AI chatbots and AI-generated summaries are changing the way we get information. As of October 2025, ChatGPT is the fifth most-visited website in the world. Social media like Instagram and X have integrated AI chatbot features. Google is including AI Overviews in the results of over 50% of searches. And, as a result, websites are losing traffic. In a time when more and more people are turning to AI chatbots and AI-generated summaries for answers to their questions, how can organizations drive traffic to their websites? One answer is GEO.

What is GEO?

GEO, or generative engine optimization, is the practice of building a website and its digital content to maximize its visibility and inclusion in generative AI answers specifically. Like traditional search engine optimization (SEO), which aims to ensure your website is ranked in search engine results, GEO aims to ensure your website is linked to or referenced in AI-generated responses. In simple terms, GEO is SEO for ChatGPT and other large language models (LLMs).

How is GEO different from SEO?

Rather than acting as a replacement, GEO builds on a strong SEO foundation to enhance authority, trust and visibility in new channels. Although the two practices complement each other, there are key differences between optimizing for search and optimizing for AI. 

• While traditional SEO emphasizes keywords related to queries, GEO focuses more on easily extractable statements and direct answers to questions, with structured data markup and rich metadata that provides machine-readable context. For example, an SEO approach would adjust a webpage’s content for keywords related to the search query “best ways to raise donations.” A GEO approach goes further by including a clear statement like “Providing donors with transparent impact reports and personalized updates increases repeat contributions,” along with structured data that labels the statement so AI tools can recognize and surface it directly.
• AI generates answers through ingestion and knowledge extraction, rather than crawling and indexing, as search engines do. 
• When generating answers, AI values credibility, relevance, accuracy, engagement and recency. AI prioritizes high-quality, trustworthy content with user-focused information that’s easy to follow and updated regularly—going beyond matching keywords to understand meaning and relevance.

Why is GEO critical to understand and harness in today’s communications landscape? 

With AI rapidly growing in the marketing, PR, and communications industry, PR professionals and digital strategists need to understand the vital role of GEO and why it’s critical to our work. AI isn’t going anywhere anytime soon. At a glance, here are several key statistics on generative AI’s growth: 

• 87% of businesses are already adopting generative AI solutions
• 83% of users find AI-powered tools more efficient than traditional search
• Users send 2.5 billion prompts through ChatGPT each day
• ChatGPT has reached 800 million weekly active users *as of October 2025 
• Google’s AI overview now appears in 13% of all Google searches
• Zero-click searches are on the rise, and on mobile phones, 75% of global Google searches end without a click with answers displayed in AI overviews

As GEO continues to influence and shape the future of public relations, PR agencies need to proactively educate themselves on it so they can better understand how to integrate it into their workflows smartly. GEO helps boost brands’ awareness and visibility, and inserts them into the conversation. GEO also allows mission-driven organizations to redefine brand growth and competitive strategies. 

Three steps to leverage GEO in your workflows

To harness the power of GEO, communications strategists can expand their existing SEO workflows and integrate new processes, incorporating a dignified content approach and metrics tracking. Built upon contemporary understanding of how generative AI engines function and display content, the steps below can be leveraged to improve organizational visibility and authority.

• Assess your current GEO performance using subscription-based websites like Otterly.Ai and Rankscale.Ai. These services provide a comprehensive picture of your organization’s inclusion in results from ChatGPT, Gemini, and Perplexity, and identify areas for improvement. Qualitative searches for information in GenAI platforms are also helpful to assess whether prompts are yielding your desired results. 
• Optimize new and existing content for AI platforms, ensuring that content leads to conversational searches, demonstrates EEAT (Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness), and appears where AI platforms pull information. Consider prioritizing website content with: 
  • Concise copy written in a natural and conversational tone
  • Q&A or FAQ sections 
  • Quotes or testimonials with credible references
  • Rich metadata, clear titles and descriptions
• Expand community engagement efforts to enhance brand authority and create multichannel chatter about your organization. AI platforms value high-quality backlinks and mentions across websites and social media channels, particularly Reddit, Quora, Wikipedia, and LinkedIn. 

In addition to the steps above, brands must continue to expand their knowledge on the functionality and rapidly evolving landscape of generative AI platforms. Setting benchmarks for GEO-specific key performance indicators (KPIs), including AI response inclusion rate, citation frequency, content extraction accuracy, and traffic from AI platforms, can help organizations navigate changes and adjust their GEO strategies as needed.  

It’s important to note that the ever-changing nature of GEO warrants a flexible approach, grounded in evidence-backed foundations. While some strategies may work for some LLMs, the same may not work for others due to functional differences and their evolution with new versions. Therefore, our guidance is structured as a high-level starting point from which organizations can expand upon to meet their specific objectives.  

Our team of digital experts is committed to helping your organization stay ahead in today’s volatile and ever-shifting landscape. We partner with a diverse ecosystem of companies, nonprofits and advocacy organizations to drive social impact for today’s most pressing challenges. 

Continue the conversation on our social media channels (LinkedIn, Instagram, Facebook) or send us a message. 

Aleah Jarin, Logan Nesson, and Travis Wolf are members of Fenton’s West Coast Digital team where they utilize their expertise in digital campaigns and issue-driven communications to implement action-oriented strategies with clients that advance human rights, global health, and social change.