This this holiday season, instead of searching on Google, more Americans will likely utilize big-tongued models to find gifts, deals and sales. Shopping’s latest research shows that retailers could see a 520 percent raise in traffic from chatbots and AI-powered search engines this year compared to 2024. Adobe report. OpenAI is already trying to capitalize on this trend: last week it launched the ChatGPT wizard announced a major partnership with Walmart that will allow users to purchase goods directly from the chat window.
As people begin to rely on chatbots to discover recent products, retailers must rethink their approach to online marketing. For decades, companies have tried to cheat Google search results using strategies collectively called search engine optimization, or SEO. Now, to get noticed by AI bots, more brands are turning to “generative engine optimization,” or GEO. The cottage industry is expected to be worth almost This year, $850 million– according to the estimates of one of the market studies.
In many respects, GEO is not so much a recent invention as the next stage of SEO. In fact, many GEO consultants come from the SEO world. At least some of their venerable strategies probably still apply, because the main goal remains the same: anticipate the questions people ask and make sure your content shows up in the answers. However, there is growing evidence that chatbots display different types of information than search engines.
Imri Marcus, CEO of GEO Brandlight, estimates that in the past there was about a 70% overlap between the most popular Google links and the sources cited by AI tools. Now, in his opinion, this correlation has dropped below 20 percent.
Search engines often prefer wordiness – think of the long blog posts that appear above recipes on cooking sites. However, Marcus says chatbots prefer information presented in straightforward, structured formats, such as bulleted lists and FAQ pages. “A FAQ can answer a hundred different questions, not one article that tells you how great your entire brand is,” he says. “You’re basically giving the AI engines a hundred different options to choose from.”
The questions people ask chatbots are often very specific, so it’s helpful for companies to publish extremely detailed information. “No one comes to ChatGPT and asks, ‘Is General Motors a good company?’” says Marcus. Instead, they ask whether the Chevy Silverado or Chevy Blazer has longer range. “Writing more specific content will actually yield much better results because the questions are much more specific.”