7/22/2025
For decades, one tech giant has dominated the competition so completely that its name is synonymous with online Search: “I’ll Google it.”
But will people still be able to Google your business five years from now?
AI has transformed the landscape of Search dramatically, introducing a new priority for businesses who want visibility online. GEO – Generative Engine Optimization – is here, enhancing the organic reach of some brands, and rendering others invisible.
If you’re wondering, “How can my business become discoverable with GEO?” this read is for you.
Google has maintained a 90% market share of online search for over 15 years, and this has made SEO a dependable marketing fixture for an unprecedented duration of decades. This is exactly why many businesses are falling behind as AI influences SEO metrics more and more every week.
In 2025, even prominent agencies cite measured declines of 25% in visibility across all industries. The empirical data is finally pouring in, and it’s painting a consistent picture:
SEO isn’t changing; it’s already changed.
In just over two years since the debut of ChatGPT, the catalog of AI offerings is staggering, and we’re seeing these tools deployed in two main ways: Integrated AI and Novel AI.
All major tech brands now feature proprietary AI functionality. One prominent example is Google’s Search Lab AI Overviews. Today about 60% of searches now end without the user progressing to another destination, and companies that were riding a wave of organic traffic success are feeling the effect.
NP Digital’s keynote, The Zero-Click Future, recently cited several illuminating statistics about Google’s AI-influenced usage and functionality:
As AI tools increase and younger generations of customers enter the market, the importance of AI discoverability becomes critical for businesses.
A great deal has been written about how “AI will turn days of work into hours!” so you may be asking:
Should my business go all-in on AI tools?
The reality is this: AI marketing tools are most powerful in the hands of marketers. Business owners who want to become AI power users once again take on their own marketing role, just like the early days when they ran their own Facebook ads.
Vetting AI products also involves a sunk-time cost. With hundreds of emerging AI offerings hitting the market each month, you have to ask where the time comes from to vet AI applicability within your business.
Then there is the question of use.
At Watson, we utilize AI tools daily to strategize and generate volumes of content that our agency could not have produced before. But once it’s generated, the review, revision, and implementation require time from expert integrators.
In other words, working with AI tools…is still work.
The awkward reality about AI tools like ChatGPT is that they are influencing the criteria for search, yet the content they generate tends to be repellent to those same preferences (at least for now).
AI floods the internet with zero-effort content and 4,000-word articles based on 12-word prompts. As a result, new search algorithm standards have emerged, and they are very… un-AI.
Google has always kept marketers on a need-to-know leash about the inner workings of their algorithm. In 2025 they’ve been clear that the priority is people-first content.
Google’s EEAT metrics prioritize content that shows quality in these categories:
EEAT is shaping GEO algorithms that ask something more of your content than SEO did. In a word? Quality.
If SEO was like a video game cheat code offering your business 99 lives to sloppily try-and-die your way to the final boss, GEO is demanding the real skill of sniping aliens and perfectly dodging every fireball. You have to be good at the game now.
In business, that means GEO is looking for more content that meets the mark:
It’s probably not lost on you that this all represents a lot of work. It may not feel directly connected to your bottom line. But designing and renting a billboard felt the same way in 1990. Will you do what it takes to be seen in 2025?
And more importantly, what if you don’t?
Let’s get practical. Your brand already has established channels in place to attract traffic and engagement. What are the best practices with GEO?
Websites - Long-tail keyword copy that resembles a query is now more valuable. Phrasing questions in the same way as people searching for your product is a smart move.
Social Posts - Sharing experiential moments within the walls of your company has more impact now. Worry less about editing and more about hitting “record”.
Blogs - Hire someone who wrote great research papers in college, because informative, authoritative, heavily cited articles outperform keyword-rich marketing plugs.
Video Content - You have to show up where your audience spends time. Not on YouTube or TikTok? Get over it! Get out there where the eyeballs are.
We’ll say it again for those in the back. Quality matters more now. When creating content, you have to ask who cares, who’s asking, and how do we say something no one else can?
As a marketing agency, we recognize AI as the most important development in this decade of digital business. We are aggressively researching, testing, and implementing pivots for existing clients to thrive in a market with redefined rules. We are introducing new onboarding protocols to re-strategize for GEO.
Here are some guiding philosophies that lead our client process:
GEO represents a massive opportunity for smart businesses to beat competitors to a new marketplace. You don’t find a digital shift like that every dynasty.
One thing has still not changed about marketing in 2025, and that’s the fact that marketing is always changing. This is the very reason that marketers who can give their full attention to evolving trends and tools are so valuable to companies that need to keep their expert focus on their products.
As an agency, Watson helps businesses adapt and thrive as digital marketing ecosystems evolve. If your SEO metrics are flagging in the age of GEO, we’d love to consult with you about what a new strategy can look like to usher your brand into the next age of online business.
Book a call with us here. We have some exciting things to show you!
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