October 7, 2025
Article
The Next Evolution of SEO: Competing in the Age of Generative Engines
For years, SEO has been the heartbeat of digital marketing. It’s how we’ve driven visibility, credibility, and traffic. But today, a quiet revolution is underway. Large language models, such as ChatGPT, Claude, and Gemini, are transforming how people discover and assess brands.
Some marketers see this as the end of Google. It isn’t. We’re not losing search, we’re adding to it.
The New Era of Discovery
In the past, “search” meant one thing: typing a query into Google and scanning a list of links. That model defined how we measured visibility. Marketers built entire strategies around rank, click-through rates, and domain authority.
But in 2025, discovery is no longer confined to the search box. When someone asks ChatGPT, “What’s the best event analytics platform?” or “Which AI tools are transforming retail marketing?”, they aren’t getting ten blue links. They’re getting synthesized answers.
These AI systems don’t crawl the web in the same way Google does; instead, they rely on training data, retrieval systems, and citation patterns to determine which brands to mention. In other words, they curate context, not just links.
We’re entering what many now call Generative Engine Optimization (GEO), which focuses on optimizing to appear within AI-generated responses, not just traditional search results (Rogers et al., 2023).
Google Is Still the Foundation
Despite the hype, Google remains the world's most powerful discovery engine. It processes over 8.5 billion searches per day (Internet Live Stats, 2024). Even as AI assistants rise, most people still begin their journey there.
In fact, Google itself is becoming more generative. Its “AI Overviews” and Search Generative Experience (SGE) integrate the same kind of summarization and contextual linking that tools like ChatGPT use.
That means the skill set of an SEO professional, understanding intent, structuring content, and signaling authority, is more relevant than ever. What’s changing is where and how that expertise applies.
Traditional SEO is expanding into multi-modal visibility, being present in Google’s organic results and in AI-driven discovery environments.
The Expanding Search Ecosystem
Think of Google as the foundation layer of digital visibility. AI models like ChatGPT and Gemini now sit on top of that layer, reprocessing, reinterpreting, and redistributing the web’s content.
When users turn to generative AI, they’re not replacing search; they’re extending it. Instead of saying “goodbye Google,” we’re saying “hello context.”
Where SEO once optimized for clicks, GEO optimizes for inclusion. Where SEO tracked rank, GEO measures the presence of how often your brand appears in AI responses and summaries.
This expansion has created a new set of metrics, including the Generative Visibility Index (GVI), a measure of a brand's visibility across generative AI systems. It’s not just about being found. It’s about being chosen by the models people trust to answer their questions.
What This Means for Marketers
Marketers now face a dual responsibility: maintaining traditional SEO health while preparing for generative visibility. The transition mirrors earlier shifts in digital marketing from desktop to mobile, from keywords to intent, from content to context.
Here’s how that evolution plays out:
From keywords to concepts – Generative systems understand topics and relationships, not just keyword density.
From backlinks to trust signals – Mentions, reviews, and credible authorship matter more than link volume.
From pages to entities – AI models think in entities (brands, people, places), not static URLs.
From ranking to representation – The question is no longer “Can users find you?” but “Does AI represent you correctly?”
To thrive, marketers must combine technical SEO with AI literacy, understanding how models source and summarize information, and ensuring your brand’s data is both discoverable and trustworthy.
How to Prepare for the Future of SEO
Keep investing in search fundamentals. Fast, accessible websites with clear structure and strong content are still essential. Google continues to value E-E-A-T (Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, Trustworthiness).
Make your content AI-ready. Structure your pages with concise answers, schema markup, and contextual clarity so AI models can easily interpret and cite them.
Track your brand in AI systems. Test how ChatGPT, Perplexity, or Gemini describes your company. If you’re absent or misrepresented, that’s your new visibility gap.
Create credible, data-backed content. Generative systems favor verified data and trusted voices. Cite sources, publish original research, and keep your facts clean to avoid hallucination noise.
Measure your share of model. Just as you once measured your share of search, start monitoring how often AI assistants mention your brand compared to competitors.
The Future Is Additive, Not Replacive
The marketers who thrive in this next era won’t be the ones who abandon SEO. They’ll be the ones who expand it who see Google, ChatGPT, and every other AI model as connected layers in a larger discovery web.
Search isn’t dying. It’s diversifying. And that’s good news for brands willing to adapt.
Because visibility has never been about a single platform, it’s about being present wherever discovery happens.
If SEO defined the Google era, GVI defines the AI era. Measure your brand’s true presence across generative engines, not just search results. Get started with podium iq → podium iq
References
Internet Live Stats. (2024). Google Search Statistics. https://www.internetlivestats.com/google-search-statistics/
Rogers, A., Arkoudas, K., & Kiela, D. (2023). Generative Engine Optimization (GEO): A new frontier in search. arXiv preprint arXiv:2306.15031. https://arxiv.org/abs/2306.15031
Google. (2024). Search Generative Experience: Overview. https://blog.google/products/search/generative-ai/