Beyond SEO: GEO is the next battleground for audience
Google’s antitrust ruling signals that AI assistants will shape discovery the way search once did. Publishers need to adapt fast.
I spent most of last week in New Orleans, trying to absorb everything I could about AI and the media at the Online News Association conference. And with so many journalists and product leaders in attendance, representing some of the most influential publications on the planet—the AP, USAToday, The New York Times, and many more—there was a lot to absorb.
In my own session at the conference, I spoke to my friend Ricky Sutton about the emerging field of generative engine optimization, or GEO. While it’s similar to SEO, there are important differences, most notably that the rewards for winning are a lot less tangible. That’s the subject of today’s column, but another unquestionable trend I saw at ONA was that AI tools for journalists have multiplied. I attended a whole bunch of practical sessions on using browser agents (e.g. Comet), document parsers like Google NotebookLM and Pinpoint, and several vibecoding platforms for data visualizations.
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The real winner in Google’s antitrust case is AI discovery
Trying to predict the future can be entertaining, but Judge Amit Mehta clearly wasn't in the mood for fun in his long-awaited ruling on remedies in the Google antitrust case. While the lawsuit focused on how Google secured its dominance in search over the last two decades, Mehta also looked ahead—specifically at the rise of AI chatbots like Gemini becoming go-to sources of information for the masses.
That forward-looking element is important, especially for those in media—many of whom had hoped for tougher consequences. Although Mehta rejected sweeping measures like forcing Google to divest Chrome or Android, his opinion did underscore the emerging role of AI assistants as fundamental infrastructure in the media distribution pipeline. These tools may not be search engines in the traditional sense, but Mehta argues they’re close enough: “…the use cases for GSEs [General Search Engines] and GenAI chatbots ‘are not identical but they do overlap in a number of places’ like ‘a Venn diagram’.”
That acknowledgment is a big step toward shaping an AI-driven ecosystem that could serve all stakeholders. While lawsuits and licensing deals between publishers and AI platforms are proliferating, Mehta’s decision signals that the courts are likely to treat AI assistants as essential channels of distribution, on par with browsers and default search settings.
What that ultimately looks like is still up in the air, but one thing is certain: publishers need to prepare for that future now. AI isn't some optional layer or feature. However flawed they may currently be, AI portals are rapidly becoming the next competitive arena for trusted information providers, just as SEO once was. While the rules differ—AI answer engines follow GEO (generative engine optimization)—the core objective remains: ensure your information is the cited source.
The citation economy
As AI platforms become more ubiquitous, they’re coinciding with a notable drop in search traffic. That trend was entirely predictable, but recent data from Pew Research and Similarweb has put hard numbers behind this rapidly accelerating reality. Meanwhile, TollBit’s quarterly State of the Bots report reveals that AI scraping activity is rising fast and confirms the dismal click-through rates from AI-generated summaries.
Understandably, this has rattled the media industry, which has long relied on search traffic to power its ad-based revenue models. But amid this focus on financials, one critical intangible often gets overlooked: the value of visibility. Being ranked high in search results has always boosted brand recognition and authority—for both publications and journalists.
