In our last blog, we explored AEO’s role within a broader AI discoverability strategy. AEO focuses on optimizing your content so it can be cited directly in AI-generated answers.
AEO helps your brand appear when someone is looking for information, such as:
- How do I install a washing machine?
- How can teams track project goals and deadlines?
- What’s the driest time of year to visit Hawaii?
But not every user is simply looking for information. Many are asking AI systems to recommend a product, compare organizations, or help them make a decision. This is where your business also needs to focus on GEO, or generative engine optimization.
What is the goal of GEO?
The goal of GEO (generative engine optimization) is to improve the likelihood that your organization is included when AI systems generate recommendations and comparisons. In other words, GEO is about helping AI systems understand when and why they should recommend your organization.
People often ask AI systems questions like:
- Which university in New England has the strongest veterinary program?
- Which bank is best for first-time homebuyers?
- What’s the best project management software for remote teams?
To answer these questions, an AI system evaluates the options and evidence available to it. It then determines which organizations are most relevant to the user’s particular needs.
Your GEO strategy helps establish your organization as one of those relevant options.
What makes a GEO strategy effective?
AI systems need to understand what your organization offers, who it serves, which use cases it is best suited for, and what distinguishes it from other available options.
Start by identifying:
- The categories in which your organization competes
- The organizations you are most frequently compared against
- The audiences and use cases you serve best
- The situations in which your organization stands out
Once those elements are clear, reinforce them with credible evidence. This might include customer outcomes, statistics, case studies, third-party recognition, product details, program information, or concrete examples of your expertise.
Improving your GEO performance may involve:
- Strengthening product, service, or program pages
- Creating useful comparison content
- Clearly explaining your differentiators
- Publishing evidence that supports your claims
- Correcting outdated or inconsistent information
Your content should also be clear, specific, well-structured, and easy for AI systems to interpret. Question-and-answer formats, descriptive headings, comparison tables, concise summaries, and structured data can all make important information easier to find and understand.
How does ai12z help teams measure GEO?
ai12z helps teams understand whether – and when – AI systems are recommending their organization.
GEO reporting focuses on several key areas:
- Recommendation visibility: Tests whether and how often your organization is recommended in response to relevant questions across leading AI platforms.
- Competitive positioning: Shows which competitors are appearing instead and how your organization is positioned alongside them.
- Category and use-case performance:Tests the categories, audiences, and use cases that matter to your business to identify the situations in which AI systems are (or are not) selecting your organization.
- Recommendation context: Examines how AI systems describe your organization, including the strengths, differentiators, and limitations presented in their responses.
- Supporting evidence: Identifies the content and third-party sources cited in the responses, helping you understand which claims are supported and where stronger evidence may be needed.
The ai12z Action Plan then turns these findings into a prioritized set of recommendations for improving how your organization is understood, evaluated, and recommended by AI systems.
GEO is one part of the broader ai12z AI Discoverability Suite, which also measures your content’s citation performance, AI readiness, answer quality, and visibility across AI-driven experiences.
You can learn more about GEO’s role within a broader AI discoverability strategy in our recent AI Discoverability eBook.
Or generate a free AI discoverability snapshot to see how your organization currently appears across AI-driven experiences.