People increasingly ask AI tools — ChatGPT, Google’s AI Overviews, Perplexity, Copilot, Gemini — the questions they used to type into a search bar. Where traditional SEO aims to rank a page in a list of links, Generative Engine Optimisation (GEO) aims to make your brand the answer. Here is how to improve the odds that AI engines understand, trust and cite you accurately.
Understand how AI engines choose their sources
Large language models are trained on publicly available text, and many tools also pull real-time information from the web. In both cases the output reflects what is most present and consistent in the public record. Brands described frequently and consistently across credible sources are more likely to be referenced accurately.
Audit your public record for fragmentation
Gather how your organisation is described across press releases, executive bios, reports, PDFs, archived webpages and past media coverage. Where the story is inconsistent or outdated, AI systems produce uneven or incomplete summaries — not from bias, but because the source material is scattered.
Align your naming, leadership and governance information everywhere
Coherence is the goal: consistent naming, current leadership details, clear governance and impact reporting, and media coverage that is easy to verify and trace. Fix the technical layer too — clean outdated information and align naming conventions across platforms.
Add structured data to your website
Mark up your site with the schema AI engines parse — Organisation, FAQ, Article and BreadcrumbList JSON-LD — so machines can read who you are, what you do and how your site is organised, not just guess from prose.
Write clear, direct-answer content
Answer the real questions your audience asks, in plain language, with the answer up front. Direct-answer content is what an AI engine can lift and quote.
Connect media relations and owned content into one ecosystem
Treat earned and owned content as a single, aligned public record rather than isolated campaigns, so the story about your brand is consistent and stable wherever an AI tool encounters it.
Monitor how AI engines describe you — and correct drift
As AI becomes a default gateway to information, maintaining a clear, credible public record is ongoing work. Check how the major engines summarise your brand, and realign the record when outdated or negative information starts to dominate.