Do you need an AI SEO strategy?
As search experiences become increasingly shaped by AI-generated responses, what can brands do to stay visible? Spoiler: it’s not GEO.
There’s a new acronym in town: GEO, or Generative Engine Optimisation.
Much like SEO (Search Engine Optimisation), GEO is the idea of optimising content to appear in AI-driven search experiences like Google’s AI Overviews, ChatGPT and Perplexity. As those platforms become a bigger part of how people discover information online, it’s fair to ask: do businesses now need a separate AI SEO (GEO) strategy?
In our view, no.
But the question does point to something important. Search has changed, and visibility now extends beyond Google rankings alone.
The game has changed.
The reason GEO has become such a talking point is simple; search has fundamentally changed.
AI is increasingly built into how people discover information online, from getting answers to questions to weighing up providers, products and solutions. Whether that’s through AI being layered into traditional search experiences like Google’s AI Overviews, or through users more actively turning to tools like ChatGPT and Perplexity, more of the search journey is now happening before a user ever clicks through to a website.
And that has real implications.
Firstly, organic clicks are being squeezed. A recent study suggests that the presence of an AI Overview correlates with a 58% lower average click-through rate for the top-ranking page. From what we’re seeing first-hand, many of the websites we work with are seeing a similar pattern - especially across top- and middle-funnel content that gets discovered through informational queries.
This doesn’t mean people have stopped searching. It means they no longer need to click through in the same way to get the information they need.
Secondly, it makes measuring visibility much harder. SEO has never been the easiest channel to attribute but the journey was at least fairly clear - rankings led to clicks, clicks led to traffic, and traffic leads to revenue. Now, website owners need new ways to understand not just where they rank, but where their brand is showing up across new search channels, and how to tie that visibility back to the bigger picture.
So the question is no longer just, “Where do we rank?”. It’s “Where are we visible, and how do we measure the impact of that visibility?”
What this means for your SEO strategy
In one sense, everything has changed.
Visibility is more fragmented than ever. Clicks are harder to win. Rankings alone are no longer a reliable KPI. A brand can be present in the search journey, influence the answer, and still lose the website visit.
In another sense, nothing has changed at all.
Helpful content, clear site structure, strong brand signals, proven expertise and topical relevance are still key. That was true before AI-powered search experiences became mainstream, and it’s still true now.
After all, AI systems still need to retrieve, interpret and cite information from somewhere. If your site makes it easy to understand what you do, what you know and why you’re credible, you give both search engines and AI tools far more to work with.
There is some evidence that strong SEO visibility directly helps AI visibility - particularly in Google’s own AI results. Ahrefs’ March 2026 study found that 38% of pages cited in AI Overviews also ranked in Google’s top 10 for the same query.
In that same study, ~26% of cited pages ranked between 11 and 100, while ~36% were outside the top 100 altogether. In other words, strong SEO still matters, but AI visibility is not a direct reflection of search engine rankings.
That is why the sentiment of “good SEO is good GEO” is only partly true.
Yes, good SEO should absolutely improve your chances of showing up in AI-driven search experiences. But rankings alone no longer tell the full story, and not all SEO is good enough to translate into meaningful visibility where decisions are now being shaped.
Can you optimise for AI specifically?
This is where the conversation around GEO gets overhyped.
You’ll hear suggestions that things like clearer content structure, FAQs, schema markup and “semantic chunking” can all improve your chances of being surfaced by AI tools. And while there may be some truth in this, there is no silver bullet. Rubbish content is still rubbish content, no matter how semantically chunked it is.
In practice, most of these GEO tactics come back to the same fundamentals: make content easier to understand, easier to navigate, and easier to trust. That may help AI visibility, but it is also just good SEO - and, more importantly, good for users.
Ultimately, if a tactic improves content clarity, usefulness and usability, it is worth considering. But just like SEO, if it makes the experience worse for real people in the hope of pleasing an AI system, it is almost certainly the wrong move.
So before adding FAQs to every page on the off-chance it might help your content get surfaced more often in AI results, ask yourself; is this actually helpful?
The visibility gap
This is the part most marketing teams are still working out.
For years, SEO reporting has been able to lean heavily on rankings, clicks and conversions. Those metrics still matter. But on their own, they are no longer enough.
Brands now need a broader view of search visibility. That means understanding not just whether you rank in Google, but whether you are also being surfaced across the wider search landscape, and being able to answer questions like:
Are we appearing in AI Overviews, and for what topics?
Are competitors showing up where we don’t?
If clicks are down, are we still influencing the decision?
That broader visibility layer is the missing piece. Because if more of the search journey is now happening before the click, then success can’t be judged by website sessions alone. Brands need to understand where they are present, where they are absent, and how that presence connects back to awareness, consideration and commercial performance.
That is not an easy ask, but it is now a critical part of modern search strategy.
So do you need a GEO strategy?
In our opinion, no. At least not as a standalone. What you need is a good SEO strategy built on helpful content, strong technical foundations, credible brand signals, and a real understanding of what your audience needs.
The difference now is that SEO has to reflect how search actually works. That means looking beyond Google rankings and understanding where your brand is visible across a wider search landscape.
And that is exactly why a human-led approach matters more than ever.
As platforms become more AI-driven, the brands that stand out will be the ones that best understand their customers - what they need, what questions they’re asking, and what matters at each stage of the journey.
Because the real opportunity is not just winning the click. It is influencing what happens before it. Shaping the conversation early, building trust sooner, and making sure your brand is visible where decisions are being formed.
