The rise of GEO
The payoff for appearing in AI answers isn’t clicks. It’s credibility, influence, and soon enough, perhaps even revenue.
I don’t know about you, but I’m hearing more about AI search—and the emerging science of what goes into it—a lot more lately. Figuring out how to be the informational blocks that AI engines use to create answers was once a cottage industry, but it’s rapidly becoming the thing that everyone wants to master. That’s a bit weird because it’s not just the rules that are unclear, but the rewards.
In any case, the game of generative engine optimization (GEO) has begun, and I have lots to say about it in today’s column. But I’ll also have even more detailed thoughts about it in a webinar I’m doing with Hotwire PR later today. Join me at 11 a.m Eastern Time where I’ll unpack the new opportunities AI is opening up for PR pros alongside Meredith Klein, Olivia Fajardo, and Matt Oakley. You can sign up here.
Now a quick word about my upcoming advanced AI course, and then we’ll dive into the current state of GEO (or is that AEO?).
PR Pros: It’s Time to Master AI
AI is rewriting the entire PR playbook. Media monitoring, campaign strategy, content creation, crisis management—everything is evolving fast. If you’re still experimenting with prompts in ChatGPT, you’re missing the bigger picture. This isn’t about finding small efficiencies here and there. It’s about transforming how you work.
That’s why The Media Copilot has teamed up with The Upgrade to offer an advanced AI course for PR and comms professionals. Led by experts Peter Bittner, Kris Krüg, and Pete Pachal, this six-week live program gives you hands-on training in how to make AI part of your daily PR workflow.
You’ll learn to automate research and reporting, craft smarter and faster campaigns, build an AI-powered media strategy, use tools like Lovable, Claude, and Perplexity for real-world PR tasks, and create a capstone project that proves you can lead with AI.
The course kicks off November 4. You can sign up via the link below 👇
AI is changing the rules. Make sure you know how to play the game.
From SEO to GEO: Winning visibility in the age of AI answers
When you ask a question in an AI search engine like ChatGPT or Google’s AI Mode and it delivers an answer, that information has to come from somewhere. Scanning the web for content that best fits the query, the system pieces together a response from multiple sources, filtered through its training data and its system prompt.
The battle to be counted as one of those sources is the new frontier of online discovery, supplanting traditional SEO. Known variously as GEO or AEO—generative or answer engine optimization—the field is still emerging. Its guidelines, tactics, and even the rewards for winning remain fuzzy. One thing’s for sure, though: it’s growing fast.
Growth markets are opportunities, so even if the benefits of showing up in AI answers are still unclear, both publishers and marketers want in. They’re eager to decode GEO—to understand what it takes to become “the answer,” or at least feed the machine that creates it. How this differs from SEO, how PR and social can boost visibility, and how to map out the intent behind AI queries—these are all promising paths, but none are fully charted yet.
Also being worked out? What success in GEO actually means.
Keep reading with a 7-day free trial
Subscribe to The Media Copilot to keep reading this post and get 7 days of free access to the full post archives.