Key Takeaways
- 89% of B2B buyers are using generative AI during every stage of the purchase process.
- Generative Engine Optimization (GEO) builds on SEO, but focuses on influencing how AI generates answers, not just how pages rank in traditional search.
- Companies use GEO strategies to improve how they show up in generative AI tools like ChatGPT, Google’s AI Mode, and Perplexity.
- Core pages from company websites, press releases, business directory listings, and earned media are some of the top sources AI tools cite for lower-funnel queries, like when users ask about a specific B2B brand or top players in their space.
- Evergreen content published in AI-friendly formats like Q&As and glossaries can help companies get cited in AI-generated answers to educational and top-of-funnel queries, helping with passive discoverability over time and topical authority.
What is Generative Engine Optimization (GEO), and why does it matter now?
Generative Engine Optimization (GEO) refers to the strategies used to shape how your brand shows up in AI-generated responses from tools like ChatGPT, Google’s AI Mode, and Perplexity.
Generative AI tools pull from training data and web crawling to answer user questions, often extracting and citing content from company websites, press releases, news articles, business directories, and other online sources.
Unlike traditional SEO, which focuses on helping people find and visit websites, GEO is about helping your brand and offerings show up in AI tool responses to relevant user queries. This includes being named and described accurately, as well as being cited as a source. With that in mind, GEO encompasses strategies that help AI access, interpret, and pull in your owned content and determining what kind of third-party mentions influence your company’s AI visibility.
This doesn’t mean SEO is dead. GEO builds on top of many SEO best practices. However, GEO is becoming more important as buyer behaviors shift from clicking through traditional search results to querying AI tools directly for information and guidance.
According to Forrester, 89% of B2B buyers are using generative AI at every stage of the purchase process. This means marketing communications leaders need to prepare for a world where AI-generated answers help drive decisions and start optimizing their web presence for AI search engines.
What drives B2B brand visibility in AI-generated responses?
The factors that drive brand visibility in AI-generated responses aren’t fully known yet. GEO is an emerging discipline that is still evolving alongside AI technology itself.
To start making sense of it, we’ve been studying how generative AI tools surface companies in the sectors we know best: B2B technology and energy. A core part of this research is conducting GEO visibility audits for clients, which start by analyzing how a company appears when AI tools are asked about them directly and also when prompted to list their category’s leaders.
It’s critical for brands to show up accurately and competitively in AI-generated responses during this lower funnel research. As AI-powered search becomes more prominent, organic website traffic from traditional search engines is declining. Buyers are using tools like ChatGPT and Google’s AI mode to get answers to their questions and evaluate potential providers, potentially forming their short list before ever visiting brands’ websites. If your company is missing or misrepresented in summaries given by AI tools at this stage, you may get overlooked or not considered at all.
Through our GEO audits, we’ve identified six levers B2B companies can use to take more control of how they show up in generative responses during these high-intent moments.
1. Brands’ core website pages are heavily cited for general company information.
AI tools tend to rely on a brand’s homepage, about page, and product or solution pages as primary sources of information about who a company is and what it offers.
Meanwhile, deeper content, such as blogs and reports, rarely gets cited for the initial branded and category-level queries we test. Often, that’s partly due to formatting. AI tools have trouble parsing content that lacks clear structure and can’t access gated assets. But it’s also because most owned content is written for thought leadership, not answering foundational questions about a company.
What to do:
- Optimize core pages: Make sure your core website pages include your current messaging, differentiators, and offerings in clear, rendered text and tables. Right now, not all AI models can crawl images, video, or content hidden behind toggles, javascript elements, and gates.
- Guide crawlers to depth: Cross-link core pages to deeper, relevant content (e.g., FAQs, white papers, one-pagers, evergreen blogs, glossary terms).
- Write company-centric blogs: Create explainer-style blog content that details the company’s background, positioning, approach, audience and market position. Also, consider publishing comparison content that highlights how you stack up against other players or approaches to help AI tools (and readers) understand your differentiators and how you fit into the landscape. For all content, add structured headings and subheadings, summary and FAQ sections, and internal links to make it easier for AI tools to interpret and cite.
2. Press releases are a reliable lever for long-term narrative control.
Press releases, both those hosted on company websites and distributed via wire services, often shape how a company’s momentum and recent activity are described. GEO is shifting the goal of press releases from winning day- and week-of news coverage to serving as an ongoing record that AI tools rely on to summarize what a company has done and achieved over time.
What to do:
- Publish more press releases: Don’t save announcements for only the major moments. Write press releases for all notable company news, including product updates, earned recognition, and milestones. Publish all releases to your website, and consider swapping out traditional wire services for emerging, lower-cost ones optimized for both SEO and GEO, like Press Advantage.
- Use structured formatting: Treat your press release like a resource for AI tools. Stick to clear subheadings, short paragraphs, datelines, and internal links. Avoid marketing-heavy language. This style helps human readers quickly scan and find key details as well.
- Revisit your boilerplate: If you don’t have a strong company description on your site, AI tools often pull from your press release boilerplate. Make sure it clearly states your sector, offering, audience, and competitive differentiators.
3. Earned media can be a credibility multiplier.
Our GEO audits have shown that timely articles tied to momentum (e.g., product launches, partnerships, executive hires, funding, award wins) can make an immediate impact in how a company is described across AI tools. While earned coverage won’t define your narrative forever, its influence can last for weeks or months, or even longer if the article skews evergreen.
What to do:
- Pitch stories that signal momentum: Focus outreach on angles and news that signal growth or change, like launches, major deals, expansions, and partnerships.
- Connect to larger trends and stories: Journalists are more likely to be interested if your story adds new value to existing conversations around trends, issues, or shifts.
- Recap key media hits on your website: Turn earned media into short blog posts using AI-friendly formats: clear headlines, quotes, structured summaries, and backlinks to the original story. This gives you a chance to increase the AI discoverability of coverage (and maybe become the cited source for it) and to layer in additional SME perspective.
4. Business directory listings influence market categorization.
Business directories are commonly a top source for “best of” and “top provider” queries. AI tools often rely on the structured data in the company profile pages on these sites to define the companies in each market and the role they play in that space. If your profile is missing or outdated, you may be excluded from category-level responses.
A few examples of commonly cited B2B business directories include: PitchBook, Crunchbase, Bloomberg, G2, Capterra, and CBInsights.
What to do:
- Claim and update key listings: Ensure each listing reflects current messaging, accurate categories, and consistent brand language.
- Backlink to your website: Where possible, link to your homepage or solution pages to help AI tools confirm relevance and association.
- Monitor competitor listing presence: If a rival appears on a commonly cited directory you’re absent from, close the gap.
5. Awards, rankings, and analyst mentions shape perceived leadership.
AI tools often reference structured “top” lists, industry awards, and analyst reports to determine which companies are category leaders. If competitors are being mentioned in these validation sources and you’re not, you may be overlooked or underrepresented.
What to do:
- Submit for relevant award programs and rankings: Focus on opportunities that publish public results and are frequently cited in competitive queries about your space.
- Document recognition on your website: Create a centralized recognition page on your site that clearly lists awards won and mentions in authoritative lists or analyst roundups. Include short blurbs, visible logos, and links to original sources. Reinforce these wins with press releases or blog posts that also link back to the third-party recognition.
6. Associating with other trusted brands boosts perception.
AI tools use brand proximity as a trust signal. When you show up alongside recognized brands or industry influencers (think joint press releases, partnership news, case studies, co-authored content), it validates and elevates your company.
What to do:
- Promote partnership news and joint work: Amplify with earned media pushes and press releases that showcase your connections with notable companies, like partnership announcements or joint projects.
- Create co-branded content: Collaborate with partners, customers, or investors on whitepapers, webinars, blog posts, or data reports.
- Build award submissions around collaborative projects: Look for opportunities to submit joint work and shared wins for award programs.
7. Structured evergreen content expands AI visibility and topical authority.
The six levers above focus on how B2B companies can improve their presence in high-intent, lower-funnel queries. But your audience is also using AI tools earlier in the buyer journey for things like general research, exploring open-ended questions, ideation, defining key terms, and troubleshooting problems.
In these early-stage moments, AI-friendly, evergreen content can increase your chances of getting cited and influencing how tools respond. Formats like Q&A posts, glossaries, and interactive tools that address “problem-first” or “how-to” queries will help position your site to AI as a credible source for industry guidance that’s relevant to what your audience is looking for.
While this kind of content isn’t likely to be a big direct traffic driver from AI tools, it supports passive discoverability over time and helps grow authority in your space.
What to do:
- Use AI-aligned research methods: Identify the kinds of questions your audience is asking in generative AI tools by experimenting with synthetic query simulations and building semantic topic maps. Use these insights to shape the topics your content covers and the language you use.
- Create a glossary: Define key terms related to your offerings or category. Glossary content helps AI tools recognize your website as a credible resource for industry knowledge and explanations. Build a central glossary landing page that links to standalone entries, using plain, jargon-free language that aligns with how your audience talks. Add additional internal links to related blog posts or service pages to reinforce your topical authority.
- Add Q&A content: Include supplemental FAQ sections at the bottom of your blogs and publish standalone Q&A format posts that match how your audience phrases questions while they’re using AI.
- Try interactive formats: Interactive tools like calculators, self-assessments, and fillable templates can’t be easily replicated by AI, which makes them uniquely valuable. Surround these tools with rendered, AI-indexable text wherever they’re published on your site so AI can understand what they are and point users to them in their responses. Plus, once users do make it to your site, interactive content like this can help keep them there longer and encourage deeper engagement.
How to Get Started with B2B GEO
The first step in any GEO strategy is to understand which sources are already influencing how AI tools describe your brand and your category. From there, narrow in on what you have the power to control and adjust, like your website, press releases, blog posts, directory listings, and media outreach.
Most companies don’t need to start from scratch. They need to reframe, restructure, and re-surface what they already have so AI tools can find and reuse it in the right context.
Wondering how your company shows up in AI search tools?
At INK, we help B2B technology and energy companies understand and improve how they show up in generative AI tools through tailored GEO audits.
We analyze how AI tools are representing your brand and identify the most impactful levers to improve visibility and credibility.
Reach out if you’d like to work with us to understand AI-generated presence looks like and how to improve it.
