A methodical approach to earning visibility in AI-generated answers
Search is no longer just a list of links. For more of the people our clients want to reach, the first answer about a category, a product, or a company comes from AI chatbots such as ChatGPT, Claude, and Gemini. That means GEO (Generative Engine Optimization) increasingly deserves the attention marketers give to SEO.
The shift is reshaping how many businesses approach top-of-funnel and mid-funnel marketing.
It’s no secret that consumers now ask AI tools for recommendations. However, the trend doesn’t stop there. In B2B, evidence is building that buyers are adopting AI to help discover or vet vendors. A recent Gartner survey of B2B buyers found that 45% of them used AI tools during a recent purchasing decision. In addition to client prospects, journalists are using AI to support their reporting, including tracking down sources. According to Muck Rack’s 2026 State of Journalism report, AI adoption among journalists has reached 82%, up from 77% the year prior.
Increasingly, visibility is earned just as much as it is bought. There is a quiet logic to how AI tools decide what to cite. They lean toward sources that are known as trustworthy and where content can be extracted cleanly: third-party publications, well-structured content, and named experts. For example, a large share of links cited by AI tools come from earned media. That makes strong public relations, among other marketing levers, central to this new era of search.
Tactics to build GEO visibility
GEO is a young discipline and a moving target. Despite its importance and fast integration and adoption, the AI tools shaping it are evolving rapidly, and the metrics that drive citation today may look different in six months. That makes continuous monitoring as much a part of the work as any single tactic. It’s a trend we are closely watching. Still, a handful of activities are helping drive outcomes in the early stages of GEO:
- Earning coverage in publications AI reads. Credible publications matter. Importantly, this is not just Reuters, the Wall Street Journal, and the like. It’s also leading trade publications and industry sources. For PR, the new game is not just about what your target audience has historically read, but also what news sites are sourced by Language Learning Models (LLMs, which are the AI systems that process human language to present summaries in response to search queries). You need a dual strategy to achieve both when it’s relevant to your business. It’s no longer about just unique monthly views or readership demographics.
- Publishing original, owned content with depth, simplicity and clarity. On your website, clear headers, defined positioning, plain category descriptions, and concise paragraphs help AI summarize your content accurately. Clever brand language and undefined jargon will confuse an AI engine. Beyond websites, depth and format matter just as much. YouTube has quietly become one of the most-cited sources by AI. LLMs don’t watch videos so much as read them, pulling from transcripts, descriptions, and chapter timestamps to understand what a video is about. Clean custom transcripts and structured metadata sharpens accuracy, ensuring the sourced content and intended message align.
- Treating LinkedIn as a citation source, not just a distribution channel. LinkedIn has climbed rapidly in AI citation rankings; one analysis showed it recently jumping from rank 11 to rank 5 on ChatGPT in just three months. Executive POV pieces, company posts with substantive content, and native LinkedIn articles are increasingly pulled by AI engines. The implication is that LinkedIn is no longer just where audiences scroll; it’s part of the source layer for AI.
- Maintaining accurate Wikipedia pages and content. Wikipedia is consistently among the top sources cited by LLMs, accounting for as much as 8% of ChatGPT citations. Many companies have thin, outdated, or inaccurate entries, or no presence at all. While it’s another channel to manage, Wikipedia is delivering notable return in the AI search world and it’s a tactic most brands still overlook.
None of this replaces what good marketing has always required: real expertise, strong positioning, and the patience to build credibility over time. It just means the audience for that credibility now includes an additional algorithm. Helping clients earn their place in the answers their buyers are already getting from AI must be a key focus for marketers moving ahead.
