Skai. That means fewer impressions above the fold, and possibly more ads fighting for limited real estate inside the answer layer.

So yes, SEO still matters. If your site isn’t structured correctly, it won’t get indexed, and it definitely won’t get cited. But the old success metrics (impressions, rankings, even clicks) no longer tell the whole story.

If you want to shape decisions in this new environment, you can’t just rank. Which is why this should be a part of your brand’s new rallying cry:

Be referenced.
Be quotable.
Be the source models turn to when they generate an answer.

That’s what GEO is built for.

GEO is the new brand awareness engine

To most, brand awareness used to mean impressions, engagement, and share of voice. But those metrics stop short of what matters in the AI era: whether your brand is cited in the answer.

That’s the new game. And GEO is how you play it.

Answer engines don’t care about your follower count or branded search volume. They care about credibility, consistency, and context. In other words, they’re not just looking at what you say, but who else says it, where, and how often.

That’s why the most effective brand awareness programs going forward will drive reach AND train the engines. In practice, this means:

• PR strategies should prioritize earned citations from sources models trust (highly-cited media, analysts, journals) over just coverage volume.
• Social content should come from executives and SMEs to boost credibility and entity reinforcement, not just brand handles.
• Thought leadership needs to be structured, sourced, and attributable to feed both people and models.

When done right, this work makes people aware of your brand and makes AI trust your brand enough to recommend it. And that trust drives real traffic: Adobe found that AI-assisted referrals to U.S. retail sites rose 10–13x between mid-2024 and early 2025, with people increasingly turning to generative AI for research, recommendations, and deal-finding.

We’re entering a new kind of awareness loop where your PR drives the quote, your content fills the answer, and your brand becomes the default.

That’s how GEO turns visibility into influence before the click ever happens.

From brand awareness to proof: What you can measure now

So the awareness loop is in motion. You’re showing up in answers, shaping the narrative, and feeding the model, not just the SERP.

Now comes the inevitable question from leadership: How do we know it’s working?

It’s a fair ask…and a harder one to answer. Because in a world where discovery happens without a click, traditional metrics don’t always apply. Traffic still matters, but it’s no longer the only sign of influence.

To measure visibility in the GEO era, you need to look at it like an ecosystem:

One part structure. One part signal.
One part is what you control. One part is how the world sees (and cites) you.

Here’s the high-level breakdown:

No single team owns this whole picture. But by bringing together comms, SEO, content, and social, you can start quantifying influence before the click.

GEO is a team sport

If you take anything away, let it be this: discovery doesn’t live in silos anymore.

It’s like running a relay where no one passes the baton. “SEO handles this,” and “comms handles that” won’t cut it when AI is watching how everything connects.

GEO is the connective tissue. The brands showing up in answers? They’re optimized, and they’re orchestrated.

How do you actually do GEO?

There might not be a standardized checklist (yet). But the best brands aren’t waiting around; they’re building new habits now and reshaping the playbook.

They’re doing things differently. They’re shifting from clicks to credibility, from page optimization to model training. And they’re building smart, cross-functional habits like:

• Cite-worthy content: Research reports, expert bylines, and structured explainers — not just published, but quoted.
• Executive voices: Thoughtful posts from founders and SMEs that fuel public trust and train the answer loop.
• AI-ready formats: Schema, FAQs, summaries, and entity-rich markup that help content get picked up and served back.
• Tight team coordination: SEO, PR, content, and social all playing from the same playbook, not siloed strategies.

Remember: GEO isn’t about tricking the algorithm but training the model. And every input counts. Every quote, mention, and signal adds weight to your brand’s presence in the answer layer.

Final thoughts

If SEO gets you found, GEO gets you chosen. And in an internet shaped by AI answers, being chosen means everything.

As we said at the beginning, while Perplexity’s Chrome bid might fizzle, that's not the point. The point is, the front door to the internet is shifting to be AI-native.

This next era of discovery won’t wait for you to catch up. Ensure your brand has the keys and knows how to use them. Don’t be Blockbuster in a Netflix world.

Want to know how your brand shows up in the answer layer and how to shape it? Let’s talk.

FAQ: What leaders need to know about GEO, SEO, and AI-driven search

What’s changing in search behavior?

The rise of AI overviews and AI-driven search engines is dramatically shifting user behavior. Instead of clicking through to websites, users are increasingly getting personalized, summarized answers directly on the results page. In 2024, about 59% of searches ended with no click (SparkToro, Similarweb). By 2025, publisher-side analyses show zero-click rates surpassing 70% for some AI Overview-heavy topics (Search Engine Land, Digiday).

This “answer-first” experience means your brand is now competing to be cited inside AI-generated responses, not just to rank on traditional search engine results pages (SERPs).

Will paid search performance decline across the board?

Yes, especially where AI Overviews appear. Google is testing ads inside AI Overviews (currently on about 13% of queries, according to Skai). This shifts ad inventory from the top of the page to inside the “answer layer,” compressing visibility and increasing competition for limited ad space.

The takeaway: both paid search and organic SEO now operate in a more constrained, AI-shaped environment, making generative engine optimization critical for brand visibility.

Is Chrome’s ownership really that important?

Absolutely. Google Chrome accounts for about two-thirds of global web browsing (StatCounter Global Stats). Control of Chrome — or any dominant browser — effectively controls the gateway to AI-driven discovery.

In August 2025, Reuters, CNBC, Bloomberg, The Wall Street Journal reported that Perplexity AI made a $34.5 billion all-cash bid for Google’s Chrome browser. While the deal is unlikely to close, it’s a signal of where the market is headed: browsers are becoming AI launchpads, and whoever owns the interface shapes the answers, ads, and brand touchpoints billions of people see daily.

How does social help GEO?

Social media plays a powerful role in GEO because public, authoritative posts from executives and subject-matter experts often get cited, linked, or embedded in the trusted sources AI models reference.

Platforms like LinkedIn, X (formerly Twitter), and YouTube can amplify thought leadership content, driving it into high-authority contexts. This matters because younger users increasingly treat social media as a search tool, especially for local, lifestyle, and product discovery TechCrunch, Pew Research Center).

For GEO, that means executive voices and social-first PR campaigns aren’t just for people — they also feed the training data that AI uses to answer questions.

How can PR help GEO?

Public relations is one of the most effective levers for generative engine optimization because it creates credible citations that AI search models weigh heavily when generating answers. Strategic PR can:

• Secure earned media in high-authority outlets frequently referenced in AI answers (Reuters, Bloomberg, Gartner, Forrester).
• Position executives and SMEs as quotable authorities on key industry topics.
• Publish original research and data-driven content that AI models can cite directly.

According to the Pew Research Center, 80% of consumers rely on AI-generated summaries for at least 40% of their searches, and Bain & Company reports that the shift toward answer-first discovery is accelerating. Every trusted PR placement today is an input the AI will use tomorrow — making PR a brand visibility tool and a model training strategy.