What a B2B marketer should know about GEO in October 2026

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I updated this version on 8 October 2026. I only used research from the past four months, because figures in this field go out of date quickly.

What is GEO, and why should B2B marketers care?

GEO stands for Generative Engine Optimization: optimising content so that AI search engines such as ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, Claude and Google AI Overviews pick you as a source and use what you wrote. The term comes from a 2024 study by Princeton and Georgia Tech.

In 2024, Gartner predicted that search volume on traditional search engines would drop 25% by 2026. To my surprise, that hasn’t happened. Google reported in July 2026 that AI Mode has more than a billion monthly users and is actually driving more searches. Traffic from AI tools is growing fast, though: Previsible saw it grow almost tenfold in eighteen months across 166 GA4 accounts. So the shift is real, but it is more gradual than predicted, and much of it happens inside Google itself.

For B2B marketers there is an extra reason to take this seriously. According to G2, 82% of B2B software buyers got software recommendations from an AI chatbot in the past two years. Semrush found that 66% of business buyers regularly use AI to research vendors. And according to TrustRadius, 94% of tech buyers who use AI check the answers. I find that reassuring: buyers use AI to get their bearings, not to trust it blindly.

How do AI search engines select their sources?

Each platform cites differently, and the sources shift regularly. That struck me most while updating this article: some of what I wrote earlier was already out of date.

Which sources each platform uses most

According to Ahrefs’ monthly figures for September 2026, Reddit was ChatGPT’s biggest source (16.8% of citations), followed by Wikipedia (7.0%). On Perplexity, Reddit and YouTube were almost level, and in AI Overviews YouTube was the biggest source (22.9%). Other trackers come up with different numbers. Promptwatch saw Reddit’s share in ChatGPT search drop from 3.83% to 0.52% within a few days in August. So don’t build your strategy on one platform in one measurement.

Profound looked at more than 11 billion citations across eight AI systems between April and July 2026 and found that about 57% point to brands’ own websites. How you define “source” and “brand” drives a lot of that outcome. My conclusion: make sure your own site is right, and that others write about you.

What works and what doesn’t?

Plenty of studies in 2026 tested the popular GEO tips, and the results are more sober than most GEO advice suggests.

The old GEO tips don’t hold up

The Princeton study tested its tips on a simulated search engine running GPT-3.5. A review of 45 studies from July 2026 concludes that no GEO technique shows a stable effect over time and across platforms.

What Google says, and what schema and llms.txt do

In May 2026, Google published a guide to generative AI in Search. It says you don’t need llms.txt, special markup, chopped-up text, an ideal page length or a separate writing style for AI. What does count: unique content, clear headings for your reader, and images or video where they add something.

Authority and freshness

According to Google, fake or bought mentions do little. Freshness counts too: according to Seer Interactive, 75% of cited pages had been updated in the past year. That is why I’m updating this article now.

What if AI gets something wrong about you?

You can’t correct a trained language model directly. What you can influence are the sources it leans on: Wikipedia, Wikidata and LinkedIn. Systems that search the live web, such as Perplexity, ChatGPT search and AI Overviews, pick up a correction on your own site and on authoritative external sources faster. Use tools such as Otterly.AI, Profound, Peec AI or Ahrefs Brand Radar to keep track of what AI tools say about you, and build a consistent base across several sources. It’s no guarantee.

What does the zero-click trend mean for B2B?

SparkToro found that in early 2026, 68% of Google searches in the US ended without a click. If your strategy revolves around “getting on page one” (all my alarm bells go off when someone says that), you’re behind the curve. And zero-click isn’t necessarily bad. If your brand keeps showing up as a source in AI answers, you build awareness, even without a click.

How does GEO differ from SEO, and where do they overlap?

They overlap more than most GEO articles suggest. Google says regular SEO remains the foundation for its AI search features, and technical SEO helps both. Not every AI crawler runs JavaScript, so put your most important content directly in the HTML.

The differences come down to three things. In SEO you want to rank high in a list; in GEO you want to end up as a source in an answer. In SEO backlinks carry a lot of weight; in AI answers, what others write about you also counts, on sites such as Reddit, YouTube and Wikipedia. And images matter: YouTube is the biggest source in AI Overviews.

What does a practical GEO plan look like for B2B?

There is no recipe that fits everyone, but these are the areas I would tackle.

• Existing content. Back up claims with figures and sources, use descriptive headings and lists, put a short summary at the top and update important pages regularly.
• Authors. Create author pages that show background and experience, and make sure your authors are visible on LinkedIn too.
• Per platform. For ChatGPT: Wikipedia, Wikidata, LinkedIn and trade sites. For Perplexity: Reddit and YouTube, but only if you genuinely have something to add. For Google: regular SEO, unique content and video. For B2B software and services, review platforms such as G2, Capterra and Trustpilot as well.
• Earned media. Guest articles in trade publications, quotes in industry research, podcasts and webinars. Not for the backlinks, but for your visibility in AI answers.
• Measuring. Repeat the same questions every week or month in tools such as Otterly.AI, Profound, Peec AI, Ahrefs Brand Radar or Semrush’s AI Visibility Toolkit. A single measurement tells you little.

My analyses of B2B content and AI recommendations were published (in Dutch) on Marketingfacts: Van SEO naar GEO: Welke B2B content scoort in ChatGPT, Google AIO en Perplexity? and AI stuurt ZZP’ers vooral naar de Rabobank.

Also decide what you want to give AI crawlers. Companies run separate crawlers for training and for search: GPTBot and OAI-SearchBot at OpenAI, ClaudeBot and Claude-SearchBot at Anthropic, PerplexityBot at Perplexity. Google-Extended controls Gemini, but not AI Overviews or AI Mode. So you can block training and allow search; according to Cloudflare, 17% of sites block training and less than 1% block search bots. Fetchers that act on behalf of a user, such as ChatGPT-User and Perplexity-User, don’t always follow robots.txt. And in the Dutch HowardsHome case, the Amsterdam District Court ruled that blocking a few AI bots is not a valid general opt-out (summary by CMS). If in doubt, get legal advice.

How do you measure AI visibility and AI conversions?

That got a lot easier in 2026. Since late August, Search Console has had a generative AI report for every site. It shows how often your pages appear as a source in AI Overviews, AI Mode and Discover, but not clicks or queries. GA4 has an “AI Assistant” channel for traffic from ChatGPT, Gemini and Copilot, among others. Traffic from AI Overviews and AI Mode doesn’t fall under it, and whether Perplexity and Claude do is best checked in your own data.

Whether AI traffic converts better is not yet clear for B2B, so compare it in your own figures. Part of AI traffic stays invisible. That’s why a simple question in your contact form helps: “How did you find us?”, with AI chatbot as a separate option. In my experience, the customer is often the most reliable source.

GEO in non-English markets: why language matters more than you think

Language models are trained mostly on English data, and when I ask the same question in Dutch and in English I sometimes get different answers and sources. Dutch Wikipedia has just over 2.2 million articles, English Wikipedia just over 7.2 million (Wikimedia). Fewer articles means less competition for a mention. A mention in a leading national trade publication therefore probably weighs more in a local-language question than in an English-language niche outlet. I haven’t yet found a study that directly compares GEO across languages. It remains a hypothesis, which I’m testing in my own experiments.

What’s still unclear, and why that’s interesting

The field is young and is getting going in the Netherlands too; Emerce held Update GEO on 1 October 2026. The biggest unknown is AI agents. According to G2, 61% of B2B software decision-makers use AI agents when buying or plan to, but only 9% let an agent make a purchase on its own. OpenAI shut down its standalone Atlas browser in August. So agents mainly help with research and comparison. For GEO that means: make sure prices, specifications and forms can be read by a machine too.

The rules are changing as well. Since 2 August 2026, the transparency rules in Article 50 of the EU AI Act apply (explainer): if you have a chatbot on your site, it must be clear to visitors that they are talking to AI.

What I do know: 82% of B2B software buyers got software recommendations from an AI chatbot in the past two years. This is not a trend that will blow over. It is moving more slowly than some predictions suggested, though, and that gives you time to do it properly.

Frequently asked questions about GEO for B2B

Is GEO a replacement for SEO?

No. Google says regular SEO remains the foundation for its AI search features. A good ranking is the foundation, but not the whole story.

How quickly does GEO deliver results?

It varies a lot. An updated page can be picked up quickly, but the sources in AI answers shift regularly. So look at the trend over a few months, not at a single measurement.

Is GEO only relevant for tech companies?

No. Adoption is furthest along among software buyers: according to G2, 82% got software recommendations from an AI chatbot in the past two years. But among business buyers across sectors, Semrush found that 66% regularly use AI to research vendors.

Which AI search engine is most important for B2B?

That depends on your audience. According to First Page Sage, ChatGPT had 52.1% of AI chatbot users in the US in September 2026, and Gemini 26.9%. Google AI Overviews and AI Mode reach the widest audience. The “AI Assistant” channel in GA4 shows which tools your visitors use.

How much does a GEO strategy cost?

You can lay the foundation with existing resources: backing up your content with sources, improving structure, and getting your LinkedIn and review profiles in order. Earned media, a per-platform approach and regular measurement cost more.

What do I do if an AI spreads incorrect information about my brand?

Improve the information in the sources AI systems lean on, such as Wikipedia, Wikidata and LinkedIn, and publish corrections on your own site and on authoritative external platforms. Use monitoring tools to keep track of what AI tools say about you.

Does GEO work differently in non-English markets?

There is little recent research on this yet. It seems sensible not to overlook trade media and authoritative sources in your own language.

Sources

All figures come from research from the past four months, apart from a few exceptions such as the Princeton study and the Gartner prediction (checked on 8 October 2026):

This article was written by Hans Schepers, founder of Hands on GEO. More about my background on my author page.

Read also: What is GEO? · What is Entity Optimization?