SEO vs GEO: What Brands Must Know Before Hiring an AI Search Agency

Jan de Vries · 2026-09-15

Hiring an SEO agency used to be simple. You'd check case studies, review ranking history, agree on a reporting cadence. Done. But that world has shifted under our feet. AI-generated answers from ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, and Google's AI Overviews now sit alongside — and often in front of — the traditional results page. And here's the kicker: the skill set that earns you a spot in one system doesn't automatically earn you a spot in the other. A brand can hire a perfectly competent SEO team and still be completely invisible in the answer an AI assistant gives a buyer researching the same category. That's a real problem. ### Why GEO Is Not Just SEO With a New Label More procurement conversations now specifically name generative engine optimisation agency capability as a separate line item. Smart move. Assuming any SEO vendor can bolt AI-visibility work onto an existing retainer is how brands end up disappointed six months in. The two disciplines share a foundation — a crawlable, well-structured, credible website. But they're measured differently, reported differently, and often need different specialists to execute well. Traditional SEO is still mostly about earning a ranking position and a click. Backlinks, on-page relevance, and technical health decide who shows up in those ten blue links. GEO is about earning a citation inside an answer the user never has to click through. That's decided by entity authority, structured data, and independent mentions the AI system trusts. The overlap in the middle is where most of your budget should go. Content that's genuinely well-sourced and clearly structured tends to perform in both systems at once. A competent combined agency should optimise for that overlap, not treat it as two separate deliverables. ### What to Evaluate Before You Sign Anything A few questions separate agencies with real GEO capability from ones that just relabeled an existing service: - **Documented proof in both channels.** Ask for actual ranking data alongside specific, verifiable examples of the agency's content being cited in ChatGPT, Perplexity, or AI Overviews. A screenshot of a single citation isn't a track record. Ask how many clients, and over what period. - **A technical foundation, not just content tricks.** The strongest GEO work is built on the same technical rigor as strong SEO — crawlability, site architecture, structured data. If an agency can't speak to your site's technical health, its GEO plan is probably just content rewrites. - **A real measurement method.** Standard rank trackers don't capture whether a brand was cited inside an AI answer. Ask exactly how the agency tracks citation frequency and "share of voice" across AI platforms, how often that gets reported, and what a baseline audit looks like before work starts. - **Transparent, scoped pricing.** Mid-market GEO retainers typically run in a fairly wide band, so ask what's actually included at each tier — audits, content production, digital PR, ongoing monitoring — rather than accepting a vague monthly number. - **Fit with your industry.** Some agencies specialise by vertical, client size, or number of markets served. A firm built for enterprise technical SEO audits isn't necessarily the right fit for a regional service business, and vice versa. > "The biggest mistake brands make is assuming GEO is just SEO with a new label. It's not. It's a different game with different scoreboards." ### SEO and GEO Agencies to Consider Here's a quick look at how a few agencies split their work between traditional SEO and GEO, and who each tends to serve, based on what they publish about their own services. **Panem Agency** offers technical, on-page, off-page, and local SEO alongside AI citation audits, schema/E-E-A-T content builds, and monthly AI-visibility scorecards across ChatGPT, Gemini, and Perplexity. They're best for brands that want one partner handling both channels with a unified strategy. Other agencies in this space tend to specialise. Some focus purely on enterprise technical SEO. Others are digital PR shops that have added GEO monitoring. A few are pure-play GEO boutiques. The right choice depends on whether you need depth in one area or breadth across both. ### The Bottom Line Don't assume your existing SEO agency can handle GEO just because they say they can. Ask the hard questions. Look for proof. And remember: the goal isn't to rank — it's to be the answer. Those are two very different things, and only one of them wins in the age of AI search.