Interesting advertorial by WPP this week

They write, “As personal AIs and chatbots transform search behavior, WPP’s chief AI officer, Dr Daniel Hulme, explains why marketers must now optimize for what AI ‘knows’ – not just what people type.”

WPP go on to say, “SEO will remain a crucial tool, but its dominance is ending. A move towards Generative Engine Optimization (GEO) is coming.”

It’s a far cry from only 12 months ago when an SEO expert once trolled me saying SEO would never go away

Back to WPP, they add, “Customers are asking ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude and Perplexity for purchase recommendations. Soon, personal AIs or agents will be empowered to make independent purchasing decisions on consumers’ behalf. With Gartner predicting that 25% of searches will bypass traditional engines by next year, AI discovery is fast becoming survival-critical for brands.”

Why Your SEO Strategy Is Only Half the Story

GEO optimizes content for visibility in AI-generated responses

Unlike SEO’s keyword matching, Large Language Models (LLMs) infer meaning from patterns across vast datasets

The fundamental shift? LLMs deliver answers with links — not links to answers

Ask an AI, “best skincare brand,” and it will draw from statistical patterns across millions of sources

If your brand wasn’t featured in those sources, you effectively don’t exist

The upside? GEO-driven traffic tends to be highly qualified, users who’ve already researched through AI and still visit your site are demonstrating serious intent

But the challenge is: they have to find you first

Why Your GEO Strategy Is Only Half the Story

Even as AI shapes discovery, it’s still humans, relationships, and trust that close deals

I was reminded of this recently while booking a holiday

I used ChatGPT to create an outline and sent it to four travel companies

Three replied with prices

One asked for a call

They listened, challenged my plan, and suggested reversing the order of destinations, starting with Easter Island before the Atacama Desert, to align with the lunar cycle for the astronomy sessions

They were more expensive, but they won the business. Why? 

Because they listened, they understood, and they built trust 

That trusted relationship with that salesperson means, who do you think we will turn to for the next holiday?  That trust is also worth customer “total lifetime value”

That’s the lesson

Even in an AI-first world, your sales team must be out there building relationships before a need arises, before there’s even intent

Why Waiting Is the Riskiest Strategy

Unlike SEO, where you can see results relatively quickly, GEO works differently

LLMs take time to trawl and retrain on new data, what you publish today might not be surfaced for months

If you’re not creating and distributing relevant, high-quality content now, you’re already behind

And remember: GEO isn’t just another marketing channel

It’s a fundamental shift in how brands become discoverable in an AI-mediated world

The content you and your competitors produce today will shape how future models “understand” your brand tomorrow

Conclusion:
The question isn’t whether GEO will replace SEO, it’s whether your brand will even show up in the conversation

But remember: visibility gets you discovered, trust gets you chosen

AI may guide the search, but humans still make the connection