Right, let’s cut through the noise. If you’ve been hearing terms like “GEO,” “AEO,” and “AI Overviews” thrown around and wondering whether SEO is dead—it’s not. But search has genuinely changed in ways that matter.
Here’s what’s actually happening and what you need to know.
The Short Version
SEO (Search Engine Optimization) still exists. Google still dominates with 90% market share. Keywords, backlinks, technical optimization—all still relevant.
GEO (Generative Engine Optimization) is the new kid. It’s about getting your content cited by AI systems like ChatGPT, Perplexity, Google’s AI Overviews, and Claude when they generate answers.
The difference? SEO gets you ranked. GEO gets you cited.
And that distinction matters more than it did even six months ago.
What Changed in 2025 (And Why 2026 Looks Different)
A few things happened that shifted everything:
AI-referred traffic exploded. Between January and May 2025, AI-referred sessions to websites jumped 527%. That’s not a typo. People started using ChatGPT and Perplexity as search tools, not just chatbots.
Google rolled out AI Overviews globally. Those AI-generated summaries at the top of search results? They now appear in over 200 countries and 40 languages. When they show up, organic click-through rates drop by 34-61% depending on the query type.
Zero-click searches hit 58-60%. More than half of Google searches now end without anyone clicking anything. The answer appears right there in the search results.
Publishers are bleeding. News publishers expect search traffic to drop 43% over the next three years. Some have already seen 25-40% declines. Smaller publishers are shutting down.
These aren’t predictions anymore. This is what’s happening right now.
SEO in 2026: Still Alive, Just Different
Here’s what hasn’t changed: if you want to show up in search, you still need solid fundamentals.
- Keywords still matter. Understanding what people search for and matching that intent—still core.
- Backlinks still matter. Quality links from authoritative sites still signal trust.
- Technical SEO still matters. Site speed, mobile optimization, crawlability—all still critical.
- Content quality still matters. Google’s algorithm keeps getting better at identifying thin, low-value content.
What HAS changed is what “winning” looks like. Ranking #1 used to mean traffic. Now ranking #1 might mean your content gets summarized in an AI Overview—and users never click through.
The new goal isn’t just ranking. It’s being referenced.
GEO: What It Actually Means
GEO emerged from academic research at Princeton in late 2023. By mid-2025, it became a genuine discipline with its own conferences, tools, and agencies.
The core idea: AI systems like ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Google’s AI features don’t just rank pages—they synthesize information from multiple sources and cite the ones they trust most.
To get cited, your content needs specific qualities:
Clear, direct answers. AI systems look for content that answers questions in the first 40-60 words. No long introductions.
Statistics and data. Content with specific numbers every 150-200 words gets cited more often. “Studies show” is weak. “A 2025 Pew study of 900 users found…” is strong.
Authoritative sources. Linking to academic research, official documentation, and recognized publications increases your credibility to AI systems.
Expert quotes. Named experts with proper attribution get cited more than generic statements.
Structured formatting. Clear headings, FAQ sections, and logical organization make it easier for AI to extract accurate information.
This isn’t speculation. Princeton research found these techniques improve AI visibility by 30-40%.
The Platforms That Matter
Different AI systems pull from different sources and value different things:
ChatGPT cites Wikipedia 47.9% of the time for factual questions. It favors encyclopedic, well-structured content. As of late 2025, it sent 1.2 billion outbound referrals to websites—52% more than the year before.
Perplexity emphasizes real-time information and community-vetted sources. Recency matters more here than on ChatGPT.
Google AI Overviews prioritize content that already ranks well in traditional search. About 52% of sources cited in AI Overviews come from the top 10 organic results. So SEO still feeds into GEO here.
Claude (that’s me, or rather, models like the one you’re talking to) draws from training data and, when equipped with search tools, live web results. Clear, factual, well-sourced content performs best.
The takeaway: there’s no single “optimize for AI” playbook. But strong fundamentals—clarity, accuracy, authority—work across all of them.
What “Dual Search” Means for Your Strategy
We’re now in what some call a “dual search world”:
- Traditional search engines (Google, Bing) that rank pages
- AI answer engines (ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, Google AI Mode) that synthesize and cite
Your content needs to work for both. The good news: the fundamentals overlap more than they differ.
Content that ranks well in Google tends to get cited in AI Overviews. Content with clear structure and authoritative sources tends to perform well in ChatGPT and Perplexity.
The practical approach for 2026:
- Keep doing SEO. It’s still how most people find information, and it feeds AI systems.
- Add GEO tactics. Structure content for extraction. Include statistics. Cite sources. Answer questions directly.
- Track both. Monitor your traditional rankings AND your AI visibility. Tools like Profound, Otterly.ai, and Ahrefs Brand Radar can show how often you get cited in AI responses.
The Traffic Shift Nobody Talks About
Here’s something that gets lost in the “SEO is dead” panic: traffic hasn’t vanished. It’s redistributed.
Yes, informational queries see fewer clicks when AI Overviews appear. But branded searches are holding steady or growing for some publishers. Commercial and transactional queries still drive clicks—people want to actually buy things, not just read about them.
The queries getting hit hardest: simple factual questions, how-to content, definitions, comparisons. Stuff AI can answer in a sentence.
The queries still driving traffic: complex research, product comparisons where people want multiple opinions, anything requiring nuance or personal judgment.
If your entire strategy was built on capturing “what is X” queries, you’re in trouble. If you’ve built genuine authority in a niche where people want depth, you’re probably fine.
What Actually Works Right Now
Based on what’s performing in early 2026:
Lead with the answer. Put your key point in the first 40-60 words. AI systems often extract from the beginning.
Use specific data. “Increased by 34%” beats “significantly increased.” Specific numbers get cited.
Show experience. E-E-A-T (Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, Trustworthiness) matters more than ever. AI systems favor content that demonstrates real knowledge, not generic summaries.
Original research wins. If you can publish data nobody else has—surveys, case studies, proprietary analysis—AI systems treat that as uniquely valuable.
Update regularly. Perplexity especially rewards recency. Dated content loses to fresh content.
Technical basics still matter. Schema markup, clean site structure, fast loading—these help AI systems crawl and understand your content.
What to Ignore
The hype cycle around AI search has produced a lot of noise. Some things you can safely ignore:
“SEO is dead” takes. They’ve been saying this for 15 years. Google still handles billions of searches daily. SEO still works.
Panic over LLM traffic. Yes, ChatGPT traffic is growing fast. But all AI platforms combined still account for about 1% of total publisher traffic. It’s growing, but it’s not replacing Google overnight.
Expensive “AI optimization” services that promise magic. The fundamentals are the same as good SEO: quality content, authoritative sources, clear structure. Anyone selling a secret formula is probably overselling.
Abandoning what works. If your current SEO strategy drives conversions, don’t gut it to chase AI citations. Adapt incrementally.
The Honest Bottom Line
Search in 2026 is more complicated than it was in 2023. You now need to think about multiple platforms, AI visibility alongside rankings, and citation authority alongside backlinks.
But the core hasn’t changed: create genuinely useful content that answers real questions, demonstrate expertise, build trust, and make it easy for both humans and machines to understand what you’re saying.
The brands winning right now aren’t the ones who’ve abandoned SEO for some AI-only strategy. They’re the ones who’ve added GEO tactics to a solid SEO foundation.
The brands struggling are the ones who built their entire strategy on thin content designed to capture informational queries—exactly the stuff AI now handles without clicks.
If your content is genuinely valuable, unique, and authoritative, you’ll do fine. If it was always just “good enough to rank,” that’s no longer good enough.
That’s the real shift. Not SEO dying, but the bar for “good content” getting higher.