Google just made the biggest update to its search experience in 25 years. By making AI Mode its default search interface, Google has essentially signaled the end of the SEO-first era and the official birth of the GEO era.
Whereas the original Google search experience would mean typing in keywords to yield a list of blue links, defaulting to AI Mode means that Google now acts much more like ChatGPT, Claude, and the other LLMs we’ve grown accustomed to using over the last few years. Users can describe what they’re looking for in more natural language while also using images, videos, files, and even Chrome tabs to search. It’s powered by Gemini 3.5 Flash, Google’s model built for agents and coding.
The importance of this change can’t be overstated: It’s the biggest thing to ever happen in SEO. The primary search visibility signal for brands is now earning a citation rather than ranking for a position.
It also means that GEO — or optimizing your brand to appear in AI responses — is more strategically important than ever.
Stacker has seen in its research with Scrunch that earned distribution significantly moves the needle when it comes to AI visibility. Having your brand content appear on news websites that AI has already deemed authoritative lends credibility to your brand.
Google doubling down on AI Mode is especially good news for the brands Stacker works with because Google’s AI platforms are where the Stacker network tends to perform the best.
Brand content (either on the brand’s own site or via a placement on the Stacker network) is cited significantly more frequently in Google AI Mode than on other platforms. For the stories that Stacker is currently tracking, brands are cited 46.5% of the time on Google AI Mode, compared to 32% on Google AI Overviews and 28.6% on Google Gemini.
All three of Google’s AI platforms outperform the other platforms we track, with Perplexity coming in fourth place.
Stacker built its platform around SEO, helping distribute content that’s fresh, data-backed, and educational. It turns out that those are the same qualities favored by LLMs.
Google has said that its generative AI models are built on the same ranking and quality systems that power its organic search engine. With that in mind, it makes sense that the Stacker content that performs well in SEO is continuing to do well in Google’s AI products.
While in the past, brands may have built a content visibility strategy around optimizing for certain keywords, the GEO era means optimizing for credibility. Content should answer specific questions, include verifiable data points, and feature expert perspectives and proper citations.
This doesn’t mean that SEO is dead — traditional SEO metrics (like organic traffic, keyword rankings, conversion rates) are still important, but they’re now secondary to GEO.
If they aren’t tracking them already, marketing leaders should now add AI-specific metrics such as:
It’s also a reminder of the importance of a strong distribution strategy. A recent study from Muck Rack found that earned media drives up to 84% of all AI citations across Gemini, Claude, and ChatGPT. That earned media could come in the form of traditional press hits, or via distribution like on Stacker’s network of thousands of high-authority publishers.
We’ll be studying how these changes and others in the search landscape (like the agents that Google also announced at I/O) affect brand visibility going forward. Reach out to learn how Stacker can support your GEO strategy.
Kevin Fowler is Head of SEO at Stacker, where he leads SEO, GEO and data strategy. With over a decade of experience, he has built and executed search strategies for brands in finance, e-commerce, media and tech. He holds an M.S. in Industrial and Organizational Psychology from Angelo State University and has worked in SEO roles at CoPilot, Volusion, Wunderman, and CreditCards.com.