Businesses must be increasingly aware of their online reputations as consumers increasingly rely on artificial intelligence to answer search queries instead of traditional search engines.
Projections from web analytics firm Semrush show generative engine optimisation (GEO) overtaking traditional SEO by 2028, narrowing the window that companies have to get up to speed with AI search.
A significant paradigm shift is taking place regarding how people gather information, form opinions and ultimately decide whether to engage with businesses, according to Partner and GEO Expert at Pead, Jack Wheeler.
"We are thinking not only about how AI could transform our business, but also how it influences how consumers, stakeholders and audiences receive information and form opinions on businesses," Wheeler said.
"Ultimately it's those companies that truly care about their reputation, that do things right from the get-go, that build in company values right throughout everything they do, and have consistency on that, they will have the strongest representation."
GEO, also referred to as answer engine optimisation (AEO), or simply AI search, focuses on influencing how LLMs represent businesses when responding to user prompts.
Unlike SEO, which aims to improve rankings on Google's search results page, GEO centres on ensuring AI-generated answers accurately represent an organisation's reputation, expertise and credibility.
Wheeler explained every organisation with an online presence is already participating in the AI search ecosystem, whether they realise it or not, but those that are on the front foot are much better placed to influence the results, and therefore how the public perceives them.
"Any business that's got an online footprint is represented by these AI tools," he said.
"The difference is the businesses who are approaching it with purpose and influencing what's said about them versus those who are just relying on what's naturally out there."
SEO transition underway
Predictions that AI will quickly replace conventional search engines have become commonplace. The transition is already underway, but it is more nuanced than a simple one-for-one replacement.
Wheeler cited the presence, or lack thereof, of AI summaries already becoming important for traditional search.
"It's hard to make a Google search without seeing AI summaries," he said.
"People are already becoming reliant on those summaries. If they don't appear, they notice."
As Google's AI-generated search overviews become more common, businesses can no longer focus just on ranking highly in search results.
They must instead consider how AI models interpret and synthesise information from across the web.
Reputation becoming more important than rankings
Unlike SEO, which rewards websites that successfully navigate Google's ranking algorithm, GEO depends heavily on how consistently a company's reputation is reflected across authoritative third-party sources.
AI systems draw information from a much broader collection of material than traditional search, and usually receive longer, more detailed prompts.
Increasingly, instead of a short jumble of keywords, users are starting with prompts designed to start a conversation, not necessarily get an immediate result to click on to continue their objective.
Someone looking to replace their four-year-old phone with a new model, for example, may begin by asking for recommendations before continuing with questions about customer service, local reviews, reliability and long-term ownership.
Those additional questions mean AI models increasingly rely on trusted external sources to build more robust answers.
Research shows that approximately 27 per cent of AI citations originate from traditional media, while around 90 per cent come from third-party sources overall.
That broader ecosystem includes news organisations, universities, industry bodies, government agencies, as well as less easily verified content from YouTube and Reddit.
"It's about understanding the high-authority sources that can legitimately talk about you and your business," Wheeler said.
"It's about having an online footprint where there's a range of third-party, high-authority sources backing up what you say about your business."
Comms strategies evolving
The emergence of AI search is changing the communications ecosystem. PR professionals and journalists are no exception.
Traditionally, PR campaigns centred on securing media coverage that would increase visibility and credibility.
While media coverage remains important, communications strategies must now encompass a much wider range of trusted information sources.
GEO should not be viewed as a standalone service, but rather as an evolution of traditional reputation management.
"We want every relevant person or organisation of influence talking about what's important about our brand and what strengthens our reputation," Wheeler said.
Mainstream media is still a vital source of data being fed into LLMs like Claude and ChatGPT, alongside papers authored by academics, government media sources, professional associations and recognised industry experts publishing on new digital platforms.
The objective is to ensure AI systems encounter a consistent and credible image of an organisation wherever they gather information.
Meda facing familiar challenge
News organisations are also facing significant disruption to their business model as AI moves towards becoming the primary source of information for swathes of the population.
Wheeler compared the evolving media landscape to the rise of social media in the 2010s, where publishers distributed content through platforms that began to take a very significant chunk of the advertising market that legacy companies controlled for decades.
It would be counterintuitive for Meta to direct traffic away from its apps.
The concept is the same for Google, Anthropic, and OpenAI models. It's simply bad business to send users to the websites of News Corp, Nine, or New Zealand Media and Entertainment mastheads.
"These tools aren't designed to take people off the platform and onto the article where publishers generate revenue," Wheeler said.
Media companies, therefore, face a dilemma: do they allow AI systems to access their content, knowing they may receive less referral traffic, or restrict access and risk becoming less visible within AI-generated answers.
"The question (for traditional media) is whether blocking AI will stop people using LLMs as their primary source of information," Wheeler said.
"I don't think it will."