The panic around GEO (Generative Engine Optimization) is understandable. ChatGPT is making headlines, Perplexity promises to revolutionize search, and Google is rolling out its AI Overviews worldwide… However, the companies that dominate SEO today will capture the most visibility in AI responses tomorrow.
In 25 years, a thousand lives already
Today seen as a tug-of-war between private entities and search engines, SEO was originally just a method for organizing digital resources.
SEO goes through successive crises due to market changes. In the early days, it was rife with Black Hat strategies: keyword stuffing in white text on a white background, buying links in bulk without any consideration for thematic relevance or quality... The industry rushed to these dubious techniques, only to backtrack hastily with each Core Update.
Then came voice assistants, which were supposed to "revolutionize" our search habits. The market was excited for several months… But who, today, is heavily investing in SEO strategies geared towards "voice assistants"? No one.
What many forget is that search engines are just intermediaries between organizations and internet users. Trying to "hack" the search engine rules is like trying to kill the messenger.
With some perspective, two constants emerge: each major evolution leads the digital world to predict “the death of SEO,” and the winning strategy, the real one, hasn’t changed since the web’s beginning.
The latest tests conducted by SEOClarity show that 80% of responses generated by AI Overviews include a link to one of the top three natural results. In other words, despite the apparent disruption, the basics hold firm: those at the top of the rankings stay there — proof that methods remain unchanged; only the interface evolves.
Even on Google's end, the message is clear: Gary Illyes confirmed without hesitation — “normal SEO works to rank in AI Overviews". New revolution, same game.
Everything changes, except the winning strategy
Let’s set the record straight: the winning strategy in SEO is content that is:
original;
valuable to the user;
easily accessible and identifiable by bots;
credible and recognized as such in the digital ecosystem.
It’s high time to return to the core purpose of content, which search engine algorithms attempt, sometimes clumsily, to translate into mathematical formulas: usefulness.
In an ecosystem threatened by the widespread impoverishment of content, the value of the original has never been stronger. Companies are turning en masse to generative AI to produce more, faster, and more frequently.
But these AIs are trained… on already published content. Often, already generated content. Result: an impoverishing loop, where information dilutes with each iteration. The snake ends up eating its own tail.
In this landscape filled with copies of copies, truly human content — nuanced, embodied, argued — will become a rarity. And thus, a decisive competitive advantage.
The Princeton study on GEO shows that classic optimization techniques - authoritative citations, verifiable statistics, conversational structure - boost visibility by up to 40% in AI responses. These criteria align with what we call E-E-A-T, and they have been part of the SEO landscape for several years.
Certainly, 25% of traditional search volume may disappear by 2026 due to generative AIs according to some projections. But not all sectors face these challenges; it's mainly sites whose economic system relies on monetizing their traffic volume that will be affected. Most companies, whether B2C or B2B, will simply see their acquisition sources diversify.
This shift towards more 'human' ranking criteria isn’t new. It continues a movement already started with the rise of UGC: corporate language lacks credibility because it lacks transparency. Off-site citations, social media traffic, and reviews for the Local Pack are highlighted... AI now relies on data from forums and sites that explicitly cite their sources.
This is exactly what we've been advocating for years: break out of your silo, build authority, be cited by peers, and build your reputation beyond your own site.
So, what now?
Do you tend to jump on the latest hacks and bet everything on controversial practices? Do what you should have done long ago and return to the basics.
Was your approach already comprehensive and quality-oriented? Then it’s urgent to do nothing.
Yes, some technical adjustments are needed: off-site criteria are gaining importance, and structured data becomes essential. But we’re talking evolution, not revolution. Launching link-building campaigns and optimizing schema tags isn’t reinventing your strategy.
In a world where AI can generate content at scale, your human expertise and industry knowledge become more valuable than ever. Numbers confirm the trend: according to Gartner, 79% of consumers will use an AI-powered search engine by the end of the year.
Beware of the technological mirage: these new engines don’t generate answers from nothing. They rely… on traditional search engine indexes. So, your future visibility depends on your SEO strategy.
It's your pages, your content, your authority that feed the GSEs. Tools evolve, interfaces transform, but the fundamental principles remain.
¹ https://www.seoclarity.net/research/ai-overviews-impact
² https://www.seroundtable.com/google-ai-overviews-normal-seo-39817.html
³ https://collaborate.princeton.edu/en/publications/geo-generative-engine-optimization
