Everyone's Running Off to Ask AI Now — Is SEO Still Worth Doing? Let's Talk About GEO, the New Business

A few days ago, a friend sent me a screenshot.

He'd asked ChatGPT: "Who are the reliable suppliers in my industry?"

ChatGPT gave him five companies.

Number one was him. Of the next four, he knew three — only one he'd never heard of.

He was thrilled. He clicked in and saw his company's description laid out so clearly, it read better than his own website.

But that fifth one — he'd never heard of it. The boss of that company, he'd never once run into in the industry.

He asked me: "Run-zong (my nickname), how did this happen? Why would someone I've never heard of get written into ChatGPT?"

I said: It wasn't written in. It was "read" in by the AI.

Today I want to talk to you about the new thing behind all this — it's called GEO.

What is GEO?

GEO stands for Generative Engine Optimization.

It sounds convoluted. Put plainly, it's making it easier for AI to mention you when it answers a user's question.

For the past twenty years, we've all been doing one thing: getting users to find you on Google or Baidu, then click through. That's called SEO.

But starting last year, things changed.

Think about it yourself — nowadays, when you want to buy something, look up a piece of information, or find a supplier, do you still open a search engine and flip through ten pages?

Probably not anymore.

You just go ask the AI directly: "Given my situation, recommend a few for me."

The AI doesn't hand you a string of blue links anymore. It just gives you the answer. And only three to five company names show up in that answer.

The ones that make it into the answer hit the jackpot. The ones that don't might as well never have existed.

That's the problem GEO solves.

Why can't you do this yourself?

Hearing this, you might think: then I'll just do it myself. I've done SEO before — I'll have the team write a few articles, set up some structured data, and that'll be that, right?

Let me tell you a true story.

There was a payments company (no names), and they tinkered with it themselves for the better part of half a year. They wrote tons of industry explainers, optimized their website, did their schema markup, and even spent money placing pieces in a few industry publications.

And the result? Six months in, they went and asked ChatGPT "Who are the top players in our industry?" — their company's name didn't show up at all.

Why?

Because everything they wrote was written for "humans" to read, not for AI.

AI reads your content with a completely different logic than a human. A human looks at whether your page looks nice, whether you're a big brand, whether there's a chat widget. AI doesn't care about any of that. What AI cares about is: whether your content's structure is clear, whether the citations are reliable, whether the information density is high enough, and whether you're mentioned by other authoritative sources.

Humans judge the face. AI judges the bones.

It's like going on a date — what you show the person across from you is the suit you're wearing and the watch you've got on. What you show the AI is your resume, your degree, your credit report, and whether you've ever been mentioned in the news.

Two languages. Two logics.

That payments company later changed tack and found a team that specializes in this. A few months in, the probability of being mentioned in the large models rose from 4% to 53%. Leads from the AI channel were up 360%. Those leads ultimately rolled up into a six-figure sales pipeline.

Wow.

And that's why, this year, a batch of agencies specializing in GEO has suddenly sprung up. The demand is real.

So, how do you pick one of these agencies?

This is the key.

After looking around at the field myself, here are a few things that feel important enough to tell you.

First, anyone who beats their chest and promises "guaranteed ChatGPT citation" — pass on them immediately.

Why?

Because even OpenAI itself can't fully control how the large model answers. And you can guarantee it?

The genuinely reliable ones will lay it out clearly: what I can do, what I can't, roughly how long until you see movement, and how we measure it.

Second, look at whether they actually have case studies — and how those cases were measured.

Not by looking at their slide deck, not by looking at their logo wall. Look at a specific client: in the AI, their appearance rate went from what to what, over what period, measured by what method.

An agency that can clearly explain its measurement method is ten times more reliable than one that only knows how to tell stories.

Third, ask them how they do it.

If they say "we have a secret technique" or "we can hack into the large model" — run.

GEO, in essence, is really three things rolled into one:

First, content — content the AI can read.

Second, structured data — your information can be scraped by machines and trusted by machines.

Third, authority signals — getting other reliable sources to mention you. When the AI picks its answer, it looks at how many authoritative sites cite the thing.

Put bluntly, there's no hack to GEO. GEO is doing those three things, day in and day out, systematically, and doing them solidly.

Anyone who packages GEO as a hack is, in all likelihood, selling snake oil.

Where's the ceiling on this business?

At this point you might ask: Run-zong, how big can this business get?

My take is — bigger than SEO was back in the day.

Why?

Because the search engines only captured one "search behavior" from the user. But AI has already seeped into every move you make at work. When you're writing an email, your assistant is pulling research for you; when you're making a decision, it's laying out comparisons; when you're reading a contract, it's scanning for risk.

Behind every answer an AI gives, there's a "recommendation" happening.

The company that gets recommended wins a customer. The company that doesn't, loses a customer.

And AI, unlike a search engine, doesn't give you 10 results to choose from. AI only gives you its own handpicked few.

So I'll say it — in the next three years, brand wars won't be won in the search box. They'll be won inside the AI's answer.

Whoever figures this out first grabs the upside first.

Finally, back to that friend

The friend who sent the screenshot later asked me: "So what should I do?"

I said: just do one thing first.

Open up ChatGPT, Claude, and Perplexity, and ask each of them three questions:

"Who are the top players in this industry?" "What's the difference between each of these players?" "If I wanted to pick one, who should I pick, and why?"

Watch how the AI answers.

If the AI keeps mentioning your competitors, but never mentions you.

Then watch out ——

You're slowly disappearing, in a whole new world.

And that world is arriving faster than you think.