What is GEO? A practical guide for 2026
By Tuomas Laitinen, Founder & CEO, Dashboa · Updated October 2026 · 15 min read
Generative Engine Optimization (GEO) means making sure AI assistants like ChatGPT, Gemini and Google’s AI know your company, understand what you do, and recommend you when a buyer asks. This guide explains how AI assistants pick the companies they mention, what you can do about it, and how to measure whether it’s working.
In short
GEO is about being mentioned and cited in AI answers, not just ranked in a list of links.
AI assistants build answers from what is written about you on the web: your own site, reviews, directories, articles and discussions.
SEO and GEO share the same foundation. Pages that Google can read and that answer real questions are also the pages AI assistants use.
The most effective actions are concrete: answer customer questions directly, be specific about services, areas and prices, keep company details consistent everywhere, and publish regularly.
Measure how often you are mentioned across many questions and runs, not your “rank” in a single answer.
1. What is GEO?
Generative Engine Optimization is the work of improving how visible your company is in answers produced by generative AI: ChatGPT, Google’s AI Overviews and AI Mode, Gemini, Microsoft Copilot, Perplexity and similar tools.
You’ll also see other names for roughly the same thing:
AEO (Answer Engine Optimization)
LLMO (Large Language Model Optimization)
AI SEO or AI search optimization
The term GEO comes from a research paper first published in November 2023 and presented at the ACM KDD conference in 2024, by researchers including Pranjal Aggarwal, Karthik Narasimhan and Ameet Deshpande. They tested how changes to web content affect whether generative engines use it, and found that targeted changes could increase a source’s visibility in AI responses by up to 40%. They also found that what works varies by topic, which is why there is no single GEO trick that works for every business.
The core idea is simple. In classic search, the goal is to appear in a list of ten links. In AI search, the buyer often gets one written answer with a short list of companies. The question is no longer only “where do we rank?” but “are we in the answer at all?”
2. Why GEO matters now
People are asking AI assistants the questions they used to type into Google, including which company to choose.
OpenAI said in February 2026 that ChatGPT had 900 million weekly active users.
Google said in July 2026 that AI Mode had passed 1 billion monthly active users and the Gemini app had 950 million.
AI summaries also sit on top of ordinary Google results. Pew Research Center found in July 2025 that users clicked a regular result in 8% of visits when an AI summary appeared, versus 15% when it didn’t. Only about 1% of visits included a click on a link inside the summary.
Seer Interactive analysed 3,119 informational queries across 42 organisations (June 2024 – September 2025). For queries with an AI Overview, organic click-through rate fell from 1.76% to 0.61%. Brands that were cited in the AI Overview got 35% more organic clicks than brands that weren’t.
What this means for a business:
Fewer clicks for the same rankings, especially for informational searches. Ranking on page one is still worth a lot, but it’s no longer the whole story.
The shortlist forms before the visit. If an assistant recommends three companies and you’re not one of them, the buyer may never reach your site.
Being cited still pays. Companies that appear in the answer tend to get the clicks that remain, and those visitors arrive already convinced.
3. How AI assistants find and choose companies
To influence AI answers, it helps to know where they come from. There are two main sources.
What the model already knows
Language models are trained on large amounts of text from the web. If your company has been written about widely and consistently for years, the model may “know” you without searching. For most small and mid-sized companies this knowledge is thin or out of date, so you can’t rely on it.
Live web search
When a question needs current or local information (“best roof cleaning company in Tampere”, “Google Ads software for small businesses”), modern assistants search the web, read the results, and write an answer based on them. ChatGPT, Gemini, Google’s AI features, Copilot and Perplexity all do this.
Google describes a technique called query fan-out: instead of one search, the AI runs several related searches across subtopics and sources, then combines what it finds. A buyer asking “which accounting firm should I use as a small café in Turku?” may trigger searches about prices, reviews, café-specific needs and local firms. Every one of those is a chance for your content to be found.
What sources AI assistants use
When answering “which company should I choose”, assistants typically draw on:
Your own website: service pages, prices, areas served, FAQs, about page
Reviews: Google reviews and industry review sites
Directories and listings: Google Business Profile, local and industry directories
Comparison and list articles: “best X in Y” articles, buyer’s guides
Discussions: forums and communities such as Reddit
News and partner sites: press coverage, customer stories, supplier pages
The assistant is looking for a confident, consistent picture. If your website, Google profile and reviews all say the same thing about what you do and where, you are easier to recommend.
How the main assistants differ
Assistant
Where answers come from
What this means for you
Google AI Overviews & AI Mode
Google’s own search index, with query fan-out
Classic SEO is the entry ticket: the page must be indexed and eligible for a snippet
ChatGPT
Model knowledge plus live web search via OpenAI’s search crawler
Allow OAI-SearchBot; be cited on pages that rank for your topics
Gemini
Google’s index and the Gemini model
Strong overlap with Google SEO and your Google Business Profile
Microsoft Copilot
Bing’s index
Check that Bing indexes your site (Bing Webmaster Tools)
Perplexity
Its own index via PerplexityBot, cites sources openly
Allow PerplexityBot; clear, citable facts get quoted
4. SEO vs GEO
GEO doesn’t replace SEO. It builds on it.
Comparison
SEO
GEO
Goal
Rank high in Google’s results
Be mentioned and cited in AI answers
Where you’re seen
List of links
Written answer, often a shortlist of companies
Main measure
Rankings, clicks, organic traffic
How often you’re mentioned (share of voice), citations, AI referral traffic
Key signals
Relevance, links, technical health, content quality
The same, plus clear facts, consistency across sources and mentions on other sites
Content style
Comprehensive pages for a keyword
Direct answers to specific questions, easy to quote
Speed
Builds over months
Builds over months too; assistants that search live can pick up new content sooner, but a steady presence takes consistent work
The shared foundation is large. Google states plainly that there are no extra requirements or special optimisations to appear in AI Overviews or AI Mode: the page has to be indexed and eligible to be shown in Search. In practice that means the best GEO investment for most businesses is SEO done well, with answers written so an AI can lift them directly.
5. GEO in practice: a checklist
Here are the actions that matter most, in four areas.
A. Content that answers questions
Answer first. Start each page or section with a one or two sentence answer to the question it covers. Explain after that.
Write pages for real questions. Collect the questions customers ask in sales calls, emails and chats. Each important question deserves a clear answer on your site.
Be specific. Name your services, the areas you serve, who you serve, and prices or price ranges where you can. “Roof cleaning in Tampere, Nokia and Ylöjärvi from €390” is something an assistant can repeat. “High-quality services for every need” is not.
Create comparison and decision pages. “X vs Y”, “how to choose a…”, “what does … cost”. These match how people ask AI assistants.
Add an FAQ to key service pages, with honest, short answers.
Show your own experience and data. Real examples, processes, numbers you can stand behind. The GEO research found that adding citations, quotations from relevant sources and statistics clearly improved how visible a source was in AI answers.
Keep it current. Update prices, dates and offerings. Publish new content regularly so there’s always something fresh for the assistants to find.
B. Make your company easy to recognise
AI systems work with entities: a company, its name, location, services and relationships. Make yours unambiguous.
Use the same company name, address and phone number everywhere: website, Google Business Profile, directories, social profiles.
Write a proper About page: who you are, since when, where you operate, who runs the company.
Keep your Google Business Profile complete and up to date: categories, services, hours, photos, reviews.
Add structured data (schema.org), such as Organization or LocalBusiness, Product or Service, and FAQPage, that matches the visible text on the page. Google notes no special schema is required for AI features, but structured data helps machines read your facts correctly.
Describe your company the same way in every place. If your site says “software company” and a directory says “consulting agency”, you’re sending mixed signals.
C. Get mentioned on other sites
Assistants trust what others say about you more than what you say about yourself.
Reviews: ask happy customers for Google reviews regularly. Answer them, including the critical ones.
Industry lists and directories: make sure you’re listed where buyers in your field look.
Media and partners: customer stories, supplier pages, local press, trade associations.
Discussions: be present where your customers ask for advice, as yourself and helpfully, not with planted posts.
Comparison articles: if “best X in Y” articles exist for your field, find out whether you’re in them and why or why not.
D. Technical basics
Let AI crawlers in. Check your robots.txt. Most importantly:
OAI-SearchBot (OpenAI): sites that block it are not shown in ChatGPT search answers.
GPTBot (OpenAI): used for model training. Blocking it is a separate choice and does not remove you from ChatGPT search.
PerplexityBot: indexes sites for Perplexity’s answers.
Googlebot and Bingbot: needed for Google’s AI features and Copilot.
Google-Extended controls whether your content is used to train Gemini models. Google says it doesn’t affect inclusion or ranking in Google Search.
Make content readable as text. Important information shouldn’t exist only in images, videos or content that needs heavy JavaScript to appear.
Keep the site fast and healthy: working links, no broken pages, mobile-friendly, indexed in Google and Bing.
About llms.txt: llms.txt is a proposed file that summarises a site for AI systems. Google has said its AI features don’t need “AI text files”, and there’s no confirmation that major assistants rely on it. It doesn’t hurt to have one, but it’s not where your effort should go.
6. How to measure GEO
AI answers change from one run to the next, so GEO needs a different kind of measurement from classic rank tracking.
Why “rankings” in AI answers are misleading
In early 2026, SparkToro’s Rand Fishkin and Gumshoe.ai’s Patrick O’Donnell had about 600 volunteers run the same 12 prompts through ChatGPT, Claude and Google’s AI nearly 3,000 times. The chance of getting the same list of brands twice was under 1%, and the same list in the same order about 0.1%. But how often a brand appeared was meaningful: some brands showed up in 60–90% of answers for a given need.
The lesson: track how often you’re mentioned across many questions and runs, not your position in one answer.
What to track
A question set. 5–20 questions your buyers really ask, in their language and for your market. Mix general (“best accounting software for small businesses”) with specific (“accounting firm for restaurants in Turku”), and choose the ones closest to a buying decision. A focused set run regularly tells you more than a long list checked once.
Mention rate. In what share of answers are you mentioned?
Share of voice. How often are you mentioned compared with your main competitors?
Cited sources. Which pages does the assistant link to or rely on? Your own site, a review site, a competitor’s comparison article?
Accuracy and tone. Is what the assistant says about you correct and current?
AI referral traffic. In Google Analytics, look for visits from chatgpt.com, perplexity.ai, gemini.google.com and copilot.microsoft.com. Traffic from Google’s AI Overviews and AI Mode is included in Search Console’s normal Web performance data.
A simple measurement template
Question
Assistant
Mentioned?
Competitors mentioned
Sources cited
Notes
Best roof cleaning company in Tampere
ChatGPT
Yes
Company A, Company B
Google reviews, own site
Price info missing
Roof cleaning prices in Tampere
Google AI Overview
No
Company A
Company A price page
We have no price page
…
…
…
…
…
…
Run the same set at least monthly, on several assistants, and look at the trend over months rather than single results.
How Dashboa measures it: Because answers vary between runs, Dashboa doesn’t judge AI visibility on a single check. It follows how the mention rate develops over weeks and months, alongside your competitors.
7. Example: GEO for a local service company
An illustrative example. The company is made up.
Nordic Roof Care cleans and coats roofs in the Tampere region. The owner wants to know whether AI assistants recommend them.
Step 1: Ask the questions. The owner makes a list of 15 questions customers really ask, for example:
“Who cleans roofs in Tampere?”
“How much does roof cleaning cost?”
“Is roof coating worth it for a 30-year-old tin roof?”
“Roof cleaning or roof replacement?”
Step 2: Look at the answers. In most answers, two competitors are mentioned and Nordic Roof Care isn’t. The assistants cite a competitor’s price page, Google reviews and a local “best roofing companies” article.
Step 3: Find the gaps.
The website has one general “Services” page with no prices and no list of areas served.
The Google Business Profile lists a different service category than the website.
The company isn’t in the local list article.
There are no pages answering the coating vs. replacement question.
Step 4: Act.
Separate pages for roof cleaning and roof coating, each answering the main question in the first two sentences, with price ranges and areas served.
A guide on “roof coating or replacement?” with honest criteria.
An FAQ on each service page.
Consistent categories and description in the Google Business Profile.
A steady flow of review requests after each job.
One new article each week from the customer question list.
Step 5: Measure. The same 15 questions are run every month on ChatGPT, Gemini and Google, and the mention rate is compared with the two competitors over the following months.
8. Common mistakes and myths
“GEO is a trick you do once.” AI assistants search the web live and the web keeps changing. Competitors publish, reviews accumulate, prices change. GEO is ongoing work, like SEO.
“Stuff the page with keywords.” The GEO research found keyword stuffing doesn’t help in generative engines. Clear answers and concrete facts do.
“Any content will do, as long as there’s a lot of it.” Volume without direction doesn’t help. Content that repeats what everyone else says gives an assistant no reason to cite you, whoever or whatever wrote it. What works is content planned around the questions your customers actually ask, tied to your services and market, and published steadily.
“You can buy your way into the answers.” You can’t pay to be recommended in ChatGPT’s or Google’s organic AI answers. What you can buy is advertising: ChatGPT now shows sponsored placements clearly marked as ads, separate from the answer itself. That’s a different channel with its own rules. See our ChatGPT Ads guide.
“Block all AI bots to protect your content.” You can, but blocking search crawlers like OAI-SearchBot means you won’t appear in those assistants’ search answers. Decide deliberately, crawler by crawler.
“GEO means SEO is dead.” Google’s AI features are built on Google’s index, and other assistants use search indexes too. Without a solid SEO foundation, GEO has nothing to stand on.
9. A 30/60/90-day GEO plan for a small business
Days 1–30: Baseline and basics
Write down 5–20 buyer questions and check how ChatGPT, Gemini and Google answer them today.
Check robots.txt for OAI-SearchBot, PerplexityBot, Googlebot and Bingbot.
Make company name, address, phone number and description consistent across your site, Google Business Profile and key directories.
Fix your most important service pages: answer first, specific services, areas and prices.
Days 31–60: Content and proof
Publish pages for the most important unanswered questions from your list.
Add FAQs and structured data to key pages.
Start a steady review routine.
Find comparison articles and directories in your field and get listed where it makes sense.
Days 61–90: Rhythm and measurement
Publish new content every week from your question list.
Rerun the question set monthly and track mention rate and share of voice against competitors.
Check AI referral traffic in Google Analytics.
Update pages the assistants cite from competitors but not from you.
10. How Dashboa helps
Dashboa is software that does the recurring part of this work for you, every day and every week:
12-month content plan built from your market, your competitors and your customers’ questions.
New articles every week, written for real customer questions, in your site’s style, published straight to your website.
AI visibility tracking: the questions your customers ask are tested in ChatGPT, Gemini and Google’s AI, and you see whether you or your competitors get mentioned.
Keyword and competitor tracking, followed continuously.
Site monitoring and a monthly technical audit, with a clear list of what to fix.
One weekly report: what was published, what changed and what comes next.
Some things in this guide stay in your hands, such as your Google Business Profile, collecting reviews and editing your existing service pages. The monthly audit and weekly report show you where to focus.
SEO & GEO €3,588 / year. 12-month agreement, 1 domain and 1 market.
11. Frequently asked questions
What does GEO stand for? Generative Engine Optimization: improving how visible your company is in answers from generative AI tools such as ChatGPT, Gemini and Google’s AI Overviews.
Is GEO different from SEO? Yes, but they overlap heavily. SEO aims for rankings in search results; GEO aims for mentions and citations in AI answers. Both rely on useful, specific, technically sound content. GEO adds a stronger focus on direct answers, consistent company information and mentions on other sites.
How long does GEO take to work? It depends on your starting point and market. Assistants that search live can pick up new content quickly, but building a consistent presence across your site, reviews and other sources usually takes months of steady work.
Can I pay to appear in ChatGPT answers? Not in the organic answer. ChatGPT does offer ads, which are shown clearly marked and separately from the answer. Organic mentions have to be earned through content and reputation.
Do I need llms.txt or special schema for GEO? No. Google says its AI features need no special files or markup beyond normal SEO requirements. Structured data that matches your visible content is still useful, because it helps machines read your facts correctly.
How do I know if ChatGPT mentions my company? Ask it the questions your customers ask, repeatedly and over time, and record whether you’re mentioned. Because answers vary between runs, a single check tells you very little. AI visibility tracking, such as the one included in Dashboa SEO & GEO, does this for you and shows the trend alongside your competitors.
Should I block AI crawlers? Only if you’ve decided you don’t want to appear in those assistants. Blocking OAI-SearchBot removes you from ChatGPT search answers. Blocking GPTBot (training) or Google-Extended (Gemini training) is a separate decision that doesn’t affect search visibility in the same way.
Is GEO only for big brands? No. Local and niche questions often have smaller, more stable sets of answers, and a small company with clear, specific content can be the obvious recommendation in its area.
Sources
Aggarwal, P. et al. GEO: Generative Engine Optimization. arXiv:2311.09735, 2023 (rev. 2024). https://arxiv.org/abs/2311.09735
TechCrunch: ChatGPT reaches 900M weekly active users, 27 Feb 2026. https://techcrunch.com/2026/02/27/chatgpt-reaches-900m-weekly-active-users
Google: Alphabet Q2 2026 earnings, CEO remarks, 22 Jul 2026. https://blog.google/company-news/inside-google/message-ceo/alphabet-earnings-q2-2026/
Pew Research Center: Google users are less likely to click on links when an AI summary appears in the results, 22 Jul 2025. https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2025/07/22/google-users-are-less-likely-to-click-on-links-when-an-ai-summary-appears-in-the-results/
Seer Interactive study via PPC Land, Nov 2025. https://ppc.land/google-ai-overviews-reduce-organic-ctr-61-paid-traffic-68/
Google Search Central: AI features and your website. https://developers.google.com/search/docs/appearance/ai-features
Google Search Central: Google’s common crawlers (Google-Extended). https://developers.google.com/search/docs/crawling-indexing/google-common-crawlers
OpenAI: Overview of OpenAI crawlers. https://developers.openai.com/api/docs/bots
Perplexity: Perplexity crawlers. https://docs.perplexity.ai/guides/bots
Search Engine Land: AI recommendation lists rarely repeat (SparkToro & Gumshoe study), 2026. https://searchengineland.com/ai-recommendation-lists-rarely-repeat-study-468076