Lyndall Spooner, Founder and CEO, 5D
Search SEO has always helped brands get seen and, in theory, bought. But as AI becomes more widely adopted, generative engine optimisation (GEO) is increasingly deciding which brands get seen and then chosen. For the first time, the decision-making process that companies have spent decades trying to influence is being run by machines, not humans.
Millions of people are already using AI to research products, compare options and make purchasing decisions. They’re not scrolling through search results or browsing websites the way they used to. They’re asking questions of AI and trusting the answers they get back. If your brand isn’t part of those answers, you don’t exist in their world. If so, the brand has a chance to increase the number of people it reaches and converts.
The algorithm as gatekeeper
The traditional marketing playbook assumed you could build awareness, shape perception and earn consideration over time. That model relied on customers encountering your brand repeatedly through advertising, retail presence and word of mouth. But when AI becomes the gatekeeper, all that changes. The rise of GEO means that brands now need to move from trying to influence humans to trying to influence algorithms. If a customer’s first encounter with your brand comes through an AI recommendation, will the algorithm choose you?
But what’s emerging now is a different way of shopping. Call it guided discovery buying: the buyer has a motivation to purchase but has no pre-conceived set of brand options and lacks deep knowledge of the category and confidence to make a choice.
Enter ‘guided discovery buying’
Rather than starting with a brand or a product feature, the person starts by asking exploratory questions to discover what they need to know and quickly get the information they need to feel confident in making a choice. Brands that can be picked up by AI and included in a recommendation are highly likely to be chosen and increase their brand win rates.
When a customer asks an AI tool for help – such as what is the right health cover for someone like me, which banks offer cheaper home loan rates, what should I look for when buying an electric car – the questions are deliberately broad and basic. But they set the person on a pathway that goes into a deeper and deeper discovery mode with more detailed questions as their knowledge increases.
The confidence to ask ‘stupid’ questions
Guided discovery buying can be emotionally rewarding. There is no fear or shame with asking stupid questions to AI. Information is available immediately but with a sense of independence and reliability. At the same time, using AI gives a higher level of confidence than search did in terms of making choices and that confidence reduces post-purchase rationalisation (people feel good about their decisions). And when they feel good about their purchasing decision, they are more committed to brands.
Increasingly, people like having the tools to discover and learn what they don’t know at the time they need it, as opposed to constantly updating their own knowledge and carrying that in their head for the time when they might need it. We don’t need to remember much at all today; we just need to know how to find the information we need when we need it.
Beyond keywords: thinking in concepts
When a customer asks these questions, the AI system won’t go looking for specific keywords. Instead, it will search for relationships and the meaning and context built around your brand across all online and social media. AI works off vector databases, that is, it thinks in concepts not specific matches. It pieces together ideas from many content sources to create a picture of your brand. If you want your brand to be recommended by AI, the meaning surrounding the brand must be consistent and customer-centric.
But too many brands have content which is product-first rather than customer-first, technical, jargon-heavy and focused on features instead of what the customer actually wants to know. If the algorithm cannot understand what service you offer or what your product does, you won’t be included in the recommendations. It’s as simple as that.
The ‘so what?’ test
Content now needs to serve both the machine and human audience. But it isn’t about stuffing pages with keywords. Content needs to be created in a way that reflects how people actually think and how they ask questions. Don’t just describe what you offer. You need to explain the “so what” and the real-world benefit. Don’t just list the features but explain what situations they solve. The customer’s desired outcome and experience is what you are demonstrating you can deliver.
Most brand content today is still not customer-centric enough to succeed in an AI-first world. It doesn’t acknowledge the journey people are actually on or the emotional context shaping their decisions. Forget the customer journey maps and the omnichannel experience you designed in 2025: the companies that effectively tap into guided discovery buying can convert a consumer to a customer before they even get to the website.
Marketers face a simple reality: if AI can’t find you, customers won’t either. But if it can find you, your chances of winning increase. Being memorable isn’t enough anymore. Your brand needs to work in two dimensions at once, connecting with people and registering with machines in an highly exploratory path to purchase.
Main Image: Lyndall Spooner, Founder and CEO, 5D