- International publishers have turned GEO (visibility in AI answers) into a real commercial service, with clients renewing their contracts.
- Companies buying these services want to appear in the answers of ChatGPT, Perplexity and similar tools, not just on Google.
- Measuring results is still a work in progress: those selling GEO measure visibility, not yet the sales it generates.
- For an Italian SME, the right time to figure out if and how to invest in GEO is now, before it becomes a market standard.
A year ago, GEO — optimization for appearing in the answers of AI engines like ChatGPT or Perplexity — was a lab experiment. Today, major international publishers sell it to brands as a paid service, and clients are asking for it.
Why GEO has become an urgent topic for companies
GEO — Generative Engine Optimization, meaning optimization for appearing in answers generated by AI engines — is no longer a technical curiosity. According to Digiday, at least six major international digital publishers already offer these services to brands, and clients are renewing them.
The shift is easy to grasp: more and more people ask ChatGPT, Perplexity or Google AI questions instead of searching on traditional Google. Those who show up in those answers gain visibility. Those who don't simply don't exist for that slice of users. If you want to understand how much this is already changing the rules of the game, our hub on SEO and AI visibility gathers everything you need to know.
How it works in practice: brands pay to be cited by AI
The mechanism is different from traditional advertising. A publisher with authority on a given topic — technology, health, finance — produces or updates content optimized to be read by AI engines. The paying brand is associated with that content, and when the AI answers a relevant question, it cites that source. The brand appears in the answer.
Think of a company that makes industrial machinery. If a buyer searches Perplexity for “what are the best filtration systems for chemical plants,” the company wants its name among the cited sources. Today it can only get there if the right content exists and is written the right way. Tomorrow it may also be able to pay an authoritative publisher to be included in that flow.
We've already looked at how the “earned” side of this visibility works in our article on ChatGPT Ads and GEO: paid and earned visibility on AI. What's new today is that the “paid” side is becoming a structured market.
The measurement problem: nobody knows yet what counts
There's an unresolved issue worth knowing about before you invest: there's still no standard way to measure GEO results. Those selling these services track citations in AI engines, brand visibility in answers, and comparisons with competitors. But nobody can yet attribute a sale to an AI citation with certainty.
This doesn't mean the channel doesn't work. It means every company needs to decide in advance what it wants to measure. Citations? Traffic generated? Position against competitors? Without a clear goal, you risk spending money without knowing whether it's working. It's the same problem we described in our article on AI visibility as a new metric for SMEs: the metric exists, but it has to be built to fit your business.
For us, this is the key point: technology is a tool, and a tool without a measurable goal isn't an investment, it's an expense. Before buying AI visibility, a company needs to know what matters to it.
What it means for an Italian SME that isn't a major publisher
The services described so far are sold by international publishers to large brands. But the principle applies to mid-sized Italian companies too, in a different way.
An SME doesn't buy space from a publisher: it optimizes its own content to be cited directly by AI engines. The starting point is finding out whether and where it already appears in AI answers in its industry. Companies often discover they don't appear at all, or that they're cited inaccurately. The article on the AI citation audit explains how to run this check systematically.
The time to move is now, not a year from now. When GEO becomes a standard — as happened with traditional SEO — those who built authority early will have an advantage that's hard to close. Latecomers will have to pay more to catch up.
What to check in your company right now
- Search for your company name and main products on ChatGPT and Perplexity: do you appear in the answers? How?
- Check whether your web content is written so that an AI engine can easily read and cite it (clear structure, explicit questions and answers, up-to-date data).
- Identify the questions your customers ask AI engines before buying: does your content answer them?
- Check whether your competitors appear in AI answers instead of you: if so, on which topics.
- Define a minimum metric to measure AI visibility: even just “how many times we're cited on three key queries” is a starting point.
- Consider whether an SEO audit that also covers visibility on AI engines, not just Google, makes sense for you.
Frequently Asked Questions
GEO stands for Generative Engine Optimization: the set of techniques that help your company appear in the answers of AI engines like ChatGPT or Perplexity. You should care because more and more customers ask these tools questions before buying, and if you don't show up in those answers, you lose visibility.
No. The first step is free: search for your company and your products on the main AI engines and see what comes up. Only once you understand where you stand does it make sense to consider investing in content optimization or dedicated services.
There's no universal standard yet. You can start with simple metrics: how often you're cited across a set of relevant queries, and whether that presence changes over time. What matters is defining your goal before you start, not after.
No, for now they work side by side. Google remains the dominant channel for organic traffic, but AI engines are growing as a starting point for searches. A balanced strategy covers both channels.
GEO isn't mandatory yet — but those who wait for it to become so will already be behind.
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