SEO, SEM, and GEO: Understanding the Differences and Opportunities

How people find your brand from paid clicks to AI answers.

One of my colleagues recently pointed out something every marketing and product team should think about. He searched for our product on Google and found it right at the top. That was expected since we have put in years of effort on SEO and SEM, and it pays off in traditional search engines. But when he tried the same query in the AI version of the same search engine, our product did not appear on the first page at all. He had to click all the way to page six before finding a mention. That is not a small gap. It shows how quickly the search ecosystem is changing, and it is something people need to pay close attention to.

As Generative AI tools become the popular way for people to ask questions, explore products, and make decisions, the traditional SEO playbook does not work on its own anymore. Paid ads through SEM will not make a difference either if the interface people see is no longer a list of results but an AI-generated answer.

Generative Engine Optimization, or GEO, is the practice of making sure your brand appears in answers from AI-powered tools and AI search engines such as ChatGPT, Claude, or Gemini. The goal is no longer just to rank on a page but to become part of the answer itself.

In this article, I want to provide a short overview of how these three approaches work, what makes them different, and how GEO fits into the evolving search ecosystem. By understanding these nuances, marketers and executives can make smarter and more adaptive decisions about how they invest in growth, visibility, and long-term digital strategy.

If you’d like to hear more, also watch or listen the Second Draft (SD²) Podcast.

SEO, SEM, and GEO: How AI is Changing Search

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