What is GEO?

What changes with generative engines

On classic Google, being 4th or 7th still exists: the page shows a list, the user picks. An AI assistant, by contrast, answers: "here are two or three places that fit". Either you're in the answer, or you don't exist for that person. There is no page 2.

And these questions are increasingly local and transactional: "where to have dinner in … tonight?", "a hairdresser who takes walk-ins in …", "a reliable plumber near …". Exactly the questions that used to fill a Google search.

How a generative engine picks its answers

No secret and no premium subscription: the assistant searches the web (often via Google or Bing), reads what it finds — Google Business Profile, reviews, your website, directories, articles — and synthesises. It cites the businesses that come through most clearly and most often in those sources. GEO therefore means working on the sources, not the engine (the practical detail is in how to appear in ChatGPT).

GEO and local SEO: the differences that matter

• Machine readability becomes vital. A photographed PDF menu, an all-image website: Google more or less coped, an AI gets nothing from it. Everything that describes you must exist as text.
• Reviews become source text. For SEO, reviews were mostly a rating and a volume; an AI reads their content and recycles their phrasing to describe you. What your customers write becomes your sales pitch.
• Consistency counts double. Assistants cross-check several sources; the slightest contradiction (two addresses, two names) is enough to get you dropped in favour of a cleaner competitor.
• It doesn't show up in Google Search Console. No official dashboard tells you whether ChatGPT cites you. The only reliable measure: ask the questions, regularly, across several engines, and keep the screenshots.

What GEO is not

• Not a sign-up — nobody can "add you to ChatGPT", and no paid placement exists in its organic answers.
• Not a trick — no magic tag and no secret prompt: it's groundwork on public sources.
• Not a replacement for SEO — generative engines lean heavily on classic search results: good GEO starts with good local search visibility (this way).

Where to start, concretely

1. Measure: ask ChatGPT, Perplexity and Gemini today what they answer about your town and your trade — screenshots in hand. That's what the 1440° scan does, for free.
2. Tend the sources: a complete Google Business Profile (the guide), regular and answered reviews, a readable website, consistency everywhere.
3. Monitor: re-ask the same questions at regular intervals and track the change — the 1440° subscription does it continuously (5 questions on Essential, 15 across 4 engines on Pro).

Frequently asked questions

GEO, AEO, LLMO… are they the same thing?

They're competing names for the same idea: being visible in AI answers (GEO: generative engines; AEO: answer engines; LLMO: large language models). The most common term today is GEO.

How many customers really go through the AIs today?

Still a minority share, but growing fast — and we see it in every scan: local questions asked to the assistants already produce clear-cut recommendations. Settling in early, while competitors aren't thinking about it, is precisely the opportunity.

Do I need an llms.txt file or structured data on my website?

It's a plus, not the starting point. For a local business, most of what the AIs read is the Google Business Profile and the reviews; the website and its markup come in as reinforcement. We apply all of it to our own website, by the way — you can check.