Your Page Title

Your SEO is perfect.

Page one rankings. Strong organic traffic. Beautiful metrics on the dashboard.

But when someone asks ChatGPT “what’s the best solution for [your industry]?” your brand doesn’t appear in the answer.

Welcome to the future of visibility. And welcome to why your SEO strategy is becoming obsolete.

The Shift That’s Already Happening

Here’s what nobody’s talking about: 50% of searches now end without a click. People ask Google a question. They get their answer directly in the AI summary. They don’t visit your website. They don’t see your ranking.

By 2026, that number will be closer to 70%.

But it gets worse. When someone uses ChatGPT, Perplexity, or Google AI Overviews instead of traditional search, the rules change completely. These aren’t search engines. They’re recommendation engines.

And they don’t recommend based on SEO.

I’ve been watching this with our tech and MedTech clients. The founders who used to obsess over ranking positions are now asking: “Why doesn’t ChatGPT mention us? We rank #1 on Google.”

The answer is uncomfortable: Traditional SEO is becoming irrelevant to how people actually find information.

What GEO Actually Is (And Why It’s Different From SEO)

GEO = Generative Engine Optimization.

It’s not SEO 2.0. It’s not “SEO for AI.”

It’s a completely different game.

SEO: Make your website rank high so people click through.

GEO: Make AI platforms choose to cite your content when answering user questions.

The difference matters.

With SEO, you’re competing for a position on a results page. With GEO, you’re competing to be the source AI trusts enough to quote.

ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude, Perplexity - they all read millions of web pages. When a user asks a question, the AI generates an answer by pulling from sources it finds most credible, most relevant, most authoritative.

Your job isn’t to rank. Your job is to become the source the AI chooses to cite.

Why GEO Matters for PR (And Why Your Traditional Media Strategy Is Still Valuable)

Here’s the thing that makes me excited about this as a PR person: 95% of AI citations come from PR-driven content.

Think about that. Your press releases. Your founder interviews. Your bylined articles in Forbes, CzechCrunch, industry publications—these are the sources AI trusts most.

Why? Because they’ve been vetted. They come from reputable publications. They carry the authority that AI algorithms are trained to recognize.

This is the bridge between traditional PR and the future. The media placements you’ve always been doing? They’re about to become even more valuable—but in a completely different way.

Instead of driving clicks to your website, they’re going to position your brand as the authoritative source that AI recommends.

The Mechanics: How AI Chooses What to Cite

I’ll keep this simple because this matters for PR strategy:

ChatGPT favors: Established brands from its training data, brand mentions in reputable publications, content with clear author attribution

Google AI Overviews favors: Fresh content, YouTube and Reddit, structured data (schema markup), high-authority sites

Perplexity favors: Updated content (it re-crawls frequently), data-backed insights, multi-source consensus

This is critical for PR teams to understand. Different platforms have different preferences. Your strategy needs to account for all three—or at least the platforms where your target audience searches.

The GEO Framework for PR Professionals

1. Thought Leadership Content That Gets Cited

AI doesn’t cite random blog posts. It cites authoritative insights.

This means:

Data-backed claims. Run a survey. Publish research. Give AI something concrete to quote.

Original frameworks. If you develop a methodology or framework, document it. AI loves citing frameworks.

Trend analysis. “The 5 things happening in cybersecurity in 2026” gets cited. Generic product updates don’t.

For MedTech founders especially: publish clinical data, regulatory insights, market research. AI recognizes these as authoritative.

2. Media Placements as Citation Amplifiers

Every press release you send is now a potential AI citation opportunity.

The strategy shifts:

Quality over quantity. One placement in a publication AI trusts is worth 10 placements in random blogs.

Bylines in known publications. Your founder’s article in Forbes, TechCrunch, or industry-specific outlets matters for GEO.

Consistent messaging. When the same insight appears across multiple outlets, AI gains confidence and cites it more frequently.

3. Author Attribution (The AI Loves People, Not Brands)

Here’s a weird insight: AI prefers citing people over brands.

“According to Jane Smith at XYZ Company” gets quoted more than “XYZ Company says…”

This means:

Name your experts. Don’t hide behind the brand voice.

Build founder visibility. Your CEO’s LinkedIn, founder bylines, speaker profiles—these all matter.

Personal thought leadership compounds. The more your founders and team members are quoted as experts, the more the brand itself gets cited.

4. Schema Markup and Structure (The Technical Side)

AI reads structured data better than free-flowing text.

This is the unglamorous but important part:

Use schema markup on your website (FAQ, HowTo, Article types)

Clear headlines under 60 characters (AI can parse and cite shorter headlines more reliably)

Data tables and structured lists (AI can extract and cite these more accurately)

Author and publication dates (Trust signals for AI)

You don’t need to be technical to understand this: structure your content so AI can easily parse and cite it.

The Practical GEO Strategy for Your 2026 PR Plan

Phase 1: Audit Your Current Citations

Use tools like OtterlyAI, Semrush Enterprise AIO, or Google’s AI Overviews monitoring. Track:

Where does your brand currently appear in ChatGPT responses?

What topics is AI citing you for?

Where are you losing to competitors?

This takes one hour and gives you your baseline.

Phase 2: Identify High-Value Keywords

Focus on:

High-intent keywords in your category (“best MedTech solution for X”)

Comparison keywords (“X vs. Y” searches)

Trend-related queries (“top cybersecurity trends 2026”)

AI cites brands 65% more often on high-intent, commercial queries.

Phase 3: Create Citation-Ready Content

Don’t just publish. Publish with GEO intention:

Original research with embargoed pitches to media

Founder insights positioned for bylines

Data-backed case studies with clear metrics

Trend frameworks that AI can cite as authoritative

Each piece should answer: “Would an AI system cite this as a credible source?”

Phase 4: Build Media Consensus

This is where PR becomes crucial. Get your insight or data:

Published on your website

Shared on LinkedIn and forums

Featured in media coverage

Mentioned by influencers in your space

When AI sees the same insight across multiple trusted sources, citation confidence increases dramatically.

Phase 5: Monitor and Optimize

Track your AI citations monthly. Ask:

Are we appearing in responses to our key queries?
Has our citation frequency increased?
Where are we gaining ground vs. competitors?
What content is driving the most citations?

Then optimize. Double down on what’s working. Kill what isn’t.

What Founders Need to Know

If you’re raising a Series A or B and you’re not thinking about GEO, you’re missing something critical.

Investors increasingly search ChatGPT and Perplexity when researching companies. If your brand doesn’t appear in those responses, you’re less top-of-mind than competitors who do.

Same with enterprise buyers. They search AI tools before vendor calls. If AI doesn’t mention you, you’re already behind in the buyer’s mind.

The competitive advantage isn’t huge—yet. Most companies still don’t think about GEO. But by mid-2026, the founders who built GEO into their PR strategy will have a serious edge.

The Tools You’ll Actually Need

OtterlyAI: Track your brand mentions across ChatGPT, Perplexity, Google AI Overviews in real-time
Semrush Enterprise AIO: Deeper analysis and competitive benchmarking
Google Search Console: Monitor AI Overviews performance
Schema markup validators: Ensure your structured data is clean

Cost: $200-800/month depending on scale. Budget a small allocation of your PR budget for this. It’s worth it.

The Honest Take

GEO isn’t replacing SEO. It’s running parallel to it.

You still need good SEO. But you also need to think about how your content will be consumed and cited by AI systems.

The beautiful part: good PR is already good GEO.

Your thought leadership content? Your media placements? Your founder positioning? All of that is gold in a GEO world.

You just need to intentionally optimize it for how AI systems read, trust, and cite content.

And you need to start now. By the time GEO becomes the obvious priority for every brand, the early movers will have already built unstoppable citation advantage.

What This Means for 2026

The PR professionals who win in 2026 won’t be the ones with the biggest media lists.

They’ll be the ones who understand that visibility now has two layers:

1. Human visibility (traditional SEO, media placements that drive clicks)

2. AI visibility (GEO—being cited as the trusted source in AI responses)

Your PR strategy needs to account for both. And honestly? They’re not that different.

Great PR is great PR. It just needs to be optimized for the way information travels now.

#BasedonTrueEvents

I had a call with a founder last month. She was frustrated. “We’re everywhere. CzechCrunch, tech blogs, analyst reports. But when I ask ChatGPT about alternatives in our space, we don’t show up.”

I asked: “Are your insights backed by original data? Are they appearing in multiple publications with consistent messaging? Do media articles cite you specifically by name?”

Half yes. Half no.

We repositioned her PR strategy. More emphasis on original research. More founder bylines. More strategic media consensus building.

Three months later: ChatGPT mentioned her company in response to industry comparison queries.

Not because the content changed. Because the PR strategy became intentional about GEO.

That’s the shift. That’s what 2026 demands.

Your 2026 GEO PR Checklist

✅ Audit where you currently appear in ChatGPT, Perplexity, Google AI Overviews

✅ Identify the 5 queries where you want AI to cite you

✅ Create or refresh thought leadership content answering those queries

✅ Pitch that content to media for coverage and validation

✅ Implement schema markup on your website

✅ Track citations monthly

✅ Build founder visibility and author attribution into your content

✅ Optimize for each AI platform’s preferences

Do this in Q1 2026, and you’ll be ahead of 95% of companies still thinking in SEO-only terms.

GEO - Generative Engine Optimization