The visibility shift: Rules for showing up with GEO

If you want AI to find your brand, you have to show up where AI is actually looking.

Will Hodges, technology communications leader at PwC, said communicators are entering a new era of visibility, one that’s still shaped by SEO, but also by the rise of GEO.

“AI is changing how stories are found, cited and trusted,” Hodges said. “The rules of visibility are shifting, and communicators need to shift with them.”

Speaking ahead of his session, “SEO & GEO Search Wars 2026: Boost Visibility on AI-First Browsers” at AI Horizons Conference, Hodges broke down the practical steps teams can take right now to make their content more discoverable in an AI-first world.

Don’t ditch SEO. Just expand your toolkit

Traditional search still matters, Hodges said. But the focus is shifting.

“The center of gravity is moving from page rank to answer rank,” he said.

Instead of just fighting for the top link, communicators need to work toward being repeatedly cited in AI-generated answer panels. This is reinforced through content LLMs prefer, like those previously mentioned lists and FAQs or information that can be corroborated across multiple channels.

Still, Hodges warns against thinking GEO replaces SEO. It’s important to incorporate those SEO basics into your content strategy.

“I wouldn’t say we’re throwing page rank and SEO out the door,” he said. “GEO is just another tool in your toolkit.”

Show up where the engines pull from

Before anything else, Hodges said communicators need to understand how generative engines decide what to surface.

“The generative engines don’t crawl like traditional search engines do. They select,” he said. “If you want to be cited, you have to live where AI is looking.”

Right now, that includes a handful of places, including:

• Reddit, where community conversations help validate information
• YouTube transcripts, rather than just the videos
• Well-structured blogs, FAQs and press releases
• Earned media or places that show authority
• PDFs and structured data

This shift is why content consistency across channels matters more than ever, he said.

“At the end of the day, it’s message consistency,” Hodges said. “Those brilliant basics still matter.”

Format content so AI can easily understand and cite it

One of the fastest wins for comms teams is publishing content in formats large language models prefer.

“There is a structure that these LLMs love,” he said. “FAQs, fact sheets, clearly formatted blog posts. They love lists. They love action steps.”

This doesn’t mean abandoning creativity or unique ideas. But it’s about removing friction for the engines that now act as gatekeepers. Keep content as clear and concise as possible, he said.

“We’re entering a world where the story needs to be understandable by the tech before it’s human-readable,” he said. “Multimodal discoverability is coming fast.”

Run citation audits to see how AI sees you

One of Hodges’ most practical recommendations is to run a simple 10–15 minute citation audit.

This includes comparing where your brand and your competitors’ brands are showing up in AI summaries.

“Run some queries, note where you stand and benchmark it,” he said. “And if there are items that are inaccurate, knowing how to flag them, that is very much part of the process.”

If your brand is misquoted or there are factual inaccuracies, people may never even reach your page, he said. So this step is critical.

There are numerous free tools to do this, Hodges said. Grammarly, Perplexity and Google Search Console have query tools to get you started.

The real value is just taking the time to check how AI systems reference your brand versus your competitors, he said.

“It’s about understanding what the engines think your story is,” he said.

Be adaptable to change

Discoverability won’t stay text-only for long. Video audio and images and will soon show answers inside interfaces and devices, he said.

But comms pros shouldn’t feel overwhelmed by this shift. They just need to make some adjustments.

“There’s not really that much of a gap between where this is and where it’s going,” he said. “It’s just making sure we’re putting those tactics together in a way that’s primed for the GEO future.”

Hodges says visibility comes down to being deliberate.

“My goal is to give communicators a playbook they can use the moment they step out of the room,” he said. “Show up where AI is looking. Make yourself easy to find.”

Register here to learn more from Hodges and other industry experts during Ragan’s AI Horizons Conference Feb. 2-4 in Ft. Lauderdale, Fl.

Courtney Blackann is a communications reporter. Connect with her on LinkedIn or email her at [email protected].