Afrah Fazlulhaq
Welcome to the era of Generative Engine Optimization (GEO) where visibility depends not just on how you rank, but how AI perceives and represents your brand. According to Gartner (2025) predicts, Search Engine Volume Will Drop 25% by 2026, Due to AI Chatbots and Other Virtual Agents. That means your next lead, purchase, or brand discovery may come from an AI-generated answer, not a search result.
Generative Engine Optimization (GEO) is the next evolution of SEO. This guide breaks down five high-impact GEO strategies marketers should act on now to secure AI visibility and dominance before 2026.
Traditional SEO focused on visibility within Google’s top ten results. In 2026, the competition shifts, not for rankings, but for representation. AI systems like ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, and Claude synthesize answers. They draw from structured signals, credible entities, and contextual brand data.
Appearing on “page one.” isn't good enough anymore, cited, recommended, and referenced in AI responses should also be a new objective in your marketing trackers in 2026.
That’s why GEO is fast becoming a bridge between SEO and AI visibility, optimizing not just your content, but the data and structure that large language models (LLMs) rely on to “understand” your brand.
Case analysis:
We ran a test for a hotel brand in Krabi that already ranked well on Google for searches like “best luxury resorts in Krabi” and “top beachfront hotels in Krabi.”
But when we asked Gemini and ChatGPT more conversational, real-world prompts such as:
the results told a different story.
Despite strong SEO rankings, the brand appeared in AI-generated answers only twice out of six times. Competing resorts that had richer structured data, stronger brand mentions on travel forums, and more credible third-party citations were recommended more often.
The insight was clear, LLMs don’t just read keywords, they interpret credibility.
Here’s how you can measure GEO ranking data alongside SEO.
The way AI systems extract information is fundamentally different from search crawlers. They cite clear, factual, and structured content.
ChatGPT for instance weighs trust, clarity, and factual accuracy over keyword use. As Google’s John Mueller noted in June 2025, AI systems don’t use llms.txt, but they already prioritize transparent data sources with strong attribution.
AI models like GPT and Gemini prefer data that’s unambiguous and verifiable. Vague marketing language like “We’re the best in the business” will likely get ignored unless multiple public forums recommend it. But structured, attributed, factual content like “Our hotel won Lonely Planet’s top 10 places to stay in Asia 2025” gets cited.
Shift how you create and structure content to match how AI engines read, rank, and recommend. Instead of writing for algorithms, start building credibility with data, sources, and real authority signals that make your brand stand out inside AI-generated answers.
For instance, transparent and structured metadata like “Our resort welcomed 25,000 guests in 2024 - internal booking data” will help AI engines classify your brand as reliable and cite-worthy. Make sure you write for humans and search engines. Your content becomes more than just a promotional piece but a proven GEO ranking data piece that gets a spot in the limelight.
sitemap.xml is your Google roadmap, it helps crawlers discover your pages. But AI systems don’t crawl in the same way. They reference structured signals to understand brand context. There are no sound methods to enable accessibility for AI, as LLMs are quite intelligent in picking up context on their own but structured schema makes it much easier for them.
Have both your SEO and GEO ecosystems ready for the competition spike in 2026.
As an additional step, you can conduct;
As an example, let’s look at Resorts World Sentosa, your schema and structured data could explicitly define topics such as:
This creates semantic associations that AI models can interpret, helping ensure your brand is referenced accurately when users ask, “Which resort offers the best family experiences in Singapore?”
Repeated terms will not get you anywhere on AI answers. Back then, writing for the web meant maintaining content originality and stuffing keywords, and it worked. Keywords were the AI visibility in SEO, but this method won’t work for GEO. Why? Because LLMs aren’t configured systems, they’re intelligent systems that can understand context.
Generative models like ChatGPT build semantic relationships between topics, connecting “eco resorts,” “family stays,” and “Dubai travel” to relevant brands, mapping semantic relationships between topics, entities, and brands.
Let’s assume you run a beachfront resort in Maldives, there are thousands of beachfront resorts in Maldives that are popular global chains, and offer better, more sought-after amenities than you. But you still have a higher chance of appearing in an AI answer before them.
Instead of optimizing for, “best beachfront resorts in Maldives”. Optimize for contextual prompts that are easier to get GEO ranked. BrandRadar helps you find the right prompts to build AI visibility, ensuring your brand appears across multiple question types and intent-driven prompts.
According to HSMAI (2025), brands optimizing for AI mentions saw a 22% higher organic referral rate from chat-driven platforms. You should no longer write with fingers crossed, hoping to rank on AI SEO. You need to actively measure your performance.
Clicks and impressions are becoming legacy metrics. And if you, as a marketer, want to bring new data to the table and shine in your next meeting, you need to present data that compliments your dual tracking infrastructure. In GEO, visibility means being part of the AI narrative, not just appearing in search results.
By integrating GEO ranking data, AI visibility tracking, and modern AI SEO frameworks, marketers can secure their place in the next generation of discovery platforms.
1. What is the difference between SEO and GEO?
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) helps your brand rank on Google through keywords, backlinks, and metadata. Generative Engine Optimization (GEO), on the other hand, ensures your brand is visible and cited inside AI-generated answers on platforms like ChatGPT, Gemini, or Perplexity.
2. How can brands measure GEO ranking data?
GEO ranking data tracks how often your brand is mentioned, cited, or referenced inside AI-generated responses, across multiple prompts and platforms. Unlike SEO metrics that rely on impressions or clicks, GEO ranking measures AI visibility, share of prompt, and citation trust. Tools like BrandRadar can help marketers monitor and benchmark this data across leading AI models.
3. Does AI SEO affect Google rankings too?
Indirectly, yes. Optimizing for AI visibility strengthens your structured data, entity mapping, and content clarity, all of which Google’s algorithms also reward. So while AI SEO focuses on generative engines, the improvements often boost traditional SEO performance as well.
The hospitality industry has always evolved with search, from Google Travel to voice search to meta-booking platforms. They’ve always been at the forefront of adopting modern technology. Now, Generative Engine Optimization represents the next leap. Brands that embrace AI SEO and GEO ranking data today will dominate tomorrow’s discovery platforms.
We can confidently say with all the research and the thousands of prompt experiments we’ve run, that early adopters will shape AI’s understanding of travel experiences. And the latecomers will be defined by it.
Become an early adopter today and prepare your GEO marketing analytics for 2026! Sign up with BrandRadar today!
