AI search doesn't make SEO irrelevant. But it does change what it means for a brand to be visible.
The rise of ChatGPT, Gemini and other AI search experiences has created a new collection of marketing acronyms.
GEO. AEO. LLMO. AI SEO. Underneath the terminology is a fairly simple change. Traditional search is primarily designed to help someone find information. AI can increasingly help someone reach a decision.
That creates a different visibility problem for brands.
Imagine someone looking for accounting software.
They search:
Google might return comparison articles, product pages, ads and reviews. The customer decides what to click, where to research and which businesses to consider. For the software company, the objective is familiar. Rank well enough to earn attention and, ultimately, a visit. AI can create a different experience.
Someone might ask:
"I run a five-person consulting business in Australia. I need invoicing, expense tracking and something my accountant can easily access. What accounting software should I look at?"
Instead of receiving ten blue links, the customer might receive three or four recommendations with an explanation of the strengths and weaknesses of each. That changes where competition happens.
The brand competes for the click.
The brand can be evaluated before the click.
It's easy to take this change too far. SEO isn't dead. Nor does AI visibility exist in a completely separate universe from the rest of digital marketing. AI systems need information. Your website is one source of that information. So are product pages, editorial coverage, reviews, retailer listings, comparison sites and other parts of your digital footprint.
The fundamentals of making your business easy to find, understand and trust remain important. The difference is the outcome we're trying to understand.
SEO asks questions such as:
The two disciplines overlap.
This is probably the most important distinction. A search engine can rank ten results on a page. An AI assistant might recommend three businesses. That means a brand can have strong traditional search visibility while still being absent from an AI-generated shortlist. The opposite may also happen. A brand with modest search rankings could be frequently recommended because it is strongly associated with a particular customer need.
Consider a skincare company known specifically for sunscreen. It might not dominate broad searches for Australian skincare brands.
But when someone asks:
"What's a good Australian facial sunscreen that sits well under makeup?"
the brand could become highly relevant. AI visibility is therefore often more contextual than a conventional ranking. The question isn't simply where your brand sits. It's when your brand becomes relevant enough to recommend.
SEO has trained marketers to think about keywords. AI makes it useful to think in complete customer questions.
A keyword might be:
A buyer question might be:
"What's a good Australian dog food for an older cavoodle that's putting on weight?"
The second contains substantially more information. Breed. Age. Location. Health consideration. Purchase intent. For marketers, these questions can expose gaps that keyword rankings don't necessarily reveal. Perhaps your dog food brand appears frequently for broad recommendations but disappears whenever customers mention weight management.
That's commercially useful information. It tells you something about how the market, and potentially AI systems, understand your brand.
Traditional digital marketing measurement often centres on the visit. Did someone click? How long did they stay? Did they convert? AI introduces interactions that can influence a decision before a website visit occurs. If an AI assistant compares four products and explains why two are best suited to the customer's needs, meaningful consideration has already happened.
The website still matters. The click still matters. But another layer now exists before it.
Brands increasingly need to pay attention to both.
Probably not. At least not yet. Start by understanding what is happening. Identify the questions customers might ask AI when they're researching your category. Test whether your brand appears. Look at which competitors are recommended. Find the topics and customer needs where you're consistently absent.
Then investigate why. Some of the answer may look very familiar: clearer website content, stronger product information, useful third-party coverage, better reviews, stronger authority around a topic. AI hasn't made good marketing obsolete. It has created another environment in which the quality of that marketing becomes visible.
Whether the industry eventually settles on GEO, AEO, AI SEO or something else isn't particularly important.
Customers aren't adopting a new acronym.
They're adopting a new way to research decisions.
Brands should measure accordingly.
See which competitors appear instead and where you have opportunities to improve.