Short answer: You don’t need a new optimisation framework for AI.
Longer answer: AI tools reward the same signals that have always driven search visibility.
If you rank well today, you’re already doing most of what AI systems reward.
Been around digital marketing for more than five minutes? You’ve probably heard all the buzzwords by now.
Low-hanging fruit. Growth hacking. Bleeding edge.
Old ideas with fresh labels, repeated online by LinkedIn influencers as if they’re brand new.
This is common in fast-moving industries. When change happens quickly, what already works is repackaged into something shinier. For digital agencies, it's a way to stand out in a crowded market, and sometimes, it works.
End of the day? It’s still the same fundamentals it's always been.
Enter AI.
“How do we show up in AI tools like ChatGPT, Google AI Mode, and Perplexity?”
If this sounds familiar, you’re either the client asking it or the marketing team receiving it. Either way, you’re not alone; since 2022, brands have been scrambling to figure out how to stay visible to paying customers who are using emerging tools.
The short answer is reassuring. The long answer is what follows.
AI Overviews and AI Mode aren’t separate products. They’re built directly into Google Search. Google has been clear on this point; the same SEO fundamentals still apply. There’s no secret “AI ranking factors” you need to unlock or optimise for.
Slightly different; these platforms rely on both training data and live web sources. Websites cited are generally well-established and already perform well in search. If your website struggles to rank or isn’t trusted by search engines, it won’t suddenly appear in AI tools either.
AI tools don’t present results the way Google search results do. No “ten blue links”. No list of websites to click through.
Instead, users see:
1. A written answer in text, code, images, or diagrams
2. A set of source websites used to generate the answer
3. In some cases, no clear ranking order at all
The confusion now is that businesses aren’t trying to rank higher; they’re trying to be included in the answer itself.
Misconception: “AI tools must have their own ranking system.”
Reality: You can’t “rank”, as there’s not the same type of tiered result; but you’re seeing the same ‘user query - information retrieved - result generated’ system we’ve always had. The format has changed, not the underlying logic.
Misconception: “People now use AI instead of Google”.
Reality: Daily query volumes in ChatGPT alone grew by 150% in less than a year, from 1 billion prompts to 2.5 billion prompts by January 2026.
Daily Google queries grew 22% from 11.2 billion to 13.7 billion, and now exceed 5 trillion annually. Search impressions, the number of Google search results being generated, have grown 49% year-over-year as of 2026.
Google has and currently holds a staggering 89.8% share of the global search market. AI tools aren’t replacing search engines as much as they run in parallel with them.
Misconception: “SEO is ‘dead’ now AI is here.”
The reality = the old way you used to perform SEO is certainly “dead”. This misconception has been popular since 2005, when most marketers failed to keep up with Google’s algorithm changes.
The truth?
The SEO industry has, and continues to, boom with pretty extraordinary growth.
This is compounded by most agencies struggling to adapt as machines do.
2005-era SEO has disappeared; 2026-era SEO is arguably the strongest it's ever been, with the highest bar ever.
AI tools look and feel different, but the underlying principle remains the same: fetching information from a larger database. Factors that can make your brand AI-friendly, like structured data, intent matching, and content quality, all come from traditional search. If you're well-optimised for Google, you're well-optimised for AI tools and large language models.
GEO. AISEO. AEO. AELMENOPEO. The list keeps growing.
None are ‘wrong’, but none are explained in real depth.
In practice, they describe the same set of actions: writing clear answers, structuring content so it's easy to understand, genuinely knowing - and being able to explain - what you’re talking about. All of which fall under good SEO.
There is no separate optimisation layer you can switch on that bypasses the core of search.
AI is designed to avoid giving incorrect or risky advice. They favour consistently clear answers backed by sources that appear trustworthy.
18% of our client base appeared in AI Overviews and Large Language Models (LLMs) in 2025, based on anonymised client data. As of 2026, 25% of sites now appear, with an average of 12% of keywords per site. Our websites show up most often when they:
1. Provide their OWN expert insight, not paraphrased information that already exists
2. Explain things accurately
3. Have been around long enough to earn trust
Sound familiar? The same signals that drive strong search performance.
Our clients ranked in Google’s top positions aren’t concerned about AI performance; brands with poor SEO performance are.
Misconception: “We need to optimise for AI instead of SEO.”
Ever seen ‘GEO agencies’ offering to chase formatting tricks, produce ‘AI-friendly’ pages, and techy context-clustering?
Reality: snake oil (so far).
If it feels like a shortcut, it is. No SEO pro directly controls what businesses surface in AI, just as no one outside Coca-Cola knows their secret recipe. In fact, AI companies actively discourage businesses from working with anyone who claims they can.
Here's what GEO ‘experts’ are actually doing.
GEO services are actually reliant on optimising websites for search engines instead.
Showing up in ones like Google is how you influence AI tools.
Start with the basics.
Is your website properly indexed, easy for Google to crawl, and loads in ways people and search engines can read easily?
Congrats, you’re halfway there already.
Another way of describing this: technical SEO.
Do’s:
AI tools love clarity.
Answer the main question clearly. Include context, examples, accurate data, and limitations too.
Demonstrate your actual expertise.
Generic, rehashed content is regularly filtered out; tools are smarter than that. They surface original insight and clever thinking over noise. Show your:
1. Industry experience
2. Clear explanations
3. Original insights (not generic content)
4. Consistent messaging across your site
5. Build a recognisable brand
AI references known, consistent, and trusted businesses over pages chasing cheap clicks. Brands with mentions, reviews, credible backlinks - a.k.a. good SEO.
Don'ts:
Bury the answer under fluff.
Pages that padded a simple fact like “What time is the Super Bowl?” into a long post eventually lost to direct answers.Ref
Yes. AI answers don’t pull from the single top-ranking page. Information is aggregated; forums, encyclopaedias, publishers, commercial websites - information comes from everywhere. Answers are often combined from multiple sources, as in a research paper. If your business explains a sub-topic particularly well and ranks for related questions, you’re most likely to be found.
These tools don’t give you neat little dashboards - yet. There’s no accurate method of measuring your AI traffic, but the following tips act as a finger in the air.
In GA4, go to Reports > Acquisition > Traffic Acquisition, add a comparison filter for referral traffic, then use the regex below. This will help filter website traffic that originated from AI platforms.
AI REFERRAL MATCH PATTERN
.*(chatgpt|openai|perplexity|claude|anthropic|copilot|bing\.com/chat|gemini|bard|poe|phind|you\.com|x\.ai).*
In Google Search Console, navigate to the Performance tab. Add the following regex query filter to show queries with at least ten words, a common behaviour for AI tool users.
GOOGLE SEARCH CONSOLE QUERY FILTER WITH AT LEAST 10 KEYWORDS
.([^" "]*\s){10,}?
Add your website URL to the website explorer tab, and navigate to the AI citations feature available on your main dashboard. This will give you an idea of how many times your website featured in a generative answer tool.
“AI optimisation packages” aren’t a separate service at all. Our research confirms GEO is a part of SEO, not the other way around. Build search visibility properly, and AI visibility follows. That's how you future-proof your business, regardless of how search evolves.
Don’t get us wrong. AI is changing how people discover information.
It’s not changing what makes a business trustworthy.
If your website earns visibility in search by reflecting real expertise, you’re already doing what AI tools want. Businesses that win will be the ones that invested in trust before shortcuts existed.
