Getting seen on ChatGPT and AIs: the GEO guide for businesses (2026)

A new habit is taking hold: instead of typing "best restaurant in Lyon" into Google, more and more customers ask an AI directly — ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, Copilot. And the AI answers with a recommendation, often just two or three names. The question is no longer only "do I rank well on Google?" but "do AIs mention me?". This new discipline has a name: GEO, for Generative Engine Optimization.

What exactly is GEO?

SEO aims to rank well in search results. GEO aims to be cited and recommended inside AI-generated answers. The difference is huge: on Google, the user sees 10 links and chooses. With an AI, they get a synthesised answer and often a single recommendation per category. Being that name changes everything.

How AIs decide who to recommend

Generative AIs rely on the web (directly or through a search engine) and favour sources they judge trustworthy, clear and consistent. Three signals stand out:

• Reputation: what's said about you elsewhere. Your reviews, your rating, mentions of your name on trusted sites.
• Consistent information: identical name, address and phone everywhere. An AI that finds contradictory data hesitates to cite you.
• Structured, explicit content: pages that clearly answer specific questions, easy for a machine to "read".

Make your site readable by AIs: structured data

AIs love structured content. Concretely: clear headings, direct answers to your customers' real questions (a good FAQ is gold), and above all Schema.org (JSON-LD) markup describing your business, hours, reviews and articles in a language machines understand. Invisible to the visitor, decisive for the AI.

Your reviews are a major GEO signal

An AI asked for "the best hairdresser nearby" will lean on the reviews and ratings it finds. Many recent reviews, a good rating, and above all owner replies to those reviews: that's exactly the kind of signal that pushes an AI to recommend you over a silent competitor. Looking after your reviews is doing SEO and GEO at once.

E-E-A-T: show you're a real reference

Google and AIs alike value E-E-A-T: Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, Trust. Translated for a local business: prove real experience (photos, years in business), display verifiable information, and cultivate a solid reputation. The more you look like a trusted source, the more "citable" you are.

Your GEO checklist

• Complete Google listing, consistent with your site (same name, address, phone).
• Recent, numerous reviews — and answered.
• A page or article that clearly answers the questions your customers ask (and AIs relay).
• JSON-LD markup on your site (business, reviews, articles).
• A consistent presence across a few trusted sources.

The good news: GEO's foundations are the same as a healthy online presence — and answered reviews are its heart. Igor handles your reviews for you and continuously feeds the trust signal that Google and AIs look at. To lay the groundwork, also read our guide to improving your online presence.