“The search landscape is rapidly changing” is a cliche, but it’s never been more true. AI’s integration into search – from consumer behaviour through to search results – is perhaps the most significant change since Google launched back in 1998.
As of March 2025, Semrush Sensor data suggests that Google shows AI Overviews (AIOs) in as many as 41% of searches in some industries. So where Featured Snippets previously dominated the SERP real estate, particularly for research or information-seeking queries, it’s the AIO box that captures attention in the current landscape and brands need to show up here if they want eyeballs and reach.
At the same time, outside of Google, a growing number of consumers are turning to LLMs like ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini and Bing Chat as their first port of call when researching a purchase or seeking information, so there’s increasing value in ensuring that your brand shows in the search results on these platforms too.
We’re working on a project to track just how many people are doing this, who they are and at what pace search behaviour is changing, but are also actively working with clients to ensure visibility long before AI search becomes a mainstream behaviour.
While many of the tactics and workflows we’ve employed throughout our 20+ years for traditional search visibility hold true, we’ve developed practices across all our core teams to drive client visibility in Google’s AIOs and the search results of AI platforms. While we’re not experts in this (because it’s all so new that nobody is), we’re actively experimenting and monitoring developments so that we can help clients win at GEO. Here’s what we believe (for now!) is going to do that.
Tech for GEO
Crawlability
While Googlebot is extremely advanced when it comes to crawling JavaScript based sites, LLM crawlers are not. If you want your content to appear in AI tools, it’s important to make sure that it can be discovered even with JavaScript disabled - or it’ll be invisible to tools like ChatGPT.
Structured data
It's always been the case that a properly marked up site helps search engines to understand the content and context of your website, but it may be ever more important for GEO.
Content for GEO
Summaries
Summarising longer content has always been rewarded by Google, but it's essential for AI visibility too.
Owned-content brand positioning
Include desirable brand associations in your on-site content helps LLMs understand when to show you in search results.
Search intent analysis
It's more important than ever to understand how people are searching, what they actually want and what kinds of queries Google surfaces AIOs for.
AIO gap analysis
We've built a tool to help us quickly and easily spot gaps where clients could and should be appearing in AIOs.
PR for GEO
Targeted media outreach
We focus on earning media mentions in high-authority and widely referenced sources (that are likely to appear in LLM training data), such as the BBC, the Guardian and the New York Times.
Contextual brand mentions in coverage
We aim to secure coverage (linked or otherwise) with the kind of brand mentions that AI models take notice of: contextual relevance (where and how often the brand is referenced) and entity associations (how a brand is connected to key topics) are hugely important.
Expertise and authority
Securing expert quotes in news articles reinforces entity recognition within AI models, so we ensure all press comms have expert quotes and that we have specific client spokespeople as the source of any quotes.
Frequency of coverage
LLMs prioritise widely cited reports, so research-heavy papers that become source material for journalists, along with surveys, studies, and expert roundups, increase data attribution to our clients.
Advertising and Paid Media within LLMs
Coming soon
We're working on getting access to LLM ad platform BETAs.
Building Your Brand in the AI Age
In traditional SEO, a strong brand has often been a ‘nice to have’ rather than a huge driver of online success; plenty of sites have driven high volumes of traffic, simply from having a well-optimised site with good content and solid links pointing to it (an SEO-friendly domain never hurt, either!). However, LLMs don’t rank websites in the same way traditional search engines do. Instead, AI models generate responses based on:
– Brand mentions (even without a link)
– Contextual relevance (where and how often the brand is referenced)
– Entity associations (how a brand is connected to key topics)
Therefore, in AI-driven search, a strong brand – earned via media mentions in high-authority and widely referenced sources (that are likely to appear in LLM training data) is crucial. And it’s Digital PR that can shape that. We’re focusing on building our clients’ brands with PR strategies centred around:
– Context: Ensuring that our press releases contain natural, context-rich references to the brand (not just in a throwaway mention).
– Credibility: Securing expert quotes in news articles, because it reinforces entity recognition within AI models.
– Consistency: Producing research-heavy reports that become source material for journalists, along with surveys, studies, and expert roundups, increase data attribution to our clients – because LLMs prioritise widely cited reports.
We can’t say it any louder; building your brand is key if you want to win in GEO.