The CEO's Guide to AI Search

What Artificial Intelligence Means for Your Firm’s Digital Visibility

The Gold Rush is on

Welcome to the very early days of a new era in digital marketing. As AI utility and usage grows by leaps and bounds, a new marketing channel is emerging—generative engine optimization (GEO).

It’s easy to imagine a world where, in just a few years, blue links don’t exist and AI dominates how people consume information. Gartner forecasts a 50 percent drop in traditional search traffic by 2028, and that estimate seems conservative. Consider that TechCrunch reported in July 2025 that there were 2.5 billion AI queries per day, compared to an average of 14 billion Google searches a day—the large language models (LLMs) are gaining fast.

So where does that leave your firm?

If you have a well-established brand and a strong digital presence, both on your website and across the internet, you’re probably in okay shape—at least for the moment. Even if you don’t and you’re behind your competition, it’s still possible to catch up, because the AI landscape is not yet fully formed.

However, it’s predicted that this window will only be open for another 18 months—by early 2027, it’s expected that the first movers will have firmly established their advantage.

Those who fail to act risk becoming digitally invisible.

NOTE: All statistics in this eGuide are true as of September 2025; this is a fast-changing space so they may be out-of-date by the time you read this. We’ll do our best to keep this eGuide updated regularly.

Why your firm should dramatically rethink your approach to marketing

You're familiar with the line, "What got you here won't get you there."

Well, you can’t market your firm like it’s 2015 anymore.

Regardless of whether your firm has been heavily engaged in digital marketing, or has relied completely upon word-of-mouth referrals, this is an exciting new channel. Think of it as a source of digital referrals—meaning it scales way beyond however many lunches you can have with prospects.

The firms that set out on this journey will have an opportunity to realize aggressive growth. While your boutique consulting firm can’t imagine competing with Deloitte or McKinsey, those big firms are not that far ahead of you right now, simply because the GEO race has just started. 

We're not promising that you'll turn into a Fortune 100 company, but we are saying that you have the opportunity to show up beside them as a credible alternative in AI searches.
Plenty of people - most of them SEO professionals - will argue GEO is just the latest flavor of SEO.

But, as prominent SEO pro Mike King has said, “The argument that AI Mode and AI Overviews are ‘just SEO’ is short-sighted at best and dangerously misinformed at worst. What this position gets wrong isn’t just technical nuance; it’s the complete misunderstanding of how these generative surfaces fundamentally differ from the retrieval paradigm that SEO was built on.”

Consider that there is just an 8–12 percent overlap between Google search results and AI platform citations. Focusing on GEO will have a far greater impact on your SEO than focusing on SEO will have on GEO. 

In other words, the smart bet is on the future.
An image showing Chat GPT and Perplexity are greater than Google.

Why ChatGPT and Perplexity can’t lose to search engines

Large language models and answer engines are, very simply, a better experience than a search engine. If we’re friends and I ask you a question, you’re going to give me an answer. This is what LLMs do. If I ask the same question of a search engine, it’s going to give me 10 options to choose from, eight of which it’s being paid to tell me about. Some friend!

Search engines invented metrics like PageRank to assign credibility to a website; LLMs, on the other hand, detect credibility. LLMs interpret context, nuance and intent and build an answer based upon these factors, rather than keyword match. Further, LLMs synthesize their answers from multiple sources, as opposed to search engines trying to determine who the winner is. 

These truths fundamentally change how people discover content and how it needs to be optimized.

Clinging to your current SEO strategy is a path to failure.

There are some similarities but, as the chart below shows, GEO is fundamentally different in how you structure content, where you get that content published and what your goals are.

Chart comparing SEO to GEO aspects

Where to focus first: Your website

No offense but your website is likely built for yesterday.

LLMs parse, interpret, and extract meaning. They are looking for clarity, authority, and trustworthiness. If your website doesn’t provide these signals, you risk being invisible when a prospect asks ChatGPT, “Who should I trust to solve this problem?”

Your website must have a clear explanation of what you do. If your website says, for example, “Innovative solutions for today … and tomorrow” you’ll lose. If your site says, “We’re a dependable and trusted Technology Solutions Provider for the construction business,” you have a much better chance of being cited by LLMs.

Completeness is critical. AI does not scan entire pages, so you need to write in “self-contained chunks”—basically, each paragraph should work independently, and you should try to avoid overuse of pronouns or referencing other parts of the page. Strive for semantic density, packing complete, meaningful ideas into fewer words. 

Going deeper, you can't just say how wonderful you are, you need to offer up proof--case studies, awards, citations and thought leadership.

There is also a technical aspect to ensuring your website appeals to LLMs. It’s vitally important that your site loads quickly, is secure, and is accessible to everyone. Behind the scenes, your team should use modern coding practices that signal authority and trust, like showing who wrote content, when it was last updated and linking to credible sources. 

Marketing activities for AI visibility

As stated earlier, large language models pull from multiple sources in formulating their responses. They are searching for credibility (not the same as “domain authority” from the SEO era), which means that your marketing is not only about your website—it’s about the entirety of your online presence. In other words, it’s finally time to deemphasize website traffic. 

Chart by SEMRUSH showing Projected Annual Visitors by Source
Decorative graphic

Moving away from SEO activities towards GEO is a difficult change for anyone who has worked anywhere near marketing for the last 25 years. Many executives believe that “all you have to do is be on the first page of Google,” which is no longer true (if it ever was!). A Semrush study found that ChatGPT cites pages in traditional organic search positions 21+ almost 90 percent of the time. The lesson, again, is that SEO is not GEO.

A brief look at how LLMs are trained

LLMs scan patterns across thousands of websites, documents, articles and mentions to decide which brands are credible enough to recommend. The actual technical way this happens is far more complex, but this is the upshot.

Your firm needs to create evidence of expertise in places where models (and people) are paying attention. The distribution of your content therefore becomes critical, and you should focus on vertical trade press and social media. 

It’s important to have your brand mentioned across the internet

Public relations has been the most cost-effective way to build a brand for decades. This is because media outlets, even in an age in which anyone can offer their opinion online, are seen as arbiters of truth. The best media outlets have editors who are seeking the truth and what is important to their readers; you have to pass by some type of gatekeeper to be featured in the press. Readers know this and therefore seek out news that is important to their lives and, for our purposes, their jobs.

In short, PR has always been a primary focus for smart organizations. Now, with the rise of AI search, PR activity to generate positive coverage online is doubly important. 

A published article in vertical trade press, a podcast appearance or a whitepaper that gets cited all reinforce your brand's authority. The more those signals are repeated and cross-verified, the more likely your brand is to show up in an LLM's answer.
Large language models also pull from non-media, third-party sites, including Wikipedia, Reddit and social media. Frequently publishing on social media helps to evelate both your people and your firm's brand in the "eyes" of the LLMs.

LinkedIn in particular is a very useful channel for professional services firms because it has the power to connect and align you with entities outside your organization, such as professional associations, influencers, companies and products that are important to your ecosystem.

Smart firms will embrace GEO now

GEO is not a one-time project; like getting and staying in good physical condition, it must become a way of life. One press release won’t move the needle. But a steady cadence of insights, mentions, and contributions builds a digital footprint that AI can’t ignore. Visibility in the age of LLMs is earned by being not just present, but trusted and persistent. 

Your firm’s goal is to “own the answer” for a number of key prompts that should lead to you. Your future clients are turning to ChatGPT and Perplexity more and more to find the answer to the questions and challenges that they confront in their work lives. Identify the specific questions you answer or problems you solve, and this becomes the core of your GEO strategy.

APPENDIX: KEY STATISTICS

  • There is just an 8–12 percent overlap between Google search results and AI platform citations (Ahrefs)
  • A website visitor from an LLM is worth 4.4X as much as a visitor from a search engine (Semrush)
  • ChatGPT is the fifth most-visited website in the world (WebFX)
  • Organic search traffic is forecast to decrease by 50 percent by 2028 (Gartner)
  • 90 percent of citations in ChatGPT come from sources not on the first two pages of Google (Semrush)
  • ChatGPT receives 2.5 billion prompts per day (TechCrunch)
  • AI search is growing 165x faster than traditional search (WebFX)
  • AI search market is expected to capture 62 percent of total search volume by 2030 (All About AI)
  • More than 89 percent of AI citations are from earned media (PR placements) (MuckRack)

APPENDIX: THE CEO’S GEO CHECKLIST

Here are some key questions you and your marketing team should be asking:

On your website

  • Is our expertise explicit? Every core service or product should be explained in plain language. 
  • Do we demonstrate authority? Publish case studies, thought leadership, and evidence of credibility. 
  • Is our content structured for machines? Clear headings, semantic markup, and straightforward navigation help LLMs parse your site. 
  • Are we consistent across platforms? LLMs cross-reference your website with external signals.
  • Does our site build trust? Transparency, accessible contact details, and human voices matter.

Off your website

  • Are we publishing authoritative content regularly? LLMs favor newer content, so being cited frequently is important.
  • Do we have a strategy for thought leadership beyond our own site? Media relations to create earned media placements is vital.
  • Are we being cited or mentioned in credible external sources? LLMs identify credibility, and you want to show up on credible websites.
  • Is our brand presence consistent across all digital channels? Using consistent language strengthens the signals you send LLMs. 
  • Are we tracking how our visibility grows in AI-driven search results? Continuing monitoring is key for navigating a path towards success.