Yes, GEO is a silver bullet – but perhaps not in the way you were thinking

If you’ve been anywhere near LinkedIn in the last couple of months, you won’t have been able to escape GEO. Or AIO. Or LEO. While the industry has thus far failed to align on terminology, there is near-universal excitement about what the rapid evolution of AI search might mean for PR.

Breaking down the numbers, the opportunity is clear. Three in five searches last year resulted in zero clicks, with Google’s share of the search market dipping below 90% for the first time in 10 years. Most importantly, 89% of citations on LLMs come from earned media.

GEO – a panacea for PR?

You can’t blame the PR industry for jumping on this bandwagon. PR’s struggle with measurement is nothing new, and nor is the perception of playing second fiddle to the wider marketing function. 

I am old enough to remember the days of calculating advertising equivalency values (AVEs), and the even more arbitrary “PR value”. For anyone who came into the industry after the digital revolution put paid to this form of measurement, AVEs and PR value metrics were used to demonstrate ROI by essentially looking at what a similarly sized placement would have cost as a display ad (and then multiplying it by three, because… PR). 

We all know this is a false equivalence, but PR is still prone to suffering from an inferiority complex when compared to other marketing disciplines. And as the metrics for attribution have become more sophisticated, marketing has been increasingly able to deliver clear and undisputed ROI.

This is where PR can often miss out. We recently surveyed B2B comms leaders and found that while almost three-quarters (74%) believe they take a strategic approach to comms, only 43% feel confident in the metrics they use to show ROI. As a result, two in five (40%) in-house comms professionals feel their leadership team still don’t ‘get’ PR. 

So, when there is pressure to double down on cost management, businesses will often prioritise marketing tactics with more tangible outcomes, regardless of whether they are the most impactful way of engaging target audiences. 

And this brings us back to GEO. Is it any wonder that the PR community has embraced this development with such excitement? Here is a channel showing exponential growth, where high quality earned media is not just a nice-to-have; it’s a must-have.

Beware the GEO “experts”

While anything that reasserts the importance of earned media is to be welcomed; the PR industry would do well to exercise a degree of caution. 

For a start, LLMs are in their infancy. We’re talking a dial-up internet ‘Ask Jeeves’ level of sophistication. How AI search looks now versus how it will look in 12 months, let alone five years into the future, is up for debate. Anyone who claims to have all the answers now is talking rubbish. And while there’s no doubt that AI search is here to stay, we must question whether Google will continue to allow Gemini to cannibalise paid search with its superior placement. It would be fair to assume that some sort of paid element will be coming for the LLMs before long.

And while the discoverability landscape is changing, is anything fundamentally different? Brands wishing to improve their presence on organic search have long been encouraged to create clearly signposted and differentiated content which responds to audience needs, as well as building links and citations from high authority third parties – ie earned media.

While AI search perhaps upweights the role and prominence of earned media, GEO is essentially SEO on steroids. If you’re doing SEO well (and yes, this includes building a strong presence in earned media), then chances are your AI discoverability will be good. 

Too often PR feels like it is in competition with other marketing disciplines for a slice of the budget pie. It can sometimes feel like an us vs them scramble for investment. So, while it’s tempting to see GEO as a white knight for PR, we shouldn’t lose sight of the bigger picture. 

If anything, the advent of GEO necessitates a rebalancing, not of PR at the expense of marketing, but PR working in perfect alignment with other marketing disciplines. The brands that successfully navigate the new era of search are those where comms and marketing teams are working in lockstep, towards common goals and a single strategy.

So where do we go from here?

This is not an anti-GEO blog – I'm as excited as the next PR pro at the increased focus on earned media. More, this is a pro-integration blog. What we should be excited about is not just the spotlight on PR, but the opportunity to create more meaningful and impactful work through closer collaboration with our colleagues in marketing.

Nobody has all the answers now – and the answers are likely to change. But I for one welcome the opportunity to break down silos and demonstrate that traditional media continues to play a pivotal role in building trust and authority with key audiences, as well as boosting brand discoverability.

With more than 15 years' experience leading strategic comms campaigns, Lottie West heads up PR at integrated marketing agency, Fox Agency, building reputation and driving growth for world-leading B2B tech brands.

Further reading

Why earned media is so powerful in the age of AI and GEO

Back to X: are brands reconsidering their exits?

10 ways PRs should be using LinkedIn now the algorithm has changed