The GEO Disconnect: Why the AI Search Hype Misses the Mark

If you spend enough time in AI search discussions, you’ll likely end up with the impression that Generative Engine Optimization (GEO), or Agentive Engine Optimization (AEO), is either already a mature marketing discipline... or not a real category at all. Both can't be true, so why the gap?

Every week seems to bring a new LinkedIn post, webinar, framework, or debate about how brands should track AI visibility. Depending on who you follow, you might think the only thing left to figure out is who's doing GEO best.

But reality looks very different outside the industry echo chamber.

One of the most surprising things I've observed over the past year is how many marketers are still trying to figure out whether they need to care about GEO at all. While experts debate AI search methodology, attribution models, and citation tracking, a huge portion of the market is still stuck on much more fundamental questions:

• How is AI actually changing buyer behavior?

• How many people are using AI for discovery?

• Is this impacting traffic yet?

• Do we need to prioritize this now, or can we revisit it next year?

These aren't the questions of a mature market. They're the questions of a market still trying to understand the shift itself.

Most Companies Are Still in Discovery Mode

Part of the disconnect comes from conflating awareness with actual operational adoption.

A recent study from GNW Consulting and Demand Metric found that 92% of surveyed B2B organizations are either experimenting with or operationalizing GEO initiatives, yet fewer than 15% reported having a dedicated GEO owner. (Does it sit with your SEO agency? Internal team? Nobody is quite sure yet.)

This tells us that while organizations believe AI-driven discovery matters, most are still figuring out who owns it, how to measure it, and where it fits within their stack. Testing a few prompts in ChatGPT or attending a webinar doesn't mean a company has a mature GEO strategy.

When I talk to marketers, their questions are practical: Are consumers actually changing behavior? Are AI referrals going up? Is discovery genuinely moving away from traditional search, or is this just another hype cycle that will take years to play out?

Every major platform shift, search, social, mobile, followed this exact path. There is always a period where the people closest to the technology are having a completely different conversation than the rest of the market. AI search is right in the middle of that gap.

The Skepticism Is Rational (Even if the Shift Is Real)

According to 6sense research, over 90% of B2B buyers now use artificial intelligence and large language models during their purchasing journeys.

Rather than starting from scratch, buyers rely on AI to synthesize research, compare competing vendor proposals, and evaluate complex technical details. Instead of opening 10 browser tabs, they narrow options, ask follow-ups, and get recommendations inside a single AI interaction. The transaction might happen elsewhere, but discovery and research look fundamentally different than they did even a year ago.

That’s what makes the awareness gap so interesting. The AI industry often acts like every company is falling behind, while in reality, marketers are simply trying to determine how much of this is real, how fast it hits, and what steps are worth taking today.

The Industry Is Skipping Ahead

The issue is that GEO discussions almost always start with micro-tactics: prompts, rankings, citations, and answer engines. These discussions are fine, but they skip the most important step: assuming marketers already understand why AI-driven discovery matters.

In many ways, the GEO industry is having a second-order conversation while the broader market is still working through the first-order problem.

And candidly, the market has already moved past those early-stage tactics anyway. Marketers shouldn't be wasting time building bespoke systems or manually writing prompts (prompt engineering stopped being a differentiator two years ago). What they actually need are specialized AI Agent applications, like Azpertilo, that are purposefully built to drive AI citations and handle discovery at scale.

Conclusion

I don't see this awareness gap as a negative signal for GEO, if anything, it's proof that we're still early. The biggest challenge facing GEO right now isn't competition; it's helping marketers understand what is fundamentally changing about buyer behavior.

Marketing has been waiting for a moment like this for 40 years. We finally have the opportunity to communicate to the market authentically, leveraging the true networks of trust and relationship-building built over decades. If my network doesn't connect directly with your brand offline, they will find you when performing an AI search online.

This isn't about fancy tricks, prompt hacks, or chasing volatile ranking algorithms, it's simply about aligning with how modern buyers actually buy.