by Yana Miladinova, Communications Consultant
Everyone has Googled themselves, but have you ChatGPT-ed yourself? If not, what the hell are you waiting for?
According to ChatGPT, I'm "enthusiastic about PR, proactive about personal branding, and engaged with industry events and networks." Sounds awesome - let me add it as my LinkedIn bio straight away.
Jokes aside, what AI thinks of us, your brand, your clients' brands is way more significant than a game of daisy picking. Because even if the current media has a relatively short span of attention and sometimes quickly moves to another flare, AI remembers everything. Yes, even those Facebook comments you left 10 years ago. And the same is valid for those slightly negative company news or controversial CEO's quotes your customers might have forgotten, but the moment someone types your brand name into Claude, history is repeating itself.
Here's the thing about traditional PR and SEO: we spent decades chasing Google's algorithm, building backlinks, earning coverage, optimising headlines. And rightly so. But the rules have shifted. When someone wants to know whether to trust your brand, work with your CEO, or buy your product, they're increasingly not typing a question into Google. They're asking ChatGPT. They're querying Perplexity. They're letting Gemini summarise your reputation before they've even visited your website.
GEO isn't about gaming a new system for the sake of it. It's about understanding that AI tools synthesise information from across the entire digital footprint of a brand, not just the shiny press release from last month. The comment thread from 2019, the niche industry forum your CEO posted on, and the analyst report you forgot existed are all pieces of the same puzzle. AI doesn't rank results. It builds a narrative. And if you're not actively shaping the inputs, you're leaving your story to chance.
The good news? As PR professionals, we are already trained on how to own this. We know how to build authority, develop brand messaging, and create content that earns trust. GEO doesn't require an entirely new discipline. It simply asks us to apply our existing skills with one new question in mind: what would AI think of this?
As such, creating educational, original content consistently that AI models can scan must be at the forefront of each PR & marketing strategy. It means thinking about everything associated with your brand: spokespeople, values, areas of expertise, and making sure those associations are built and reinforced across every channel. What lives on a blog post, needs to be crawled across social media. AI is already forming opinions about your brand. The only real question is whether you've given it enough of the right information to form the right one.
So go ahead and ChatGPT yourself. But don't stop at being mildly flattered or quietly horrified by the results. Use what you find as your starting point. Because GEO isn't a game of luck, but one of strategy and careful planning. And the brands that treat it as such now will be the ones AI recommends tomorrow.
Interested in GEO audits or want to book a free ‘Intro to GEO’ training session for your team? Get in touch at yana@hardnumbers.co.uk or claire@hardnumbers.co.uk
Or download our free GEO Primer, designed for PR and marketing professionals looking to get ahead.
