In brief

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GEO, or Generative Engine Optimisation, aims to improve a company’s visibility in answers generated by AI platforms such as ChatGPT, Google AI Overviews and Perplexity. Contrary to common assumptions, GEO does not replace SEO. It builds on many of the same foundations, including content quality, authority, structure and expertise.

Before investing in a GEO strategy, companies need to assess their level of digital maturity and understand how visible they already are. A GEO audit helps identify the opportunities, barriers and priorities that will determine a brand’s ability to emerge within generative search environments.

For CMOs, the objective is not to adopt AI at any cost, but to understand where to focus investment to generate sustainable business impact.

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Introduction

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The rise of ChatGPT, Google AI Overviews, Perplexity and conversational search engines is gradually transforming the way people look for information. In some cases, users no longer visit traditional search results at all. Instead, they receive a direct answer compiled and presented by artificial intelligence.

This evolution raises a number of questions for marketing leaders. Is the visibility built through SEO still sufficient? Should businesses now invest in GEO? And how can a company determine whether it is ready to do so?

Before launching new initiatives, organisations need to assess their current level of maturity and understand the foundations required to become visible within generative search engines.

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What is a GEO audit?

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A GEO audit is an assessment designed to measure a company’s ability to be understood, cited and recommended by AI-powered search engines.

While a traditional SEO audit focuses primarily on the organic performance of a website, a GEO audit goes further. It also examines how a brand is perceived, represented and used as a source of information by generative AI models. Its purpose is to identify the factors that either support or restrict the company’s visibility within AI-generated answers.

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In practical terms, a GEO audit helps answer several strategic questions. Is the company visible within generative search environments? Which topics is it recognised for? Which competitors are cited more frequently? Does its published content demonstrate sufficient expertise? And are its current SEO foundations strong enough to support further investment?

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What are the main areas assessed in a GEO audit?

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A brand’s visibility within generative environments depends on several interconnected factors. A GEO audit will generally examine five complementary dimensions: brand authority, content quality, information structure, SEO performance and evidence of expertise.

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Brand authority and credibility

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Generative engines tend to favour sources they consider trustworthy, established and authoritative. The audit therefore examines the strength of the brand’s reputation, its presence in third-party media, contributions from internal experts, proprietary research and the quality of its client references.

A company that is already recognised within its market will generally have a greater chance of being cited in AI-generated answers. However, reputation alone is not sufficient. That authority also needs to be visible, consistent and supported by credible external signals.

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Content quality and depth

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Content is the raw material used by generative engines to understand a company and evaluate its expertise. The audit therefore assesses the relevance of existing content, the depth of the knowledge it demonstrates, its ability to answer genuine user questions and the extent to which it differs from competing content.

Generic articles and purely promotional copy usually struggle to emerge within AI environments. To be selected, cited or recommended, content needs to offer clear value, demonstrate genuine expertise and provide information that can be understood and reused with confidence.

Information structure and organisation

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The way information is organised also plays a decisive role. A clear website architecture, coherent internal linking and a logical hierarchy between pages make it easier for both search engines and AI models to interpret the company’s content and understand how different topics are connected.

This dimension is often underestimated, even though it directly affects a model’s ability to correctly understand a brand, its services and its areas of expertise. Strong content can still remain difficult to access or interpret when the surrounding structure is unclear.

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SEO foundations

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GEO relies heavily on the same foundations as SEO. A GEO audit therefore examines the website’s technical performance, indexing, page structure, semantic consistency and authority signals.

In many cases, the barriers identified through a GEO audit originate from unresolved SEO issues. A site that is poorly indexed, technically limited or weakly structured will be difficult for traditional search engines to understand and equally difficult for generative engines to interpret.

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Data and evidence of expertise

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Generative engines generally give more credibility to content supported by data, research, analysis and tangible experience. A GEO audit therefore evaluates the company’s ability to produce signals of trust that reinforce its legitimacy across its key areas of expertise.

This may include proprietary studies, customer insights, benchmarks, expert commentary, case studies or evidence drawn from real projects. These elements help a brand move beyond generic commentary and establish a more distinctive and credible point of view.

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How can you determine whether your company is ready for GEO?

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Not every organisation has the same level of maturity. Before investing in a dedicated GEO strategy, companies should first examine the strength of their existing foundations.

Does the company have a structured editorial strategy? Is its expertise demonstrated through in-depth and useful content? Does the brand already benefit from strong organic visibility? Is it regularly mentioned by recognised external sources? Does it publish differentiated research, analysis or opinions? Are customer insights and proprietary data being used to strengthen its content?

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When the answer to most of these questions is no, the priority should generally be to reinforce the company’s foundations before investing in specific GEO initiatives. Building visibility in generative search requires more than adding a new layer of optimisation. It depends on the quality and credibility of the wider digital ecosystem.

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What are the signs that SEO should come first?

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One of the most common mistakes is to treat GEO as an alternative to SEO. In reality, the two disciplines are closely connected, and GEO cannot compensate for weak organic foundations.

Low search visibility, limited expert content, technical website issues, weak domain authority, a disorganised content architecture or difficulty demonstrating expertise are all signs that SEO should remain the immediate priority.

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In these situations, a standalone GEO strategy is unlikely to create significant value until the underlying issues have been addressed. GEO is not a shortcut for businesses that lack visibility, authority or useful content. It is an extension of those foundations, not a substitute for them.

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How does a GEO audit work?

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A GEO audit generally follows a structured methodology divided into four stages. It begins with an assessment of the current situation, before examining generative visibility, identifying opportunities and translating the findings into a prioritised roadmap.

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Phase 1: Assessing the current situation

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The first phase focuses on the company’s existing digital ecosystem. It examines SEO performance, content quality, brand presence and competitive positioning in order to establish a clear view of the organisation’s current level of maturity.

This initial diagnosis is essential because it helps distinguish between issues that are specific to generative search and more fundamental weaknesses affecting the wider marketing strategy.

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Phase 2: Analysing generative visibility

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The company is then assessed across different AI environments to understand how it appears within generated answers. This analysis identifies the subjects for which the brand is already recognised, the areas in which it is absent and the topics where competitors are more visible or more frequently recommended.

Because different models rely on different sources and produce different results, this stage should not focus on a single platform. It needs to provide a broader view of how the brand is represented across the main generative environments.

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Phase 3: Identifying opportunities

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The gaps between the current situation and leading practices are then analysed to identify the main opportunities for improvement. These may relate to SEO, content, authority, data, brand positioning or the structure of the website.

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The opportunities should then be prioritised according to both their potential impact and the effort required to implement them. This avoids producing a theoretical list of recommendations with no connection to the organisation’s resources or business priorities.

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Phase 4: Building the roadmap

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The final recommendations are consolidated into a structured action plan covering SEO, content, authority, data and generative visibility. The roadmap enables marketing teams to focus their resources on the initiatives most likely to create value.

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The objective is not simply to produce more content or track additional indicators. It is to give the organisation a clear sequence of actions based on its level of maturity, its competitive position and its strategic priorities.

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How can generative search visibility be measured?

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One of the main challenges of GEO is that measuring Google rankings and organic traffic is no longer enough. Marketing leaders also need to understand whether their brand appears in AI-generated answers, which competitors are being recommended instead, which subjects are genuinely associated with the company and how its expertise is interpreted by generative models.

To answer these questions, GEO audits rely on a new set of visibility indicators.

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Share of voice within AI engines

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Share of voice measures how frequently a brand is cited in comparison with its competitors across a defined set of strategic topics. It provides an indication of the brand’s relative visibility rather than simply confirming whether it appears at all.

A low share of voice often reveals a lack of authority, limited content coverage or insufficient recognition around the topics being analysed.

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Brand alignment

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Visibility alone is not enough. Generative engines also need to understand the company’s positioning accurately.

Brand alignment analysis measures the consistency between the messages the company wants to communicate and the characteristics, services or areas of expertise that AI-generated answers actually associate with the brand. A company may be visible but represented inaccurately, which creates a different strategic problem.

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Sentiment and perception

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Generative models build a representation of a brand from the information available online. Sentiment analysis helps identify whether this perception is broadly positive, neutral or negative, while also revealing recurring themes or concerns associated with the company.

This is particularly important because AI-generated answers can consolidate information from multiple sources into a single narrative that may not fully reflect the brand’s intended positioning.

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Visibility by AI model

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Results can vary significantly between ChatGPT, Gemini and Perplexity. A company may be well represented in one environment and almost entirely absent from another.

A multi-model analysis helps identify these variations and prevents marketing teams from drawing conclusions from a single platform or a limited number of prompts.

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Which tools can be used for a GEO audit?

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GEO audits generally combine several categories of tools. Traditional SEO platforms such as Google Search Console, Semrush and Ahrefs remain essential for assessing technical foundations, organic visibility and website authority.

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These are then complemented by specialist AI visibility platforms. Tools such as GetMint can be used to measure brand visibility across leading AI models, compare share of voice with competitors, identify content opportunities, detect positioning gaps and analyse brand alignment.

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They can also help determine which topics a company is or is not associated with and support the creation of content aligned with its positioning, expertise and visibility objectives.

Combined, these analyses help businesses understand where they need to strengthen their expertise, develop new content and create a coherent editorial strategy that works across both traditional search engines and generative environments.

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Why conduct a GEO audit today?

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For many CMOs, the main question is no longer whether artificial intelligence will transform search. That transformation is already underway. The real challenge is determining which actions should be taken now and which investments are likely to create meaningful value.

A GEO audit helps organisations understand their actual level of visibility, identify growth opportunities and prioritise marketing investment. It also helps them avoid reacting to a trend without a clear strategy, while creating a more coherent approach to AI and aligning teams around shared objectives.

More broadly, GEO should be considered as part of a wider discussion about marketing performance, content creation, customer data and changing digital behaviours. The objective is not to isolate generative search as a new channel, but to understand how it changes the way brands need to build and demonstrate relevance.

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How can a GEO audit deliver meaningful value?

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The success of a GEO audit rarely depends on a single lever. The companies best positioned to perform in generative search usually combine strong industry expertise, high-quality content, solid SEO performance, effective use of data and a clear understanding of changing search behaviours.

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This is precisely what makes the subject complex for marketing leaders. A GEO audit is not simply about monitoring citations or producing more articles. It requires a complete view of the marketing ecosystem in order to identify the real barriers to visibility and the opportunities most likely to support growth.

At Spaag, we approach GEO as a marketing performance challenge before treating it as a technological one. Our work combines marketing audits, data analysis, content strategy, SEO, artificial intelligence and team enablement to build a roadmap adapted to each organisation’s level of maturity.

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Depending on the issues identified, this support may include a complete SEO and GEO audit, an analysis of brand visibility across AI engines, the identification of content and authority opportunities, the development of an editorial strategy designed for generative search, the use of customer data to create differentiated content and training for marketing teams on GEO and AI.

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The objective is not to follow a trend. It is to help companies invest in the initiatives that will have the greatest impact on their visibility, credibility and growth.

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What should happen after a GEO audit?

A GEO audit only creates value when it leads to concrete action. Depending on the organisation’s level of maturity, the recommendations may focus on strengthening SEO foundations, building brand authority, restructuring content, making better use of customer data or implementing an editorial strategy adapted to generative search.

For some companies, the priority will be to address long-standing SEO weaknesses. For others, the challenge will be to reinforce their position as a recognised authority on strategic topics so that they are more frequently cited and recommended by AI models.

In every case, the objective remains the same: to ensure that the brand is understood, recognised and recommended when users search for answers rather than a list of links.

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