PR AGENCY DIARIES: GEO > SEO & why brands are losing to bots
In 2026, you should be optimising for being the “source the model leans on”, not just the site that ranks fourth. This is PR.
Search is quietly being swapped out for “ask the bot”.
Consumers are skipping the ten blue links and going straight to ChatGPT, Gemini, Copilot, Perplexity and whatever Google is calling AI Overviews this week. Those tools summarise the internet into one neat paragraph, maybe two links, then send people straight to a basket or booking engine.
Zero-click is becoming the default, not the edge case.
At the same time, AI is creeping into every bit of the buying journey. People are using chatbots to research products, get recommendations and sometimes purchase (*coming soon* in NZ) on the spot. AI “shopping agents” are starting to do the boring work for us, scanning options and checking out inside the chat window.
So the question for brands in 2026 is painfully simple: when someone asks an AI “What should I buy, book or believe”, are you in the answer or not???
It’s Succession rules: if your name isn’t in the room, you’re not in the running.
Enter GEO.
GEO stands for generative engine optimisation. It is the practice of making your brand show up inside AI generated answers, not just on traditional search results pages.
Where SEO was built for Google’s list of links, GEO is built for AI’s single, confident paragraph. Think of those Herald and Spinoff taste tests where someone tries every Kiwi snack and picks one champion with zero apology. GEO is playing for that champion slot.
In other words:
SEO tries to get your website into the top results when someone searches
GEO tries to get your brand named, quoted or linked inside the AI’s response
You are optimising for being the “source the model leans on”, not just the site that ranks fourth.
This is PR.
Where SEO chases rankings, impressions and clickthrough, keywords, backlinks and page performance, GEO chases citations, mentions and “share of answer” inside AI responses from trusted sources talking about you.
It does not pull from your own site as much as relying on a wider mix of signals: structured content on your site, plus third party coverage, reviews, thought leadership and authoritative explainers that the models like to summarise.
That is, annotations and namechecks in relevant and trusted media like NZ Herald, Stuff, trade titles, online magazines and websites with decent traffic.
It’s a PR job, not a digital marketing job. Generative engines do not “think” like humans, but they cheat in a similar way. They look for:
Clear, unambiguous explanations of a thing
Consistent names and facts about that thing
Reputable, third party sources that back it all up
That is basically a PR wish list.
Every time we place:
A strong online feature about your new product
A category explainer that quotes your team
A data-driven story where your brand is the reference
An opinion piece that links you with a specific problem or topic
…we are not just influencing humans. We are feeding the machines. Those articles are what AI tools skim when they answer “Which brands are leaders in X”, “What is the best (insert product) for (insert need or issue of person)” or “Who is talking sense about (insert issue)”.
If you are missing from that coverage set, you are missing from the answer. It is that blunt.
None of this requires a totally new planning process. It just means when you look at your 2026 priorities, you ask one extra question: “If someone asked an AI about this, would we show up?” If the answer is no, that is a PR brief.
If you want to know more about how to infiltrate the AI system in 2026 without feeling sale-sy or loud, get in touch to build out a plan that inserts your NPD, leadership, key messaging in the wild, in places that humans and AIs regard as proof. We can help with that…
