AI & Search Engines Collide

The digital world continues to evolve at breakneck speed, and search engines are right at the heart of it. Both Google and Microsoft Bing have stepped up their game by weaving advanced artificial intelligence (AI) into the way we search. These updates are changing not just how users explore the web, but also how businesses need to show up online.

So, what does all this AI buzz really mean? And what’s this new thing called Generative Engine Optimization (GEO) that’s popping up next to traditional SEO? Let’s break it down.

Google is taking a major step toward a more intuitive and interactive search experience with the launch of AI Overviews (formerly known as the Search Generative Experience, or SGE). This new feature is all about making search feel more natural and interactive. Now, instead of just typing in keywords, you can combine text and images to ask more complex, real-world questions.

Let’s say you snap a photo of some odd-looking kitchen gadget and wonder, “How do I use this?” Google’s AI can now analyze the image, understand your question, and serve up a smart, helpful answer. That’s thanks to Gemini, Google’s powerful AI model that brings together visual and text-based search in one (mostly) smooth experience.

What’s even more interesting (and exciting), AI Overviews pull info from across the web and give you a quick, conversational summary, rather than a long list of links. For brands and content creators, this means your content could show up in the answer itself—not just as a link. That’s exciting, but it also means it’s time to think differently about how your content is being found and used.

Not to be outdone, Microsoft has introduced Copilot in Bing, integrating OpenAI’s GPT-4 technology directly into its search engine. This new feature brings a more interactive, conversational approach to search, guiding you through tasks, helping you reason through complex problems, and offering real-time assistance.

Need help writing a report, planning a trip, or comparing products? Bing Copilot can guide users through multi-step tasks while pulling in live web results to back it up. It even cites its sources, which adds a layer of transparency and trustworthiness to the AI responses.

Bing is also focusing on task-based interaction, where users stay within the search engine longer and engage with it more deeply. For businesses, this shift could change the way we think about click-through rates and how organic traffic success is measured.

As AI-generated answers start to take the top spots in search results, a new strategy is gaining traction: Generative Engine Optimization (GEO).

Traditional Search Engine Optimization (SEO) has always been about making sure your website ranks higher on search engine results pages (SERPs). This means focusing on things like keyword research, on-page optimization, backlinks, and making your site mobile-friendly, among other tactics.

GEO, on the other hand, shifts the focus to optimizing your content to be used and cited by AI in generative responses. Since AI search tools like Google’s AI Overviews and Bing Copilot summarize content from multiple sources, the goal of GEO is to create high-quality, trustworthy content that AI systems can recognize and include in their outputs.

Here’s how GEO and SEO compare: