Brands press enter; GEO to show up more in AI searches

Time of India

a day ago

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Brands are having to rethink traditional search engine optimisation ( SEO ) strategies to ensure visibility. Enter GEO. As users turn to AI chatbots for queries and traditional search engines like Google become increasingly AI-powered, startups such as Asva AI and Siftly are offering generative engine optimisation (GEO) and large language model (LLM) optimisation services to companies.GEO tweaks content to improve visibility on AI-powered search engines and generative AI models. Unlike conventional search engines, which rely on keywords, LLMs respond to prompts and generate curated answers. This is prompting brands to rethink their search engine optimisation (SEO) strategies to ensure visibility in AI responses . For instance, intimacy wellness brand MyMuse said it's seeing a 10% increase in its monthly searches on ChatGPT since it started focusing on GEO.Softly, a Y Combinator-backed startup founded in 2021, offers GEO services to business-to-business, business-to-customer and direct-to-customer companies.'Every LLM relies on some form of search engine under the hood,' said Chalam PVS, cofounder and CEO of Siftly. 'When a user enters a prompt, the model often queries multiple search engines in real time, scans the results, interprets the content, and then summarises it, all within a few seconds.'He added that Siftly has analysed thousands of prompts and found that ChatGPT's results overlap only 61% with Google and 68% with Bing. 'To consistently show up on LLMs like ChatGPT, Perplexity and Gemini, you need platform-specific strategies — traditional SEO alone doesn't cut it,' he said.On platforms such as ChatGPT, Google Gemini, Claude and Perplexity, brands gain visibility in two ways: through the actual answer generated and through the sources cited in those answers.Mumbai-based Asva AI is another startup helping companies improve their presence on these models.'We help brands get discovered, understand their LLM traffic, and recommend strategies on how they can improve it,' said Viren Inaniyan, cofounder of Asva AI.Users are increasingly turning to LLMs because they want curated, direct responses instead of long lists of links. 'For instance, if users search for travel planning on ChatGPT, it will suggest flights, hotels and restaurants. All brands in these categories now want to be cited in the model's answer,' he said.Currently, brands are not charged for visibility on LLM platforms, but Inaniyan expects monetisation to start soon.Data suggests that LLM-based searches are likely to outpace plain vanilla Google searches by 2028. Google's AI Overview feature now has over 2 billion monthly users, the company said in its June quarter earnings call. This growing adoption of generative AI is prompting companies to prepare for an AI-led discovery environment.'Many people still use Google search in India, but with the AI Overview feature giving a summary of the search query, most users don't scroll below,' said Aquibur Rahman, founder and CEO of Mailmodo, an email marketing platform. 'We are seeing an increase in search impressions but the click rate is decreasing.' In the last six months, Mailmodo has seen a 15% decline in clicks from Google search. To tackle this, Rahman has started optimising his website for LLMs.Similarly, wellness brand Kerala Ayurveda is now working to show up in AI-powered search results.'We have started working on GEO over the past couple of months and in the last two months, our traffic from ChatGPT has increased by 2.5x,' said chief product and tech officer Utkarsh Mishra.Industry experts are of the view that LLMs are particularly well suited for specific user queries and private information-seeking behaviour.'There are a lot of questions around intimacy products — how to use them, how to carry them, etc. Now because users come to AI chatbots with a lot of queries like this. We think there is scope for brands like ours to pop up,' said Sahil Gupta, CEO of MyMuse.Despite the momentum behind GEO, challenges remain.'It's important to understand that ChatGPT, Perplexity and similar platforms don't provide any data around click-through rates like Google search does,' said Inaniyan of Asva AI.That means companies are often operating on guesswork, unlike in the traditional SEO era, when keyword rankings and traffic analytics helped guide strategy.He added that users currently rely on AI chatbots mainly for information, rather than as gateways to external websites.'Redirection isn't happening on these platforms because users receive the answers they need and then go elsewhere to make purchases,' he said.Still, for brands navigating a shift in user behaviour from link-driven exploration to prompt-driven discovery, learning to optimise for LLMs is fast becoming essential. While the GEO playbook is still being written, startups and early adopters believe it could define the next wave of online visibility.