Stop Obsessing Over Google Rankings. Users Are Already Asking ChatGPT What to Buy.

I saw a number recently that made me do a double take.

Adobe released a shopping report saying that traffic retailers get from chatbots and AI search engines jumped 520% year over year. 520%. Not 5%, not 20% — more than fivefold.

Right after that, OpenAI announced something big: a partnership with Walmart to let users shop directly inside the ChatGPT chat box. No jumping out, no opening a browser — you place the order while chatting.

I immediately had one question:

What happens to all those companies that have spent the last decade-plus grinding away at SEO?

What Is GEO?

You've definitely heard of SEO — Search Engine Optimization. Simply put, it's the practice of getting your content to rank at the top of Google search results. Companies build entire teams around this, churning out endless long-form blog posts stuffed with keywords.

But now, user behavior has changed. More and more people skip Google and go straight to ChatGPT: "What's a good birthday gift for my dad?" "Which electric SUV has the longest range?" "What should I put on a sunburn?"

Enter a new industry. GEO — Generative Engine Optimization.

In plain terms, it's about getting your products and your brand to show up in AI-generated answers.

One market research estimate put this business at nearly $850 million in size this year. Not in the future — right now.

AI and Google Don't Look at the Same Things

You might be thinking: isn't it just swapping one search engine for another? Can't you just port your SEO playbook over?

Not even close.

Brandlight, a company that specializes in GEO, shared a striking data point from their CEO: the overlap between top-ranking Google links and the sources cited by AI tools used to be around 70%. And now? It's dropped below 20%.

In other words, what AI recommends and what Google surfaces are increasingly not the same things.

Why?

Because Google loves long-form content. You search for a recipe and the first thing you get is three paragraphs about the blogger's grandmother. But AI doesn't play that game. It prefers structured information: lists, FAQ pages, question-and-answer formats.

Imri Marcus put it this way: a single article bragging about your brand can only help AI answer one question. But a well-structured FAQ page can answer a hundred different questions. You've just given AI a hundred entry points instead of one.

Don't Chase Big Questions — Write Small Answers

There's another interesting finding.

Nobody goes to ChatGPT and asks, "Tell me about General Motors as a company." That's too broad, too vague. What people actually ask is: "Which has more range, the Chevy Silverado or the Chevy Blazer?"

Extremely specific.

So what should brands do? Stop writing grand corporate overviews. Break information down to the finest possible granularity. What's the range of the Silverado? What's the range of the Blazer? Which one goes further? By how much?

The more specific the question, the more precise the content, the higher the chance AI picks it up.

Brandlight's client roster includes LG, Estée Lauder, and Aetna. Estée Lauder's CTO Brian Franz said something that I think nails it: "Models digest information differently than humans do. We need to make sure the product information and authoritative data sources we feed them are accurate."

Someone asked him: would you consider partnering with OpenAI to let users buy Estée Lauder products directly in the chat?

He didn't hesitate for a second: "Absolutely."

Now, Don't Rush to Calculate ROI

When brands invest in GEO right now, they're not really expecting that you'll ask ChatGPT "what to put on a sunburn" and then immediately jump out to buy a jar of Estée Lauder repair cream.

So what are they after?

Share of mind.

Franz was candid about this: we're in the early learning phase, and it feels like things are about to explode. At this juncture, he has no interest in calculating the ROI of every piece of content. Get a foot in the door first, plant the brand in the AI's understanding, and when users start trusting AI recommendations, that first-mover advantage becomes valuable.

Stake your claim first, monetize later.

The Most Interesting Thing of All

All this content being optimized for AI — who's writing it?

AI itself.

People used to assume that AI engines wouldn't train on AI-generated content. Marcus stated the plain truth: "That's not the case."

AI consumes content produced by AI, and in doing so, gets even better at understanding what you want. This flywheel is already spinning.

Back to That Number from the Beginning

520% traffic growth. An $850 million market. Overlap dropping from 70% to under 20%.

These numbers are telling you one thing: the way users find information is undergoing a fundamental shift. It used to be search; now it's conversation. It used to be typing keywords; now it's asking specific questions. It used to be clicking links and scrolling yourself; now it's waiting for AI to give you the answer.

SEO won't disappear overnight. But the GEO train has already left the station.

Think about it — the last time user behavior shifted this dramatically was the move from PC to mobile. That shift built some companies and buried others.

This time around, where does your brand rank in ChatGPT's answer?