Insights on AI search, organic visibility, and the future of discovery
SEO, AEO, and GEO get used interchangeably in marketing conversations, but they target three different systems: a ranked list of links, a single extracted answer, and an AI-generated response. Here's what separates them, where they overlap, and how to decide what to prioritize.
The landscape of search has fundamentally transformed. Today, over 900 million people use ChatGPT weekly, and Google's AI Overviews appear on roughly 43% of searches, with AI-referred traffic to retail sites up 138% year-over-year as of May 2026. Unlike traditional search engines that display lists of links, AI search engines use large language models to synthesize information from multiple sources and deliver direct answers—they don't just fetch, they understand, interpret, and generate. This shift has created a new discipline called Generative Engine Optimization (GEO), which optimizes content not for clicks but for citations in AI-generated responses. Early data shows GEO delivers 4.4x higher conversions than traditional SEO. The question isn't whether AI search will impact your business—it's whether you're ready to adapt before your competitors do.