From SEO to GEO: What Enterprise Founders Need to Know

For years, search engine optimization has been a core part of how software companies think about digital visibility. The goal of SEO is straightforward: rank highly in traditional search results, drive traffic to the organization’s website, and convert attention into pipeline.

Generative engine optimization, or GEO, changes that marketing motion.

GEO focuses on optimizing content so that foundation models such as Claude, ChatGPT, and Gemini cite your company in their chat responses, rather than simply helping you appear in a list of links. This may sound like an incremental shift in marketing, but I think it reflects something bigger: a change in how software will be discovered, evaluated, and ultimately purchased.

This trend is particularly relevant for software startups’ marketing teams to pay attention to as it points to a transition from link-based discovery to answer-based discovery. Ultimately, if AI tools become a more common part of how buyers shortlist vendors, compare options, and surface recommendations, then visibility inside those systems may become increasingly important to go-to-market performance.

Why GEO is different from SEO

There is overlap between SEO and GEO, but the platforms surfacing the information and their end goals differ.

Traditional SEO is centered on appearing higher in search rankings. A search engine like Google or Bing points users to external websites, where they continue their research. GEO works differently. Generative engines summarize information from multiple sources into a single response. GEO is less about click-through logic and more about citation-based visibility.

Why founders should care

The reason I think this matters for founders is simple: software procurement is changing. If buyers increasingly use AI tools to help discover and evaluate software, then companies will need to market not only to humans, but also to the AI agents shaping those discovery workflows.

That is especially relevant in enterprise software, where evaluation is often time-intensive and iterative. Buyers ask detailed questions. They compare vendors. They narrow their search. They look for tailored answers. AI tools are well suited for this search method because they can synthesize information, refine outputs based on follow-up questions, and present options in a more customized way.

This shift is early, but it is not hypothetical

One of the reasons GEO is gaining traction is that the underlying behavior shift already appears to be underway. In my conversations with digital-native software startups, I am hearing datapoints of how AI agents are being leveraged for software procurement. If AI tools begin to play a more active role in identifying vendors, comparing options, and helping enterprises make purchasing decisions, then companies will need a strategy for how they appear in those systems.

There are also startups that have been founded to help manage GEO. Companies like Profound, Brandlight, Evertune and Scrunch are building in the category. I expect we will continue to see both dedicated GEO vendors and adjacent service providers, including agencies and communications firms, enter the space. The opportunity is real enough that infrastructure is already being built to support it.

What changes when AI becomes part of software discovery

If AI tools become part of how buyers discover and evaluate software, founders will need to rethink what visibility actually means. This means companies may need to pay closer attention to the sources AI systems appear to rely on, the clarity of their category positioning, the way their product is described across the web, and the degree to which trusted third-party content reinforces their relevance. It may also mean that some of the work companies have historically treated as brand, content, PR, or thought leadership starts to influence discoverability more directly in an AI environment.

Attribution is still the biggest open question

Brands may believe that generative discovery matters, but they struggle with measuring GEO efforts to revenue impact. Without that, it is hard to justify sustained investment. The most valuable GEO tooling companies will go beyond measuring visibility by informing enterprises how to improve it and quantify the impact.

What founders should do now

I believe founders looking to sell their enterprise solution should start paying attention now. Some questions to get a pulse on buyer behavior in your market include: Are your potential customers experimenting with AI tools to support research or procurement? Are more discovery workflows starting with Claude, ChatGPT, Perplexity, or Gemini instead of traditional search? 

Founders should also pay attention to the pace of AI agent adoption among their customer base. Forward-leaning organizations, especially those with more modern tech stacks or more technical leadership, may be more open to leveraging AI for procurement. Over time, those early adoption patterns could become broader changes in how software gets evaluated.

The broader takeaway

For founders, the point is not that GEO replaces everything that came before it. The point is that AI is starting to change how discovery works, and that could have real implications for who gets found, who gets shortlisted, and who wins.

The market is still early. The tooling is still evolving. But the underlying shift is worth taking seriously.

Companies that adapt earlier may have an advantage in how they are discovered, evaluated, and ultimately chosen.

Photo by Everson Mayer on Unsplash