Google has spent the past month rebuilding search in front of us. At I/O 2026 it announced an AI overhaul of the search box, with Gemini 3.5 Flash now the default model in AI Mode globally. The May 2026 core update finished rolling out on 2 June after 12 days of significant ranking volatility. And on 3 June, Search Console gained a dedicated Search Generative AI performance report, starting with websites in the UK.
Against that backdrop, one question keeps coming up in conversations with marketing leaders: do we still need SEO, or do we now need GEO? The honest answer is that the question itself is slightly off, and understanding why will stop you paying for the same work twice.
Generative engine optimisation, or GEO, is the practice of improving how often, and how favourably, your content is cited in AI generated answers: Google's AI Overviews and AI Mode, ChatGPT, Perplexity and the rest. Interest in the topic has grown quickly. Searches for 'generative engine optimisation' now average 1,600 a month in the UK, with 'geo vs seo' at 900 a month. People are not idly curious; they are trying to work out whether their current search strategy still holds.
The concern is justified. AI Overviews answer many informational queries before a click ever happens. If your content feeds the answer but never earns the visit, the value exchange between your website and the platform has changed, and your measurement needs to change with it.
This week Google published new documentation on optimising for generative AI features in Search, and its position is unambiguous: optimising for AI Overviews and AI Mode is still SEO. There is no separate algorithm to court and no parallel discipline with its own secret levers. The foundations that earn organic rankings, which are crawlable structure, clear entity signals, demonstrable expertise and genuinely useful content, are the same foundations that earn citations in AI answers.
That does not mean nothing changes. It means the discipline keeps its name while its scope widens.
There are three shifts matter for UK organisations planning the next 12 months. We've highlighted these below:
First, structure wins. AI systems lift passages, not pages. Content that answers a specific question cleanly in a short, focused passage under a descriptive heading is far easier to cite than a meandering 2,000 word post that buries the answer in paragraph 14. Every page should make its core answers easy to extract.
Second, entity clarity matters more. Generative engines assemble answers from sources they can identify and trust. Consistent naming, accurate structured data, a maintained organisation profile and authoritative coverage of your specialism all help a machine understand who you are and why you are credible.
Third, measurement moves from clicks to influence. A citation in an AI Overview may never register as a session in your analytics, yet it shapes the buyer's shortlist. Reporting that only counts clicks will undervalue organic search precisely when it is working hardest.
Until this month, AI visibility was largely guesswork. The new Search Generative AI performance report in Search Console changes that. It provides dedicated views of how your site appears in AI Overviews, AI Mode and the generative features in Discover, covering impressions, pages, countries and devices. The rollout began on 3 June with a subset of websites in the UK, ahead of a global release. Google is also testing a control that lets site owners block their content from generative AI features entirely.
The report omits click data and query level metrics, which is a real limitation. But it is the first time Google has given site owners a native view of generative AI visibility, and the UK-first rollout means many of us can baseline now, before the data becomes table stakes.
Treat GEO as a lens on your existing Search Engine Optimisation programme, not a replacement for it. Check whether the new Search Console report is live on your properties and record a baseline. Audit your highest value pages for extractable answers and clean heading structure. Confirm your structured data and organisation signals are accurate and consistent. And be sceptical of anyone selling generative engine optimisation as a separate retainer with separate magic; Google has now said in plain terms that it is the same discipline.