What’s Replacing SEO?
In this article (updated August 2025), we explain what is replacing SEO in an AI-driven world. The answer is Generative Engine Optimization (GEO). GEO expands traditional SEO with strategies designed for AI search platforms like ChatGPT, Gemini, and Perplexity. Businesses that adopt GEO early will secure visibility across both Google and AI-powered search.
So, what’s replacing SEO? It’s a combination of Generative Engine Optimization and AI-driven content strategy filling in the gaps that traditional SEO alone can’t cover in an AI-centric world. It’s a broader, more holistic approach to being found online. Think of Google and ChatGPT as two different audiences, you want both to understand and favor your content. As search goes into this hybrid model, those who adapt will find they can capture traffic and customers from multiple fronts: the traditional search results, the AI answer boxes, the AI platform conversations, voice assistants, and whatever comes next.
Marketers have lived and died by Search Engine Optimization (SEO). Tweaking keywords, building backlinks, and praying to the Google gods for a page-one ranking. But lately you might have noticed something very different about how people search online. Instead of scrolling through ten blue links, users are asking AI-powered search engines like ChatGPT, Google Gemini, and Perplexity to get direct answers. It’s as if the SEO rulebook got a surprise sequel, and everyone is wondering: Is SEO being replaced, and if so, what’s next?
"This is definitely an exciting opportunity. Early adopters of SEO reaped huge rewards in the 2000s; now early adopters of AI Search optimization (GEO) have a chance to leapfrog competitors. It’s not about throwing away your SEO playbook, but rewriting parts of it to include AI." Superlines' Growth Lead Hannes Jersenius.
From Traditional SEO to AI-Powered Search: A Major Shift in How We Find Information
Let’s start with what's out there. Traditional search engines like Google scour the web, index pages, and rank results based on relevance and authority signals. The goal has always been to get your website to that coveted top spot on the results page. SEO tactics: using the right keywords, earning quality backlinks, optimizing meta tags, etc. were all about convincing Google “Pick me! Pick me!” as the best answer to a user’s query.
Now enter AI-powered search. Models like ChatGPT or Perplexity don’t show a list of links at all, they generate a single answer or a conversational response drawn from multiple sources. In other words, instead of being one of ten blue links, your goal is to be part of the answer an AI provides. This is a fundamental change in how information is delivered. Users love it because it’s fast and convenient. Ask a question, get an instant, well-organized answer, but it poses a new challenge for businesses. If your brand’s information isn’t included in that AI-generated answer, it might as well not exist for that query.
And users really are using these new AI search tools and the shift is already measurable:
- Google’s global market share dipped below 90% at the end of 2024 and has stayed under 90% in July 2025, the first time in nearly a decade.
- AI Overviews now appear in around 13% of Google searches, showing how quickly the search giant is pushing AI into the mainstream.
- ChatGPT has exploded to 700M weekly active users by mid-2025, with billions of prompts processed daily, a massive new channel for information discovery.
- As of May 2025, Perplexity racks up 153 million visits per month, giving the website a global rank of 268. The number of monthly visitors is a 191.9% increase from March 2024 figures (52.4 million).
In plain English: search is no longer synonymous with “Googling.”
The key takeaway for marketing executives: user search behavior is changing, fast. AI-driven search isn’t replacing traditional search overnight, but it is transforming how users find information. Classic SEO is no longer the only game in town; it now shares the stage with AI answer engines and even social media platforms as information sources. To stay visible, businesses need to understand what this new search is and then react accordingly.
Generative Engine Optimization (GEO): SEO for the AI Era
So, what should be done then? Enter Generative Engine Optimization, or GEO. Think of GEO as the next evolution of SEO, a discipline focused on making sure your content is recognized and recommended by AI-driven search platforms. In other words, if traditional SEO is about climbing to the top of Google’s results, GEO is about getting mentioned and cited by AI as an authoritative source.
By definition, “GEO” means optimizing your content to boost its visibility in AI-driven search engines like ChatGPT, Google’s Gemini, Perplexity, or major AI Platforms. Instead of just appeasing Google’s algorithm, you’re also ensuring that an AI model knows about your brand and trusts your content enough to include it when generating answers. One industry expert calls it “SEO for the AI era”, because the goal is similar (increase your brand visibility), but the audience is different (AI models and their users).
•Creating AI-Optimized Content: Content that directly answers common questions in your domain and is formatted clearly (using headings, bullet points, concise explanations) so that AI models can easily digest and pull from it. It’s less about stuffing keywords and more about providing clear, factual, context-rich information (because a generative AI isn’t just matching keywords, it’s truly reading your content for meaning).
•Structured Data and Metadata: Using schema markup and well-organized metadata to help AI understand your content. Just like good SEO includes structured data for Google’s crawlers, GEO emphasizes structure that AI models (and the web services feeding them) can parse. If your page clearly labels a recipe’s ingredients or a product’s specs in schema, an AI answer engine can incorporate those details more confidently.
•Authority Signals Across the Web: AI models lean heavily on information from sources they perceive as trustworthy. This includes platforms like Wikipedia, reputable industry publications, government or academic datasets, and high-quality Q&A sites. Mentions in these places act like gold in the AI world, boosting the chance your brand will be cited as a legitimate authority. But it’s not just big media that matters. Research by the Superlines team showed that 85–97% of citations actually came from smaller sources: company websites, niche blogs, online communities, and product documentation, proving that AI draws from a much wider pool than just Wikipedia or Reddit.
•Consistent Brand Presence in AI Channels: This can mean publishing content on platforms that feed into AI answers. For example, Google’s SGE might draw from top-ranking web pages (so SEO and content quality still matter), whereas an assistant like Alexa might draw from Wikipedia or a knowledge graph. GEO strategy ensures your brand info is present and consistent everywhere an AI might look – on your website, in databases like Google’s Knowledge Graph, and even in the training data of these models if possible.
•Conversational Optimization: This is a new twist – crafting some content in a Q&A or conversational style, anticipating the way questions might be phrased to an AI assistant. For instance, having an FAQ section that asks and answers questions in natural language can align with how an AI will present the info. You’re basically speaking the AI’s language. If people ask, “What’s the best CRM for a small business?” and you have a blog post or guide that effectively starts by answering that (in a straightforward way an AI could quote), you’ve done GEO.
In essence, GEO is about making sure AI models “see” your content as authoritative and relevant when generating answers. It complements traditional SEO rather than replacing it. A successful digital strategy builds on SEO best practices and layers GEO frameworks on top, always with your target audience at the center. The goal is to provide clear answers and solutions to their problems, while optimizing with AI algorithms in mind. Before we dive into how, let’s look at how AI actually decides what to include in its answers, a process very different from Google’s ranking playbook.
New “Ranking” Factors in an AI-Driven Search World
Traditional SEO experts are used to certain ranking factors: keyword relevance, backlinks, domain authority, user engagement metrics, etc. Google has published guidance over the years, for example, content quality and backlinks are heavyweight factors, along with technical health and page experience. The question is, when an AI like ChatGPT or Google’s AI Overview composes an answer, what factors determine if your content gets used or cited? In AI-generated results, there isn’t a classic ranking of 1 through 10, but there is a behind-the-scenes selection of sources. Here are some key ways AI “ranking” (if we can call it that) differs from Google’s traditional approach:
•Does ranking #1 still matter in AI search?: As noted, an AI answer is synthesized from multiple sources. If Google search was a popularity contest to be the top result, AI search is more like a research report, pulling bits of knowledge from many places. A site that might rank #5 on Google could still be the one quoted by an AI if it has the most succinct relevant info for a specific part of the answer. There’s less emphasis on one source dominating; instead, the AI cherry-picks facts and insights. Your goal is to provide the most relevant, quotable information for key queries so the AI includes it.
•Do keywords still matter for AI optimization?: AI models don’t look for exact keyword matches the way a search engine might. They “read” and understand content in context. This means the old trick of exact-match keywords repeated X times is far less effective (and could even be counterproductive if it makes your content read poorly). Generative AI understands natural language. For example, an article titled “How to Boost E-commerce Sales in 2025” might get picked up for a question about “increasing online store revenue” even if it doesn’t use that exact phrase, as long as the content clearly covers the concept. What counts is the depth and clarity of information, an AI will prefer a page that fully answers a question over one that just happens to contain the right keywords.
•How important is trust and authority in AI search?: Google’s algorithm has long emphasized E-E-A-T (Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, Trustworthiness) and penalized low-quality or misleading content. AI systems operate similarly, prioritizing sources that appear credible. In practice, this means content from websites with strong domain authority or corroborated by multiple reputable sources is more likely to be cited. For example, an AI is far more likely to quote a respected pediatric health blog than a random forum post on the same topic.
From the interviews and meetings the Superlines team has conducted over the last two years, more than 75% of marketers reported that the quality of online information has deteriorated due to spammy AI-generated content. This makes trust signals more important than ever. AI aims to counter this by leaning on sources with established credibility. Many models were initially trained on datasets that heavily featured Wikipedia, government sites, and other high-trust domains, so they inherently “trust” that content. As of August 2025, this has changed: LLMs are increasingly conducting real-time web searches, which broadens the range of sources they can pull from. This development means credibility is still vital, but fresh, well-structured content from authoritative sites now has a better chance of surfacing in AI-generated answers.
•Where do AI models pull information from?: Google mainly looks at the web (and some verticals like news, images, etc.) for ranking. AI models might draw from a wider array of data: social media chatter, databases, knowledge graphs, real-time information feeds, and so on. They might consider not just what your website says, but if your brand is mentioned frequently in certain contexts. For example, an AI summarizing “the best project management tools” might have seen many forum discussions or reviews praising a particular software, even if those didn’t all rank on Google and thus include it in an answer. In generative AI, being a well-known entity matters. SEO had already been moving in this direction (think of entity SEO or knowledge panels), but with AI it’s even more pronounced. If an AI has “heard” of your brand across many data points, it’s more likely to include it. In short, AI’s selection criteria extend beyond the web SEO signals to a more holistic view of what’s authoritative across the information ecosystem.
•Does structured data help with AI visibility?: We touched on this, but it’s worth reinforcing: content that is well-structured is easier for AI to use. If you have an article with a clear heading like “What is the average ROI of email marketing?” followed by a concise answer with a statistic, an AI can readily pull that snippet to answer a user question. Compare that to a wall of text buried in a PDF, an AI might ignore the latter. It’s not a “ranking factor” in the traditional sense, but it greatly influences whether your information makes it into the answer. In fact, Google’s AI Overview often highlights text from a page much like featured snippets do, meaning the same practices that got you featured snippets (direct, well-formulated answers on your pages) will help in AI answers. Bing’s AI chat cites sources with links, those links often come from content that was straightforward in answering the question. Bottom line: Make your content easy to parse. Use descriptive headings, bullet points, summaries, and FAQ sections. Think about the questions your audience might ask, and answer them directly in your content.
To illustrate these differences, think about how an AI might answer the query “What are the benefits of using a CRM for a small business?” Traditional SEO would focus on ranking an article titled “Top 10 Benefits of CRM for Small Business” and you’d fight to get that page to rank. An AI, on the other hand, might compile an answer like: “Using a CRM helps a small business by [benefit 1], [benefit 2], and [benefit 3]. According to HubSpot, businesses saw a 30% increase in sales after adopting a CRM , and a Salesforce report notes improved customer retention rates.” In that AI-generated answer, it might have pulled a stat from a HubSpot blog, a point from a Salesforce study, and perhaps a definition from Wikipedia, none of which might be the #1 Google result on their own, but each provided a key piece. Your strategy in this world is to provide those key pieces wherever you can (and to be one of those cited names).
The good news is many classic SEO best practices still apply. High-quality, relevant content remains essential. Technical SEO, ensuring your site can be crawled and that content loads fast, is still important (if an AI’s web browser can’t access your page or finds it too slow, you’re out). And user-focused content that addresses searcher intent is as valuable as ever. What’s changing is how that content is leveraged. We’re moving from an era of “optimize to rank for X” to “optimize to be included when an AI answers X.” It’s a subtle shift in thinking, but a profound shift in execution and tracking of the results.
Optimizing for AI Assistants & Answer Engines: How to Be the Source AIs Cite
At this point you might be thinking, “Alright, I get the theory, now what do we actually do about it?” This is the practical part: how businesses can adapt their optimization strategies so that AI assistants (like ChatGPT, Perplexity, Google Gemini, Claude, etc.) will include or cite their content in answers. The goal is to have your brand pop up when someone asks an AI about topics in your wheelhouse. Here are some actionable strategies, along with real-world context:
1. How do I provide answers AI will actually use?: AI loves content that gets to the point. Audit your content for how well it answers common questions in your industry. If you have a blog post with the perfect answer buried in paragraph 8, consider surfacing that answer at the top or in a summary box. For example, if you run a tax advisory and people often ask AI, “What’s the deadline to file taxes for LLCs?” make sure your site clearly states that deadline in a prominent, easy-to-quote way (“The tax filing deadline for LLCs is April 15th in most cases, per IRS guidelines.”). If your content simply meanders on “the importance of deadlines” without giving a straight answer, the AI will find someone else who answered it clearly. Also, try to contribute original research or data in your content when possible, AI models are likely to include notable statistics or findings (and often cite the source). If your company’s annual report found that “68% of consumers prefer chat support over phone,” that’s a gold nugget an AI might grab when someone asks about customer support trends.
2.Where should I earn mentions to boost AI trust?: As discussed, being present on high-authority platforms can make a huge difference. Yes, Wikipedia is one of those sources as seen in the research, many AI answers (and Google’s knowledge panels) draw from Wikipedia for factual queries. If your company or product meets Wikipedia’s notability criteria, ensure you have a well-sourced Wikipedia page. If there are relevant Wiki articles for your domain (say an article about “email marketing best practices” and you’re an email marketing company), see if there’s a legitimate, non-spammy way to get your expertise or data cited there (following Wikipedia’s rules). Industry directories, associations, or academic collaborations are also valuable. Think about where an AI might “learn” about your niche. If you run a local restaurant, having strong reviews and info on Google Maps, Yelp, etc., is how an AI like Siri or Google Assistant will recommend you. If you’re a B2B software, ensure you’re listed and well-reviewed on sites like G2 or Capterra, those might feed an AI’s recommendations. Essentially, cast a wide net of authoritative online presence. The more touchpoints an AI has that affirm your brand’s credibility, the better.
3. How can I format content so AI cites me?: This is a newer idea: format content in a way that makes it easy for AI to quote or cite you. Many AI search engines will provide a snippet of text from a source along with a link. To increase the chances it’s your snippet they pick, format some content in snippet-friendly ways. This could include: a concise definition at the start of an article (“Generative Engine Optimization is the practice of…”) for definitional queries, or a list of steps or tips that an AI might enumerate in an answer (“Top 5 ways to improve email open rates: 1) [Tip]… 2) [Tip]…”). Also, use descriptive alt text and captions for images and charts, if an AI is summarizing a chart’s findings, it might look at that text. If you’re talking about something technical or jargon-heavy, provide a plain-language explanation the AI can grab for users who ask in simple terms. In short, think like a teacher prepping your content to be quoted. This not only helps AI, but traditional featured snippets in Google too (as long as those still exist), it’s a win-win for SEO and GEO.
4. Does schema markup really matter for AI?: We touched on schema, but let’s emphasize: Schema markup is one of the clearest signals you can give both traditional search engines and AI systems. Adding structured data (FAQ schema, How-To schema, Product schema, Article schema, etc.) helps AI understand the context and purpose of your content. For example, FAQ schema can win you rich results in Google and provide exactly the kind of concise Q&A pairs that AI assistants love to quote. Product schema makes your specs easier to surface in AI-generated recommendations.
Equally important is clean HTML structure, a single H1, logical subheaders, and lists for steps or instructions. These details may feel technical, but remember: AI is essentially a very advanced reader. The easier you make your content to parse, the more likely it is to be used. Superlines makes this easy. Our Schema Generator creates fully AI-search-optimized markup from any page URL, so you can copy-paste and implement it in minutes. On top of that, Superlines automatically generates schema for all content it produces, ensuring your site is AI-ready by default.
5. How do I measure my brand’s presence in AI results?: You can’t optimize what you don’t measure. It’s a bit tricky since AI chats don’t have an obvious “rank tracker” like Google results do, but thankfully solutions like Superlines can help you with this. Use AI search optimization (GEO) tools. New tools (including Superlines) have entered the market that automate visibility tracking across AI platforms. They not only show how often your brand appears and how you compare against competitors, but also surface the exact sources driving those mentions. The real value comes from turning this data into action: Superlines provides actionable insights so you know what steps to take to improve visibility, whether that’s updating existing content, targeting new sources, or closing gaps competitors are exploiting. This way, you’re not just observing the data, you’re continuously improving your position in AI search.
6. Should I optimize for new AI platforms like voice and niche AIs?: Beyond the big chatbots, keep an eye on other AI-driven platforms. Voice assistants like Alexa or Google Assistant already provide spoken answers from a single source, and with Siri set to roll out GPT-5 as its main engine in September 2025, voice search is about to get a massive upgrade. Optimizing for voice overlaps heavily with GEO: short, clear, conversational answers are key.
At the same time, niche AI search engines are popping up in specific verticals. A travel AI assistant might pull answers from TripAdvisor or Booking.com, while a legal AI might lean on case databases. If you are in those industries, make sure your content and listings on those platforms are complete, structured, and optimized. Being early here matters. It is the equivalent of doing SEO in 1999: low competition now, outsized payoff later.
A final note on this: don’t ignore the human element. AI might be generating answers, but those answers often include citations or suggestions for “learn more.” If a user sees your brand was the source of useful info in an AI answer, they may trust and seek you out. This is a new kind of brand impression. For example, if an AI answer to “How do I improve my AI Search presence?” says “Tip from Superlines team: Start by monitoring your current visibility.. ," the user becomes aware of Superlines as an expert. That’s indirect, but valuable. So ensure your brand name is attached to your content (author bios, clear branding) and that you’re producing genuinely helpful material. Over time, AI models might even learn that your brand = authority in a topic, and start mentioning it more on their own. (We can hope!)
The Future of Search Visibility: Focus on the Hybrid of SEO + GEO
So, what’s replacing SEO? The short answer is nothing. Instead, SEO is evolving into something bigger and quite more exciting. The future is a hybrid where traditional SEO and Generative Engine Optimization (GEO) work hand in hand.
If you want maximum visibility, you need to win in both worlds: classic search algorithms and AI answer engines. Think of it like this: SEO + GEO = full digital visibility. That means keeping the core SEO fundamentals in place: technical health, quality content, and link building, but recognizing they are no longer enough on their own.
Traditional search engines aren’t going anywhere, but they’re changing fast. Google’s share has already dipped below 90% for the first time in a decade, thanks to AI competitors like ChatGPT and Perplexity. Hybrid result pages are here to stay with AI summaries at the top and links below. Bing is following suit, and Apple and Meta are entering the race. At the same time, standalone AI assistants are becoming go-to tools for research, advice, and multi-step queries.
For businesses, the mandate is clear: adapt now. Those who begin with GEO today will be the ones showing up in tomorrow’s AI-driven search experiences. Those who wait risk watching their traffic shrink while competitors become “the brand the AI always recommends.”
Here’s how to future-proof your strategy with a quick checklist:
- Educate Your Team: Make sure SEO, content, and PR all understand GEO and work together.
- Audit & Update Content: Refresh high-value assets, add FAQs, and answer new customer questions directly.
- Expand Analytics: Track both traditional SEO and new AI-driven referral signals.
- Experiment with AI-Friendly Content: Publish authoritative reports or guides designed for AI answers.
- Stay Current: Follow updates from Google, Microsoft, and new AI players since best practices are forming quickly.
Above all, maintain a user-first mindset. This was true for SEO and remains true for GEO. The companies that win are those that provide genuine value to users, whether it’s a human reading a blog post or an AI summarizing that post for a user. Focus on answering needs, solving problems, and creating trustworthy information. If you do that, you’ll naturally align with what both Google’s algorithm and AI models want to surface.
You made it to the end!
The companies that react to these changes now, will be the ones riding the wave of AI search rather than getting swept beneath it. The ones that don’t…well, they might be left wondering why their traffic dried up while a nimble competitor became “the brand that the AI always recommends.” Don’t let that happen to you. SEO got a shiny new upgrade (much like Apple’s newest iOS update rolling out this fall). Time to download the update and keep moving forward. So buckle up buttercup and use the tips we shared with you to drive growth for your business!
Want to improve your AI Search visibility?
Get in touch! We help teams like yours understand where you stand in AI Search and how to improve your visibility with the leading GEO solution in Europe. Start by getting a free AI Search visibility report in just 5 minutes from Superlines.
Also, if you just want to chat more about this topic, feel free to connect with me on LinkedIn. Always happy to exchange thoughts.
-Jere M. Co-Founder, CEO of Superlines