AI-powered search is rattling the establishment so fast that even graybeard marketers have resorted to saying they can’t keep up.
A report detailing how AI search is transforming online visibility paints a picture of an industry desperate to change, with businesses now jockeying to optimize for Generative Engine Optimization (GEO) rather than the standard SEO they have used for 60 years.
That shift is starkly outlined in this new breakdown of how AI search is already changing discovery practices all over the U.S. as we explore what’s driving a GEO gold rush.
What I find interesting is how fast habits are changing away from keyword searches.” They are using AIs to present whole questions – conversational, untidy, wholly human questions – and they expect them to provide answers that seem like answers, not just lists of search returns.
It’s a dramatic turn, and even experts appear to be divided on what that means in the long term.
A separate article referencing Google’s AI-led evolution also suggests that the rollout of new options such as AI-based response boxes is changing user habits in ways that old-school analytics can no longer entirely account for, which you can read about here on this discussion on how Google’s AI mode distorts the customer journey.
I’ve also observed that, even as many brands claim to be gearing up for a GEO future, a massive faction of pros don’t even know what it is in the first place.
There’s a survey that’s being passed around on this one: apparently, even the majority of SEOs, who would take approach 1 naturally gravitate to GEO as if it was “SEO with a twist” when AI systems are at least somewhat more about entity clarity and authority patterns and structured content than backlinks anyway.
That tension is clear in this report on the shifting fundamentals of optimisation in the age of AI discovery.
It’s almost as if we’re watching two worlds crashing into each other; one where everything moves too quickly and one that absolutely refuses to budge.
And as all of this is taking place, major companies are making “tell” moves about the direction things are going.
The latest move by Adobe to venture further into AI-driven marketing and search discovery is a clear indication that market leaders view AI-visibility as the new playing field, no better emphasized than per this illustration of Adobe’s changing fortunes in its push to integrate AI in SEO.
When the giants begin investing billions, you know that terrain is shifting under everyone else’s feet as well.
From what I can tell, GEO doesn’t sound like a buzzword and more inevitable evolution from my perspective.
If AI is what people trust to get answers, the content that AI decides to cite or summarize becomes the new prime real estate.
It may actually serve to equalize the playing field somewhat – smaller brands could show up in AI answers if their information is clean, structured and valuable, without even needing mass backlink profiles.
But it also poses questions that we haven’t yet answered: How do creators measure influence when users never click through?
How publishers are going to protect their content? And whom do you credit when an AI model synthesizes several sources into a clean answer?
The strange part is that it all seems to be happening at once – the thrill, the confusion, the opportunity and a sprinkle of mild panic.
But one thing is certain: The old ways of SEO just don’t cut it anymore. The future will be shaped by those who figure out how to speak to both humans and machines at the same time, even if we are all still working out what that looks.