A new phrase has entered the marketing conversation: AI search optimisation — or AI search optimization, if you are reading American sources. You might also have heard it called GEO (Generative Engine Optimisation) or AEO (Answer Engine Optimisation). Whatever you call it, the idea is the same: making sure your business is visible not just in Google's list of blue links, but in the AI-generated answers that are increasingly where people go first.
If that sounds abstract, think of it this way. Someone asks ChatGPT "what is the best creative studio for animation in the UK?" ChatGPT does not show them a list of websites — it tells them which studio it recommends, in its own words, drawing on everything it knows about the subject. If your business is not part of that answer, it effectively does not exist for that person at that moment.
This guide explains what AI search optimisation is, how it differs from traditional SEO, which platforms matter, and the practical techniques that actually work.
weekly users on ChatGPT as of April 2026. Google AI Overviews now appear on billions of searches every month. AI-generated answers have moved from novelty to mainstream.
What this guide covers: what AI search optimisation is and where the term came from · how AI assistants actually build an answer · how GEO differs from traditional SEO · which platforms matter and why · the six techniques that make the most difference · and where to start if you are doing this from scratch.
Most of the published research on this uses the American spelling — optimization — so it is worth searching both if you are reading around the subject. Understanding how AI search works is the starting point for understanding how to optimise for it. When a user asks ChatGPT a question, the model does not simply retrieve the top Google result and summarise it. Instead, it breaks the question down into multiple sub-queries, searches across a range of sources — including live web results via Bing — and synthesises the information into a coherent answer. It then selects which sources to cite based on clarity, relevance, and trustworthiness.
Critically, as Backlinko notes, there is no "position one" in ChatGPT. AI visibility is not a ranking — it is a frequency. The goal is for your business to appear consistently across many different relevant prompts, not to dominate a single search result. This changes the strategy significantly.
AI search optimisation and traditional SEO share a foundation — both reward high-quality, authoritative content. But they differ in some important ways that are worth understanding clearly.
Both reward content that is clear, specific, and genuinely useful. Both penalise thin, keyword-stuffed, or poorly structured content. Both benefit from a technically sound website that is easy to crawl and index. If you have been doing good SEO for a while, you already have a head start on GEO.
Traditional SEO measures ranking positions, click-through rates, and organic traffic. AI search optimisation measures citation rate — how often your business is mentioned in AI responses. SEO focuses on keyword alignment and backlinks. GEO focuses more heavily on direct question-answering, third-party authority signals (not just links, but mentions, reviews, and directory listings), named human authorship, and content that can be extracted cleanly into a synthesised answer.
Another significant difference: Semrush research found that ChatGPT regularly cited pages ranking well below the top twenty in Google. A strong SEO position helps, but it is not essential for AI visibility. The quality and structure of the content matters more than its position in traditional results.
of all searches are now zero-click — the user gets their answer from AI without visiting a website. For businesses without AI visibility, this represents an enormous blind spot.
The AI search landscape is still evolving, but the main platforms worth understanding in 2026 are these. ChatGPT uses Bing for live web search when it needs current information beyond its training data — which means Bing optimisation and general content quality both matter. Google AI Overviews draw from Google's index and tend to favour well-ranked, structured content. Perplexity is particularly active in citing primary sources and rewards content with strong factual specificity. Microsoft Copilot also draws from Bing. Google Gemini draws from the broader Google ecosystem.
The good news is that the techniques that improve your visibility on one platform tend to improve it across all of them, because they share the same underlying signals: content quality, structure, authority, and crawlability.
AI models extract passages that cleanly answer a specific question. Your content should start with the answer, not build up to it. Use question-format headings (like the ones in this article), write in short self-contained paragraphs, and be specific — AI systems favour concrete information over vague generalities.
FAQPage and Article schema are the most important structured data types for GEO. They signal to AI systems exactly what your content is about and what questions it answers. If your website does not already have these, adding them is one of the highest-impact GEO improvements you can make. All Spiritus Design articles — including this one — use both.
AI platforms evaluate your authority not just from your website but from your broader presence across the web. Complete and consistent profiles on Google Business, Trustpilot, and relevant industry directories all contribute. Mentions in press articles, podcasts, or third-party reviews carry significant weight — far more than a backlink from an obscure website.
Content associated with identifiable, credible human experts is more likely to be cited by AI systems. This is the same principle as E-E-A-T in traditional SEO, and it applies just as strongly in GEO. Named authorship, a professional bio, and consistent presence across platforms all strengthen this signal — which is exactly why all Spiritus Design articles carry a named author.
YouTube is consistently one of the most-cited domains across AI platforms. A well-produced explainer video or tutorial on your YouTube channel — with a descriptive title and a transcript — builds authority signals that purely textual content cannot replicate. This is one of the strongest arguments for investing in professional video production as part of a broader AI visibility strategy.
Where to start: If you are new to AI search optimisation, begin with content. Identify the five questions your customers ask most often and write a clear, specific, well-structured answer to each one. Publish them with FAQPage schema and a named author. That single step — done well — will outperform most technical GEO work built on a weak content foundation.
If you would rather have this as a sequenced plan than a list of techniques, our 90-day AI search strategy sets out what to do in which order.
AI search optimisation is not a replacement for traditional SEO — it is an evolution of it. The businesses that will thrive in the next few years are those that treat both as a single integrated strategy, built on the same foundation: genuinely useful content, produced by credible experts, structured so that both humans and AI can find and use it easily.
AI search optimisation — formally known as Generative Engine Optimisation (GEO) — is the practice of making your business visible in AI-generated answers from platforms like ChatGPT, Perplexity, Google AI Overviews, and Microsoft Copilot. It involves creating clear, authoritative content, implementing structured data, and building authority signals that AI models use to decide which businesses to recommend.
Traditional SEO focuses on ranking in Google search results. AI search optimisation focuses on being cited within AI-generated answers. SEO measures rankings and click-through rates. GEO measures citation rate — how often your business is mentioned in AI responses. Both rely on quality content, but GEO emphasises direct question-answering, named authorship, and third-party authority signals more heavily.
The main platforms worth optimising for are ChatGPT (which uses Bing for live web search), Google AI Overviews, Perplexity, Microsoft Copilot, and Google Gemini. Most GEO techniques improve your visibility across all of these simultaneously, since they share similar signals around content quality, structure, and authority.
No — the two are complementary. Strong SEO makes GEO easier because many AI platforms draw from well-ranked content. GEO techniques also improve traditional SEO performance. The most effective approach in 2026 is to treat both as a single integrated strategy.
The most impactful techniques are: creating content that directly answers specific questions, implementing FAQPage and Article schema, ensuring your website is crawlable by AI bots, building consistent mentions across review platforms and directories, using named expert authors, and publishing video content on YouTube — one of the most-cited domains across AI platforms.
The foundation of AI search optimisation is great content — video, copy, and articles structured to be found by both people and AI. We can help you build it. Get in touch to start a conversation.
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