Generative engine optimization is the discipline of making your content visible in AI-generated answers. Tools like ChatGPT, Perplexity, Claude, and Google AI Overviews don't answer questions from memory alone — for current, commercial, and specific queries, they use a technique called Retrieval Augmented Generation (RAG). They query a search API in real time, retrieve relevant pages, and synthesise an answer from what they find.
The search APIs they use belong to Google and Bing. ChatGPT with web search uses Bing. Perplexity queries both. Google AI Overviews use Google's own index. This means your Google and Bing rankings directly determine whether AI tools can find and cite you. GEO does not bypass SEO — it builds on top of it.
What GEO adds is a content architecture strategy built around how AI models decompose questions. When a user asks a broad question, an LLM breaks it into multiple sub-queries and searches each independently — a behaviour called query fan-out. Most B2B companies have content targeting the obvious head terms. Almost none have the specific, niche content that covers the exact sub-questions an LLM generates. That gap is where GEO strategy operates.