The GEO agency that gets AI to recommend your brand.

What is generative engine optimisation (GEO)?

Generative engine optimisation is the work of making your brand visible inside answers written by generative AI, rather than only in traditional search results. When someone asks ChatGPT for the best provider in their area, asks Perplexity to compare options, or reads Google's AI Overview, GEO is what determines whether your business is part of that answer.

The term comes from a 2023 research paper, GEO: Generative Engine Optimization, by researchers from Princeton University and partner institutions, later published at the ACM KDD 2024 conference. Across their benchmark of real queries, the authors found that GEO techniques could boost a source's visibility in generative engine responses by up to 40%, and that what works varies by industry.

You will also hear it called GEO marketing, LLM optimisation or AI search optimisation. The labels differ; the goal is the same: be the brand the AI names.

What actually works in GEO, and what does not

The most useful thing about that research is that it tested specific tactics instead of guessing. The strongest results came from making content more evidence-based, while the old SEO habit of repeating keywords did not help at all. This is how those findings shape our work:

The lesson for any business: generative engines reward content that reads like a trustworthy reference, not content written for an algorithm. That is good news, because the same qualities persuade the people who read it.

How generative engines decide which brands to recommend

Each AI tool builds its answers from different sources, so a brand can be well represented in one and invisible in another. A good GEO programme accounts for each of them:

• ChatGPT draws on what its models learned in training and, when it searches the web, on live results. Being described consistently across many credible sites is what shapes how it talks about you.
• Perplexity searches the live web for most answers and shows numbered citations, so being on the pages it retrieves, with clear and citable claims, matters most.
• Google's AI Overviews and AI Mode are built on Google's own index, so strong SEO, structured data and helpful content remain the entry ticket.
• Gemini can ground its answers in Google Search, which links its view of you closely to your Google presence, including your Business Profile.
• Microsoft Copilot is grounded in Bing, so we make sure Bing crawls and indexes your site properly, not just Google.

Across all of them, three signals keep recurring: consensus (many credible sources saying the same thing about you), clarity (a consistent, unambiguous description of your business) and evidence (specific, verifiable claims an engine can safely repeat).

Why so much of GEO happens off your website

A generative engine is rarely persuaded by your own claims alone. It looks for agreement across the web before it recommends a business. That makes the places other people talk about you central to GEO:

• Industry lists and comparisons. The 'best providers in Sydney' and 'top agencies in Australia' style articles that AI tools frequently draw on when asked for recommendations.
• Reviews. Genuine reviews on Google and the platforms your customers use, such as ProductReview.com.au, which shape both whether AI recommends you and how it describes you.
• Directories and listings. Accurate, consistent details across reputable directories, which our business listings service manages.
• Publications and PR. Coverage and expert commentary in credible media, earned through digital PR.
• Communities. Genuine discussion in forums and communities where people ask for recommendations, which some engines cite directly.

Why GEO matters for Australian businesses now

The shift is well under way. In 2024, Gartner predicted traditional search engine volume would drop 25% by 2026 as AI chatbots and virtual agents take over queries that used to go to search engines. Whether or not that exact figure lands, the direction is clear: more buying decisions now start with a question to an AI.

For Australian businesses there is a specific opportunity. Generative engines answering a local question lean on local sources: Australian publications, Australian review platforms and Australian directories. Those are far less crowded than the global web, which makes it realistic for a well-run local business to become the brand an AI names in its category.

And because an AI answer names a shortlist rather than a page of results, early movers have an outsized advantage. The brands that build consensus and evidence now become the default answer, and that position is hard to dislodge later.

GEO vs SEO: do you need both?

Yes. GEO does not replace SEO; it extends it. Generative engines lean on pages that are crawlable, trusted and already rank well, and Google's AI features are built directly on its search index. A business with weak SEO will struggle to win at GEO, and a business doing SEO without GEO is leaving the fastest-growing part of search to its competitors.

We run them as one programme. For a side-by-side comparison of SEO, AEO, GEO and AI SEO, and how they fit together, see our AI SEO agency page.

Common GEO mistakes we fix

Because GEO is new, a lot of what is sold as GEO is either outdated SEO or guesswork. These are the mistakes we see most often:

• Stuffing keywords for AI. As the research shows, it does not work, and on some engines it actively hurts.
• Publishing AI-written filler at scale. Thin content gives engines nothing worth citing and can damage how your whole site is assessed.
• Treating llms.txt as a silver bullet. It is useful housekeeping, but there is little evidence the major engines rely on it yet. It will not make up for weak content or missing mentions.
• Ignoring what happens off the website. No amount of on-site work makes up for being absent from the lists, reviews and publications AI engines read.
• Optimising for one engine. ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, Copilot and Google's AI features behave differently, and visibility in one does not guarantee the others.
• Never measuring. Without a fixed set of tracked prompts, there is no way to tell whether visibility is improving.

Why Online Road as your GEO agency

We are an in-house digital agency based in Barangaroo, Sydney, and a certified Google Premier Partner and Meta Business Partner. GEO sits inside our wider AI search services, so it is backed by the same team that runs your SEO, paid media and website.

We are straight with you about what GEO can and cannot do. Nobody controls what an AI model says, so we will never guarantee a placement in ChatGPT or Perplexity. What we do promise is a clear plan, honest measurement against a fixed baseline, and work grounded in what the evidence says actually moves visibility. You can see results we have delivered for Australian businesses.