Generative engine optimisation (GEO) is about how AI assistants talk about you. When someone asks ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity or Google's AI Mode for "a good Shopify developer in Dubai", the tool writes a paragraph. GEO is the work of making sure your business is in that paragraph, described correctly, with a link back to you.
The name comes from a 2023 research paper, GEO: Generative Engine Optimization, first posted in November 2023. The idea has since spread well beyond academia.
Why it matters for your business
AEO is about one answer to one question. GEO is broader: it is about your reputation as a whole inside a machine that summarises the web. If an assistant has old prices, a closed branch or a wrong service list for you, buyers may never visit your site to find out otherwise.
The honest part: nobody outside those companies controls what they say. You cannot buy a citation or submit a file that guarantees one. Google states there are no special requirements or files needed to appear in AI Overviews or AI Mode. What you can control is the quality and consistency of what these systems read about you.
An example
A software firm in Bangalore asks three assistants "Who builds WhatsApp chatbots for clinics in India?" One names them correctly. One describes a service they stopped offering two years ago, copied from an old directory listing. One does not mention them at all. The GEO work here is not on the firm's homepage. It is fixing that directory listing, making the services page say clearly what they do now, and earning a mention in an article the assistants already trust.
What to do about it
- Ask the main assistants your buyers' questions and write down what they say. Repeat monthly; answers change.
- Make your core facts (name, location, services, hours) identical on your site, Google Business Profile and directory listings.
- Check your robots.txt. OpenAI, for example, says sites that block OAI-SearchBot will not be shown in ChatGPT search answers.
- Publish pages that state facts plainly and cite sources, so they are safe to quote.
- Earn genuine mentions on sites in your field. Assistants lean on what others say about you, not only what you say.
If you want to understand how these tools produce text in the first place, read what an LLM is. For help with the work above, see our AEO and GEO service.
Frequently asked questions
Is GEO replacing SEO?
No. AI assistants with web search still find pages through crawling and ranking, so a site that is weak in ordinary search is usually weak here too. Think of GEO as SEO plus closer attention to facts, consistency and third-party mentions.
Can anyone guarantee my business will be cited by ChatGPT?
No one can, and you should be wary of anyone who promises it. Answers vary by question, by day and by user. Good GEO improves your odds; it cannot fix the outcome.
How do I measure GEO?
Keep a log of the same questions asked to the same assistants each month and note whether you appear and how you are described. Add referral traffic from AI tools in your analytics where it is visible, and ask new enquiries how they heard about you.
Last reviewed 22 Oct 2026 by the Astrafolio team.