What Is GEO, and Why Your Business Needs It in 2026
Generative Engine Optimisation decides whether ChatGPT, Perplexity and Google AI Overviews recommend you or your competitor. Here's how it works and where to start.
More of your customers are skipping the search results page entirely. They ask ChatGPT, Perplexity or Gemini “who’s the best exterior cleaning company near me?” and take the answer at face value.
Generative Engine Optimisation (GEO) is the work of making sure those answers include you.
How AI engines decide who to recommend
AI assistants don’t rank ten blue links. They synthesise an answer from sources they trust. That means three things matter more than ever:
- Entity clarity: does the web consistently describe what you do, where, and for whom?
- Citations: are you mentioned by directories, press, reviews and industry sites the models read?
- Answer-ready content: do your pages directly answer the questions buyers ask?
Where to start
- Search your category in ChatGPT and Perplexity and note who gets named.
- Make your service pages answer one question clearly, near the top.
- Add structured data (Organization, LocalBusiness, FAQ) to key pages.
- Get listed and reviewed where your industry’s trusted sources live.
GEO isn’t a replacement for SEO. It’s built on top of it. But businesses that start now will own the answers their competitors are still trying to rank for.
Want to know what AI says about your business today? Book a free audit.