Generative engine optimization (GEO) is the practice of making a business easy for AI assistants such as ChatGPT, Google AI Overviews, Gemini, Perplexity, Claude and Microsoft Copilot to find, understand and cite. Where traditional SEO aims to rank a page in Google’s list of links, GEO aims to get your brand named inside the answer an AI writes, which is often the only thing the searcher reads.
If an AI assistant can’t clearly tell who you are, what you do and where you operate, it won’t recommend you, however good your service is.
AI assistants build answers from sources they can crawl and trust. They favour businesses that are described consistently across the web, publish clear factual pages, and are mentioned by independent sites. GEO works on all three.
- Technical access: AI crawlers such as GPTBot, ClaudeBot and PerplexityBot can reach your pages, and an llms.txt file summarises your business
- Entity data: Organization, LocalBusiness, Service and FAQ schema, plus an identical name, address and phone on every profile
- Citable content: short, self-contained answers, definitions and facts that an AI can quote directly
- Brand mentions: listings, reviews, press and “best of” articles that AI models use to decide whom to recommend
How GEO Differs From SEO
SEO and GEO share foundations: a fast, crawlable site and trustworthy content. The difference is the goal. SEO earns a position in a results page; GEO earns a mention in a generated answer. Google’s AI Overviews and ChatGPT search draw heavily on pages that already rank and are well structured, so the best results come from running both together rather than choosing one.
Where Indian Businesses Should Start
Start with a GEO audit: ask the AI assistants the questions your customers ask, such as “best digital marketing agency in Bengaluru” or “corporate gifting company in Chennai”, and record who gets named. Then fix the basics that most sites miss: remove leftover demo or thin pages, add structured data, make your address and phone identical everywhere, and rewrite your key service pages so each opens with a clear, factual summary.
Want to know how AI assistants describe your business today? Marvice Media offers a free AI visibility check from our offices in Bengaluru (Koramangala) and Chennai (Nungambakkam). Call +91 80562 91930 or email info@marvice.in, or read about our Generative Engine Optimization service.
