What is GEO? Get Found by AI Search in 2026

If your ideal client asked an AI to find you, would it know you exist?

That question is worth sitting with for a moment.

Not because I want to alarm you — your Google presence still matters — but because something has shifted in how people search for practitioners, and it’s shifting faster than most of us realise.

People are no longer just typing keywords into Google and scrolling through a page of links. They’re asking questions the way they’d ask a trusted friend. “What kind of practitioner helps with burnout and nervous system regulation?” Or: “Is there a coach who works with women going through major life transitions?” They type the whole messy, specific question into ChatGPT or Perplexity or Google’s AI Overview, and they get a direct answer back — sometimes a recommendation, sometimes a name.

If your website is optimised for traditional search but not for AI search, you may be invisible to those people entirely. And they’re actively looking for exactly what you offer.

That’s what this post is about.

What Is GEO, and Why Should You Care?

GEO stands for Generative Engine Optimisation. Think of it as SEO’s quieter, more thoughtful sibling — the one who actually reads everything before forming an opinion.

Traditional SEO was about sending the right signals to a ranking algorithm: keywords in the right places, backlinks, page speed, metadata. The algorithm sorted and ranked. You got a position on a results page.

GEO is different. AI search engines don’t return a ranked list of links. They synthesise an answer. They read your content the way a well-read, thoughtful colleague would — and then they either recommend you or they don’t. There’s no page two. There’s no “here are ten options.” There’s an answer, and either you’re part of it or you aren’t.

ChatGPT’s search usage grew by 400% in the past year. And here’s a figure that stopped me in my tracks when I first saw it: only 12% of results overlap between AI search and traditional Google search. These are largely different discovery pools. Which means that even a practitioner with a well-optimised Google presence may be almost completely absent from AI search — and have no idea.

How AI Search Actually Works

You don’t need a technical explanation. What you need is a useful mental model.

An AI search engine has been trained on enormous amounts of content. When someone asks it a question, it doesn’t go hunting for the most popular page — it synthesises an answer from everything it understands, drawing on sources it can read clearly and trust. In some cases it also searches the web in real time.

What it’s looking for, essentially, is this: Does this source clearly explain what it does? Is there genuine expertise here? Can this be trusted as a useful answer to the question being asked?

That’s it. Clarity, specificity, and credibility. Which, as it happens, are also exactly what your ideal clients are looking for. So optimising for AI search isn’t a departure from good practice — it’s an extension of it.

Five Things AI Search Engines Look For on Your Website

1. Clear, specific answers to the questions your ideal clients are actually asking

Vague language doesn’t give an AI anything to work with. A line like “I help people find clarity” could describe a life coach, a financial adviser, or a meditation teacher. The AI can’t match that to a specific question.

A line like “I help women navigating major life transitions who feel disconnected from their sense of purpose” — that, an AI can do something with. That’s a real answer to a real question someone might ask.

Go through your homepage with fresh eyes. How much of what’s written there could apply to almost anyone? That’s your starting point.

2. A named framework or methodology

You don’t need anything elaborate. But if you have a particular way of working — a sequence, a process, a blend of approaches you’ve developed over years — naming it does something important. It signals that your expertise is considered and distinct, not generic. It makes you citable.

If you’ve never named your approach before, this week is a good time to start.

3. Authority signals

Qualifications. Years of experience. The number of clients you’ve worked with. Published writing. Speaking. Training.

I know many practitioners feel uncomfortable listing these things — it can feel like boasting. I’d gently offer a reframe: it isn’t boasting, it’s clarity. An AI trying to recommend you to someone in need has no way to assess your credibility unless you’ve stated it plainly. Neither does a potential client reading your About page for the first time.

Give both of them what they need.

4. Structured content

Clear headings. Scannable sections. Plain, direct language. Short paragraphs.

This is good practice for human readers too, but for AI it’s essential. If your content is dense, meandering, or structured like a stream of consciousness, an AI will struggle to extract meaning from it — and it will move on to something clearer.

5. Specificity about who you help and how

The more specific you are, the easier it is for an AI to match you to the right person.

“I help people feel better” tells an AI almost nothing. “I help high-achieving women process burnout using a blend of somatic practices and cognitive reframing” tells an AI quite a lot. It knows who, it knows the problem, it knows the approach. When someone asks “is there a practitioner who helps with burnout and nervous system work,” your name becomes a possible answer.

Specificity feels risky to many practitioners — as though narrowing down will mean turning people away. In practice, the opposite tends to be true.

A Three-Question Audit to Do Right Now

Before you change anything on your website, take five minutes with these three questions. They’ll tell you more than any analytics report.

One: If someone asked ChatGPT or Perplexity to recommend a practitioner who does what you do, in your location, would your name come up? Don’t guess — go and try it. Ask the question as your ideal client would ask it, and see what comes back. That’s your baseline.

Two: Does your website clearly answer the specific questions your ideal clients are actually typing into AI right now? Not the polished, abstract questions — the real ones. “How do I stop people-pleasing at work.” “Why do I feel so exhausted even when I’m doing everything right.” “Is there a counsellor who understands grief that doesn’t follow a timeline.” Those questions.

Three: Could an AI — or a complete stranger — read your homepage and About page and come away knowing clearly what you do, who you help, and why you’re credible? Read both pages as though you’ve never met yourself. What’s obvious? What’s missing?

Five Things You Can Do This Week

None of these require a website rebuild. They require clarity — which you already have. You may just need to make it visible.

Search for yourself on ChatGPT and Perplexity. Ask it to recommend someone with your specialisation in your area. Note what comes back. This is your starting point, not a verdict.

Add a clear “Who I Help” section to your homepage. One focused paragraph: the specific person, the specific problem, the specific shift you help them make. If it already exists, read it again and ask whether it’s actually specific enough.

Name your approach. If you have a way of working that’s distinctly yours, give it a name. Write a short paragraph describing it in plain language. Put it on your website.

Write one answer page. Choose one real question your ideal clients would ask an AI — a specific, honest question, not a polished one — and answer it directly and fully in a blog post or a page on your site. This is one of the most effective things you can do for AI search, and it’s also genuinely useful to the people you want to reach.

Update your About page with clear authority signals. Qualifications, years of practice, training, published work, the number of people you’ve worked with. Frame it as information, not a CV. You’re helping people understand whether you’re the right fit — that’s a service, not a sales pitch.

A Note on Where I’m Coming From

I spent years as Head of IT at Unilever, working across London and Rotterdam, at the intersection of large-scale technology and human systems. These days I work with coaches, counsellors, and healers — and I’ve built over 85 AI bots for clients across a range of industries.

I tell you this not to impress you, but because I want you to understand that I’ve sat on both sides of this. I know what technology can do, and I know what it can’t. I also know that most practitioners didn’t come to this work because they love technology. They came because they want to help people. My job is to translate the technical into the practical, so you don’t have to become a tech person to stay visible.

GEO isn’t complicated once you understand what it’s actually asking for. It’s asking for the same thing your ideal clients are asking for: clarity about who you are, what you do, and whether you’re the right person to help them.

Where to Start

If any of this has landed for you, the simplest next step is to find out exactly where you stand.

I've put together a free AI Visibility Audit, five quick checks that show you whether AI search tools like ChatGPT and Perplexity would actually recommend you, and what to adjust if they wouldn't. It takes about five minutes, and it's the same place I'd start with any practitioner wondering why the right clients aren't finding them online.

You'll find it here: https://audit.enlightenusolutions.com

And, if you'd like to go further, to look at your whole website through both the AI-search lens and your ideal client's eyes, I run a focused VIP Website Audit Day, where we work through your site together, and you leave with a clear, practical plan for what to change and why. I'll be sharing more on that soon, or you can contact me for details.

The people who need you are out there, asking their questions. Let’s make sure you’re part of the answer.

With grace and light,

Carrie