From GEO Platforms to Agencies: 5 Routes to Win (and Lose) the AI Visibility Race

In 2026, trends and new technologies move faster than ever. Most of us will remember seeing the AI overview popping up at the top of Google for the first time. For many, it led to a simple question: Why? We'd all been getting our answers from Google – typing a question, clicking links, scanning webpages – for decades now. If it isn't broke, why fix it? Fast-forward to today, and shifting trends in how we find information online showcase that we've not only gotten used to the AI Overview, but we've come to rely on it.

The numbers speak for themselves

Click-through rates to news sites dropped from 2.3 billion visits in mid-2024 to under 1.7 billion as of May 2025, owing to visitors opting to read an AI overview instead of following a link. Google searches triggering AI Overviews have risen from 6–7% of searches in early 2025, to a staggering 48% of searches as of February 2026. And this is all without even considering the rise of using Generative AI platforms — such as ChatGPT or Perplexity — instead of Google, where McKinsey has reported that as many as 40–55% of consumers in top sectors are using AI-based searches to make purchase decisions.

So, what does this mean for you?

Simply put: it's more important than ever to get your name into the 'mouths' of Generative AI engines. On top of considering SEO (Search Engine Optimisation), we've had to familiarise ourselves with a new acronym: GEO (Generative Engine Optimisation), or the art of making your content so appealing that AI engines such as Google Overview, ChatGPT and Perplexity, just can't help themselves from referencing your website. We're now no longer simply writing for humans, but for machines who are talking to humans as well.

Who can help?

As these trends have grown and evolved, the space has already become crowded with different businesses offering their clients different types of GEO services. Each offers their own benefits and drawbacks to getting your name mentioned by AI models across the web. Let's take a closer look at the 5 primary options available, and analyse both the positives and drawbacks each can bring.

1) Dedicated GEO agencies

What?

These are firms who have risen alongside the meteoric growth of GEO and AI searches. As a result of this, they have been built for the Generative AI era from day one. They focus exclusively on GEO, build proprietary share-of-voice tracking, do prompt research and provide recommendations. In some instances they may offer activation services specifically for generative engines rather than SERPs.

Who?

lomo ai – UK-based GEO specialists delivering joined-up reporting, strategic recommendations and activation support to improve brand visibility inside LLMs.

Artios – A US and UK GEO agency that reverse-engineers AI buyer signals to help brands build the authority needed to be consistently cited by AI searches.

Genevate – A US-based GEO agency that combines strategic media relations with generative engine optimisation to position brands as trusted authorities in AI-generated answers.

The Pros...

True Specialists – For these businesses, GEO is the name of the game. They tend to have sharper, more current methodologies than solutions where GEO is an add-on. They'll be tracking model behaviour changes, prompt patterns and citation dynamics as their primary focus.

Activation & Insight – Unlike dedicated GEO platforms which provide intelligence but leave the execution up to you, agencies can move from analysis to strategy and finally to delivery. This is a more complete solution for teams lacking an in-house GEO capability.

No Internal Bias Towards Legacy – SEO-focused agencies and platforms making the pivot towards GEO will have a commercial incentive to protect their core offering. On the other hand, GEO-first agencies have no such conflict, and will recommend based solely on GEO optimisation.

...and the Cons

The Level of Service – Dedicated GEO data platforms – like Evertune or Semrush's AI toolkit – are primarily built for visibility and reporting. A dedicated GEO agency goes further, layering in strategic recommendations and activation – a broader scope of work at a higher price point. For many businesses, monitoring and measurement from a data platform may be sufficient.

Newer Track Records – GEO is young, and so are many of these businesses. Compared to established SEO agencies with years of client success, the evidence base is a lot thinner. Remember though that this is an industry-wide challenge and not specific to any individual business.

Conflict with SEO – The phrase 'too many cooks' can summarise this point. If a client already has an SEO agency or platform in place, implementing a separate GEO agency/platform can create ownership issues of where SEO ends and GEO begins.

2) Dedicated GEO data platforms

What?

Much like the agencies mentioned above, these platforms are emerging and growing with GEO. Think of tools that track AI citations, where a brand is mentioned in AI answers and how often. While simpler platforms will solely track visibility and analytics, more advanced programmes will analyse how AI models frame a brand at an attribute level, identifying which product features and value propositions are being emphasised, downplayed, or omitted.

Who?

Profound – An enterprise AI visibility platform tracking brand presence, citations and share of voice across 10+ LLMs.

AirOps – A content engineering platform combining AI search insights with content creation tools to help brands win citations at scale.

Scrunch – An AI visibility platform that monitors brand presence across major LLMs, analyses citation sources and delivers AI-optimised content directly to agents.

The Pros...

Scalable Intelligence for Less – A dedicated GEO platform offers rich, continuously visible insight at a fraction of the cost of a full agency retainer. While this is obviously far more limiting than a full service, it's a more viable option for teams on a budget.

Data is Objective – Humans are biased. Data is not. These are analytic tools rather than service providers, meaning that their reporting does not need to justify their strategy or recommendations. Brands get an honest, clear image from a GEO platform.

Breadth of Coverage – Many of these platforms measure upwards of ten AI models simultaneously, giving you a rich and detailed picture. This scale of tracking would be operationally impractical to replicate through manual audits or spot-checks carried out by GEO agencies.

...and the Cons

Insight... but No Execution – It's all very well and good having data available to you, but without internal GEO expertise to action it, its use is limited. Teams typically need upwards of 40 hours a month to act meaningfully on GEO data.

Steep Learning Curve – Interpreting and acting on citation and AI visibility data may require dedicated GEO expertise beyond the traditional SEO skill set. You may think that the data is enough to work with, but end up requiring agency support in the end, regardless.

Built to Scale, Not Consult – These SaaS platforms are typically conceived and engineered to scale quickly. One GEO expansion route could be to develop their recommendations capability and activation services. To fit with their SaaS scale model these are most likely to be agentic solutions without human in the loop, which may or may not work for your business.

3) SEO agencies with added GEO services

What?

Far more widespread than the previous solutions, these businesses are established names who are pivoting to include GEO in their existing offering. Whether this is in the form of a new stand-alone service line, a GEO add-on bolted onto existing retainers, or a full rebrand of their organic search proposition, the common thread is that GEO is being grafted onto a foundation built for traditional search engines and SEO.

Who?

First Page Sage — A US-based SEO agency that pioneered GEO in 2023, combining thought leadership content marketing with generative AI optimisation to help B2B brands appear in AI-generated answers across ChatGPT, Gemini and Perplexity.

Clickslice — A boutique London SEO agency that has extended its offering into Answer Engine Optimisation, helping ecommerce and growth-stage brands build visibility across both traditional and AI search.

BlueArray — The UK's largest specialist organic search agency and the first in the UK to offer GEO as a service, integrating generative engine optimisation alongside SEO and digital PR for enterprise clients.

The Pros...

One-Stop-Shops – Just because the importance of GEO is growing, doesn't mean that SEO is dead. In fact, GEO requires strong topic authority, structured information, and a broad mix of external references that traditional SEO helps build. This means that there's genuine strategic value in having both managed by one team.

Proven Infrastructure & Frameworks – With established reporting frameworks, dedicated account teams, and years of client relationship experience, you can be certain that SEO-focused agencies will come with a level of operational maturity that can't be guaranteed with brand new, GEO-centric offerings.

Breadth of Resources – The larger SEO agencies often have specialist teams across technical SEO, content, digital PR, and analytics, all of which feed into effective GEO. Businesses dedicated to GEO may struggle with under-resourcing for these functions.

...and the Cons

GEO as an Afterthought – Agencies who have built their name from SERP ranking specialism may treat GEO as an add-on service rather than a distinct discipline. This may result in applying SEO logic to problems that require specialised thinking about how LLMs retrieve and evaluate content. Unlike SEO, GEO is a fragmented delivery model spanning brand, content, owned media, earned media and paid.

Measurement Gaps – SEO agencies typically measure performance through organic ranking, impressions and traffic. GEO requires a separate level of tracking – share-of-voice in AI answers, citation frequency, prompt-level tracking etc. – that many SEO agencies are either still developing or lacking entirely.

Questionable Quality – GEO has become a marketing label. As a result, the market will range from genuinely capable SEO agencies who are invested in AI search methodology, to ones that have simply stuck 'GEO' onto their services pages to attract interest. Buyers need to be ruthless in their research and specifically seek evidence of capability beyond on-site optimisation, particularly around brand strategy and earned media.

4) SEO data platforms with added GEO insights

What?

As with SEO agencies adding GEO capabilities to their offering, existing SEO data platforms are also adding AI visibility modules, AI SERP features, and GEO dashboards on top of their existing keyword and rank-tracking stacks.

Who?

SimilarWeb – An AI-powered digital intelligence platform that provides market, competitive and consumer insights across web and search, with AI visibility features layered onto its core analytics stack.

Semrush – Recently acquired by Adobe, this leading SEO and digital marketing platform has expanded into AI search visibility, tracking brand mentions and citations across major LLMs alongside its established keyword and competitive research tools.

SE Ranking – An accessible AI SEO platform offering rank tracking, actionable insights and automated reporting, with AI search monitoring capabilities built into its broader organic search toolkit.

The Pros...

Workflow Consolidation – These platforms already sit at the centre of most marketing teams' organic search workflows, and adding AI visibility data to an existing dashboard removes the need for another vendor. Fewer logins, fewer vendor relationships, and easier cross-referencing of SEO and AI visibility, all in one place.

Cost Efficiency – If you're going to two separate suppliers for your SEO or GEO needs, then it goes without saying that you end up with two invoices. By combining the two into one software you're looking at significant savings for the teams that require both SEO and GEO analysis.

Scale of Underlying Data – These established SEO data platforms come with enormous pre-existing datasets to bear on GEO. Semrush for example has over 27 billion keywords and 43 trillion backlinks in its foundation, something that a new, stand-alone GEO platform cannot easily replicate.

...and the Cons

GEO as an Afterthought... Again – It's the same story as with SEO-centric agencies. GEO competes with, rather than complements the SEO metrics these platforms were built to serve. What that means for you is a structural risk that AI visibility features receive slower development cycles and shallower investment than the core product.

Monitoring without Activation – As we saw with dedicated GEO data platforms, SEO platforms with GEO modules are primarily measurement tools. They tell you where you're not appearing, but translating this into content and an authority-building strategy requires in-house expertise or an agency partner.

New Problems, Old Platform – Teams seeking GEO intelligence may find themselves paying for extensive keyword databases and backlink analysis they don't need just to access the AI visibility layer. More fundamentally, GEO remains a module within an SEO product for these platforms, not the core mission. As GEO-dedicated platforms continue to evolve into recommendations and activations, this gap is likely to widen even further.

5) PR agencies with added GEO services

What?

This may seem like the wildcard of the list, but consider it for a moment. PR is about mentions, authority, and media placement, which map well to being cited in generative answers. It seems logical that many PR agencies would pivot to packaging this as GEO or "AI visibility" offerings.

Who?

PR Agency One – An award-winning Manchester and London B2B and B2C PR consultancy that combines classic media relations with integrated digital, SEO and earned media strategies to build the kind of brand authority that underpins AI visibility.

Finn Partners – A global independent communications agency that has developed a structured GEO offering spanning technical optimisation, entity alignment, authoritative content and digital PR, with tiered service packages from entry-level to enterprise.

The Pros...

Earned Media: the Foundation of GEO – Earned media accounts for roughly 25% of all citations generated by LLMs across major engines... and PR owns this. PR agencies have spent years developing media relationships and editorial instincts that produce exactly the authoritative coverage that AI models are trained to trust and cite.

Building Reputation – For brands in regulated industries or those managing complex reputations, a PR agency with added GEO thinking offers something uniquely valuable: the ability to shape how a brand is described and contextualised across the authoritative sources that AI systems treat as ground truth.

Consolidated Communications – For brands that already have a PR agency managing communications, adding GEO to that engagement creates natural efficiency. Editorial calendars, messaging frameworks and media relationships can all be leveraged for AI visibility without a separate briefing process.

...and the Cons

Technical Gaps – Effective GEO is far more than authoritative media coverage. Structured data, schema implementation, entity optimisation and on-site content architecture are all meaningful citation signals that sit outside a typical PR agency's expertise. This results in the potential need for a PR team to outsource to fully cover their clients' needs.

Difficulty Measuring – Unlike dedicated GEO agencies or data platforms that are built around citation tracking and share-of-voice dashboards, many PR agencies offering GEO services are still developing the tooling and reporting frameworks to demonstrate that their work is actually producing improvements in AI searches.

Inconsistent GEO Depth – The quality gap in this category is wider than the others. A PR firm with genuine GEO methodology, editorial relationships calibrated to LLM citation patterns and a measurement infrastructure is a strong proposition. One that has simply added "GEO" to its capabilities page is not. This option will require you to perform due diligence to make sure you're selecting the right partner.