By Purva Gupta, Co-Founder and CEO of Lily AI
Key Takeaways:
- How the rules of SEO are changing in the AI and GEO era.
- New GEO visibility tools are invaluable, yet retail requires more than diagnostics.
- Lily AI helps retailers build structured, AI-ready content that improves discovery, accuracy, and conversion.
In a recent post from Andreessen Horowitz, they broke down how generative search is rewriting the rules of SEO and reshaping the search engine experience right before our eyes. While this may come as news to some, digital and search marketers have been closely watching this transformation and strategizing on what comes next.
In the SEO era of yesterday, it was a rankings game based on technical factors (such as core web vitals and page speed), as well as on-site and off-site content (think keywords, backlinks, etc) for indexing. Success was measured by where your site appeared on a list of blue links.
In today’s GEO (Generative Engine Optimization) world, the rules look different. It’s not about ranking on a page. It’s about being included in the answer itself—inside a synthesized, context-aware response from a large language model. Winning means showing up with accurate, on-brand, and consumer-relevant information.
The New Rules of SEO and GEO
So, have the rules changed? In many ways, yes, and in many ways, no.
The end-game has indeed shifted from being a gateway to the destination itself, from producing a ranking of results via links to a singular answer that, in the retail context, includes brand and product reviews and recommendations.
Yet, machines and AI, like consumers, value product content that is well structured and easy to crawl and index, as well as content that is helpful and thorough. GEO prefers natural language and consumer-friendly content that answers questions, rather than keyword stuffing or using industry jargon and technical terminology. Investing in product content is a winning strategy for both SEO and GEO.
Consumers Are Actively Adopting Generative Search
Why should brands and retailers take note of the growing GEO trend? Because their customers are already there.
Over 40% of consumers reported using AI-powered search for online shopping. Those clicks are being reported as a growing source of referral traffic to retailers. Take ChatGPT, for example. It’s already driving referral traffic to tens of thousands of distinct domains, according to SEMrush.
That kind of behavioral shift speaks volumes about where product discovery is heading—and why getting content AI-ready from the start matters more than ever.
Thriving In an SEO and GEO World
Yet, much of the broader GEO conversation has centered on monitoring and diagnosis. What’s often missing is the upstream solution: creating AI-optimized content in the first place.
Retailers are under increasing pressure to meet the specifications of countless AI platforms. But expecting them to constantly retrofit content to align with these evolving standards is both inefficient and unsustainable. The industry needs a foundation-first approach.
At Lily AI, we empower retailers by transforming product data into AI-ready answers upfront, at the point of content creation. We then continue to dynamically refine and optimize this content based on real-world consumer searches and product performance. This includes:
- Proactive Optimization: Content is born optimized for AI understanding, from objective micro-attributes (e.g., “tight-fitting sleeve”) to subjective, consumer-centric terms (e.g., “coastal aesthetic”).
- Reduced Rework: Instead of waiting for AI to detect a problem and tasking the retailer to fix it, we deliver an accurate content foundation from day one.
- Seamless Distribution: This natively optimized content flows into selling platforms and informs LLMs directly, reducing misinformation and enhancing discovery.
While many discussions focus on visibility metrics, Lily AI delivers what comes before that: the actual content layer that generative engines require. We help retailers speak the language of both consumers and machines, ensuring accurate and consistent representation across search, recommendation engines, and AI-powered discovery platforms.
In Summary:
As generative engines reshape how products are discovered and how brands are represented, the expectations placed on product content are rising fast. Retailers that build with AI in mind from the beginning, not as a reaction, will gain visibility, efficiency, and lasting advantage in both an SEO and increasingly GEO-driven world.