What does generative engine optimization mean?
The term was introduced in a research paper, "GEO: Generative Engine Optimization", by Pranjal Aggarwal and five co-authors. It was first posted in November 2023 and accepted at KDD 2024 (arXiv, read 1 November 2026). The paper calls GEO "the first novel paradigm to aid content creators" in generative engine responses.
A generative engine searches the web, reads several pages and writes one answer, often with links to its sources. GEO is about being in that answer: named, described correctly, and ideally linked.
The term is now used by the platforms too. Microsoft Advertising writes that GEO "is how you win the recommendation in AI-powered discovery" (Microsoft Advertising, January 2026). Bing calls its AI Performance report "an early step toward Generative Engine Optimization (GEO) tooling" (Bing Webmaster Blog, February 2026).
Why does GEO matter for B2B SaaS?
Software buyers ask assistants for shortlists. G2's 2026 survey found that 51% of B2B software buyers now start their research in an AI chatbot more often than in Google. If an assistant names three tools and you are not one of them, you are not on that buyer's list.
How does GEO work?
Google says AI Overviews and AI Mode may use "query fan-out": "issuing multiple related searches across subtopics and data sources" (Google Search Central). So one question can pull in pages that rank for several related searches. See query fan-out.
Each engine picks different sources. In Prefer's September 2026 study of 960 answers, 72.7% of cited sites were cited by one engine only, and 2.2% by all four. The same question asked twice on ChatGPT shared 37% of cited sites. Measure over many runs, not one.
The work itself:
- Make sure Google and Bing index your key pages, and that AI search crawlers are not blocked.
- Write answer-first pages with clear headings and tables.
- Describe your product the same way everywhere: your site, profiles, and partner pages.
- Get included and described well in the third-party lists and reviews that answers cite.
- Track a fixed set of prompts every month on each engine.
Google adds a warning: its guide says to "Prioritize effective SEO strategies over 'AEO/GEO hacks'" and calls this work "still SEO" (Google Search Central).
What does GEO look like? (hypothetical example)
A hypothetical example: a payroll software company asks ChatGPT, Perplexity and Gemini "best payroll software for startups in Europe" three times each. It is named in 2 of 9 answers. The cited pages are mostly comparison lists on other sites. The team fixes its own product page, then works on getting into two of those lists. It runs the same prompts the next month and compares.
GEO vs AEO, LLMO and AI SEO
Sources disagree on where the lines are. Wikipedia lists answer engine optimization (AEO), LLM optimization (LLMO) and AI SEO as other names for the same idea, with "no consensus definition" (Wikipedia). Others use AEO for being the single answer and GEO for being named in written answers. The comparison guide SEO vs GEO vs AEO sets them side by side.
How does GEO connect to third-party lists and AI citations?
Most citations go to pages a brand does not own. Foundation and AirOps studied 5.1 million AI responses for 50 brands: on unbranded questions, 2.24% of citations went to the brand's own pages. Prefer found independent lists were 40% of the sources cited for buyer questions in July 2026. That is why GEO for software brands is largely about the "best X" lists.