What if AI decides your brand story before a customer even clicks? The GEO era is here—where machine-written summaries, not search, shape reputation. CMOs can’t afford to sit out.
Rajat Abbi, Vice President – Marketing, Schneider Electric, Greater India (Source: prhandout)
For nearly two decades, digital discovery has been shaped by one dominant behavior: search. Marketers fine-tuned keywords, chased keywords rankings, and measured success through greater clicks and higher impressions. But today, that paradigm is shifting radically. Increasingly, people aren’t searching. They are giving prompts and instead of browsing links, they’re receiving direct and synthesized answers.
This is the beginning of the Generative Engine Optimization (GEO) era where brand narratives are no longer shaped by the information on websites, but by machine-generated summaries. AI platforms like ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, and even Google’s evolving AI Overviews are adding a new dimension to how we do search online. Often the summary shared by the AI platforms is the beginning and end of a consumer’s journey. Hence the implications for brands and for CMOs are massive.
This shift from search to summarization is what we call the GEO shift, and it’s becoming central to how brands are seen. Google’s AI Overviews are now responsible for roughly 69% zero‑click searches. Monthly visits to the top 50 news sites dropped from 2.3 billion (mid‑2024) to under 1.7 billion by May 2025. That means users get the answer without clicking through. That means most first impressions of your brand won’t come from your website. Instead, they’ll come from a machine-generated summary about your brand/company. You need to be there to be in the game.
GEO is not just a tech issue. It's a reputation issue. It's about how your brand shows up when you're not in the room. In the GEO world, that narrative is being written by machines, drawing from everything that exists about you online, such as press releases, blogs, product listings, reviews, YouTube comments, Reddit threads, and more.
The scary part? A lot of it may be outdated, inconsistent, or inaccurate. According to a report by Bain & Co (Dec 2024), 80% of users rely on zero‑click responses for at least 40% of their queries, and about 68% use generative AI for research.
Yet very few brands have a strategy in place to influence how generative engines describe them. Google responded by launching AI Mode in March 2025, an experimental feature delivering full AI-generated responses to complex queries using Gemini 2.0. Already there is a strong momentum building up where more and more people are using this AI tool to search.
Unify your brand voice across platforms: Inconsistent messaging across your website, social media, marketing tools, press coverage, and product listings can confuse generative engines and dilute your brand identity. A unified, consistent tone and description ensures AI tools present your brand accurately while generating prompt result summaries.
Optimize content ecosystem with high-quality data: Ensure your digital touchpoints including official website, media releases, product pages and more are up to date and structured. Generative engines reward clarity. The more precise your information, the more likely you are to be represented correctly.
Run regular digital footprint audits: Search your brand through tools like ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity or more available trusted platforms. Ask the questions your customers might. What you uncover could surprise you—outdated facts, conflicting narratives, or missing context. These insights can guide focused content interventions.
Remove or update outdated pages: Old blogs, forum posts, or obsolete product documents can still influence how AI perceives your brand. Collaborate with content, legal, and SEO teams to clean up legacy content that no longer reflects who you are today.
Redefine what success looks like: In GEO, high rankings don’t always lead to traffic. Instead, the goal is inclusion in the summary—and how favorably you're portrayed. Influence now comes from being part of the AI's answer, not just being on page one.
In a world increasingly shaped by generative AI, the way brands are discovered, understood, and evaluated is undergoing a fundamental transformation. The traditional SEO playbook is no longer sufficient. As generative engines become the new gatekeepers of information, it is imperative for CMOs to take ownership of their brand’s presence within this emerging ecosystem.
The ability to influence how AI summarizes your brand consistently, accurately, and persuasively will define competitive advantages in the years ahead. This is not merely a shift in tactics; it is a strategic inflection point. In the era of summarization, those who shape the narrative at the source will shape the outcome.
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