Anyone in marketing will have noticed the surge in conversations around GEO. Generative Engine Optimisation is quickly becoming one of the most important shifts in how brands show up online. At its core, GEO is about how your company appears in AI‑generated answers when someone asks a question about your product, service, or industry category.
Put it this way, if SEO shaped the last decade of digital visibility, GEO is poised to shape the next. For context, SEO is already a ~$75B market and still growing, yet GEO has the potential to become even bigger. It is no coincidence that traditional Google search referral traffic dropped by about a third year‑on‑year between November 2024 and November 2025 according to Charbeat data cited the Reuters Institute.
How GEO Is Changing Buyer Behaviour
What’s driving this change is a fundamental shift in buyer behaviour. We are rapidly moving away from scrolling through pages of Google results and toward answer‑first tools powered by GenAI. People increasingly ask AI for the “best option,” signalling strong buying intent. They want a shortlist delivered instantly, not ten links to sift through. They trust the first summary more than they should, and they expect comparisons, recommendations, and clear next steps. As a result, more buyers are forming their preferences through GenAI tools long before they ever reach Google results or a vendor’s website.
This shift is even more pronounced in B2B. Forrester research shows that 89% of B2B buyers already use GenAI during the buying process, and 95% expect to do so in the next 12 months. An overwhelming majority, around 90%, click through on GenAI recommendations, and more than 90% report positive outcomes on purchases over $1 million that were influenced by GenAI. Intent‑driven decisions now make up roughly 21.6% of GenAI usage, compared with only about 14.5% in traditional search.
Where GEO Gets Its Signals
Understanding where GenAI pulls its information from is therefore becoming increasingly important for marketers. What many may not realise is that around 90% of what these systems rely on comes from earned media (in other words PR). This includes top‑ten lists, product comparison sites, listicles, community‑driven platforms like Reddit and Wikipedia, press releases, and thought leadership articles.
Less than 10% comes from social platforms such as LinkedIn or Facebook, and even YouTube only contributes when transcripts are included in descriptions. Owned content such as websites, FAQs, customer stories, or self‑published channels accounts for a tiny 0.4% of what GenAI uses today, though this may grow over time.
This creates a new visibility gap. Organisations must now understand what GenAI tools say about them, which competitors they recommend as alternatives, and which sources are shaping those answers.
Why PR Teams Should Lead GEO
We firmly believe that PR teams are uniquely positioned to lead GEO efforts. We already influence the sources GenAI values most, and we excel at crafting clear positioning supported by credible proof. PR professionals manage reputation, build third‑party validation, and understand how to target “Tier 1” sources, many of which differ from traditional media lists. We also have the tools and processes to measure, report, and iterate, making GEO a natural extension of our existing work.
What a GEO Audit Looks Like (and What It Measures)
Here at C8 we are already running lightweight GEO audits for clients. These audits focus on three practical questions: whether AI answers mention the organisation for the queries that matter, whether the positioning and proof points are accurate, and which third‑party sources appear to be influencing the results, along with where the gaps lie.
If you are interested in understanding more about GEO, we’d love to set up a short call to walk you through the new GEO landscape and our GEO audit. Do get in touch.