Key takeaways
• GEO measurement should extend beyond visibility to include accuracy, positioning, message pull-through, and source quality.
• AI visibility scores can be useful directional indicators, but they are based on samples and proxies rather than complete search data.
• AI referral traffic is worth monitoring, but it only captures the fraction of users who click a link, missing the larger audience reading the summary.
• GEO is ultimately as much a reputation management challenge as it is a technical search visibility challenge.
If AI-powered search is changing how people discover information, evaluate suppliers, and shortlist potential partners, organisations naturally want to track how visible they are within those environments.
Although nobody outside the major AI companies has access to comprehensive prompt data in the way we do for traditional search, the intelligent sampling and proxy measurements used by the first wave of GEO tools from platforms, such as Semrush, is genuinely helping brands to understand how frequently they might appear in AI-generated responses, compared to competitors.
Similarly, although most AI queries are unlikely to result in a click through to a website, AI referral traffic data from Google Analytics offers another useful directional indicator of a brand’s potential AI presence.
However, influencing AI models is not just a visibility challenge. It’s also a reputational one.
Why visibility alone is not enough
Imagine a journalist mentions your company in an article. You would never evaluate that coverage purely on whether your name appeared. You would also consider whether the information was accurate, whether it reinforced the reputation you are trying to build, how you were positioned relative to competitors, and whether readers would come away with the right impression of the organisation.
The same principle applies to GEO. A brand appearing in an AI-generated answer is not automatically a success. The information could be outdated or inaccurate due to the AI relying on weak sources – or the response could completely overlook the areas of expertise the organisation most wants to be known for.
Visibility matters but representation matters more.
Measuring reputation inside AI systems
This is where GEO measurement starts to look less like traditional search measurement and more like communications research. While dashboards can tell us whether a brand appears, they don’t tell us about how that brand is being portrayed.
As a result, one of the most valuable GEO exercises is simply asking AI platforms the same questions that customers, journalists, investors, recruits, or industry stakeholders might ask. The answers are likely to reveal positioning gaps that no visibility score can identify.
You quickly see which brands dominate the conversation, which sources the AI appears to trust, what language is being used to describe different organisations, and whether key messages are being reflected consistently.
The industry is moving in this direction
This more holistic approach to GEO measurement is where the communications industry is heading. In May 2026, the International Association for Measurement and Evaluation of Communication (AMEC) published its first GEO Principles and Practitioner Guide, recognising the growing need for consistency and transparency in AI-era measurement. Rather than focusing on a single score, the guidance encourages practitioners to combine multiple indicators of visibility, authority, reputation, discoverability, content quality, and business impact.
That feels like a sensible direction of travel because AI-generated answers do not exist in isolation. They are a reflection of the wider information ecosystem surrounding a brand, including its media coverage, thought leadership, website content, industry authority, and third-party references.
If those underlying signals are weak, GEO performance is unlikely to remain strong for long.
Hannah Kitchener
Associate Director
About the author
Hannah is an associate director in the UK, leading strategic campaigns for industrial clients across the EMEA region. A professionally qualified journalist (NCTJ), she combines specialist sectoral knowledge in construction, energy, and materials handling with a strong network of trade media contacts to secure valuable coverage. Her expertise in inter-cultural communication, honed by degrees in modern languages and translation, is key to executing campaigns that succeed across diverse European markets.
