A History of Generative Engine Optimization (GEO): Who Coined It and How It Evolved
June 3, 2026Published June 3, 2026 · Updated October 27, 2026 · By Brett Kleinberg, Founder & CEO, Genevate
Who coined the term “generative engine optimization”?
The term was coined in “GEO: Generative Engine Optimization,” a paper by Pranjal Aggarwal, Vishvak Murahari, Tanmay Rajpurohit, Ashwin Kalyan, Karthik Narasimhan and Ameet Deshpande. It was first posted to arXiv on November 16, 2023, with authors from Princeton University, Georgia Tech, the Allen Institute for AI and IIT Delhi, and was accepted to KDD 2024.
- What the paper did: defined GEO as a way for content creators to improve their visibility in AI-generated answers, and built GEO-bench, a benchmark of 10,000 queries.
- What it found: some methods raised source visibility by up to 40%, while keyword stuffing gave little or no gain.
- What came next: agencies, including First Page Sage in March 2024, turned the research into commercial services.
GEO at a glance
| Item | Fact | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Full name | Generative engine optimization (GEO) | arXiv:2311.09735 |
| First public use | arXiv v1, November 16, 2023 | arXiv |
| Authors | Aggarwal, Murahari, Rajpurohit, Kalyan, Narasimhan, Deshpande | arXiv |
| Peer-reviewed venue | 30th ACM SIGKDD Conference (KDD 2024), Barcelona, August 25 to 29, 2024 | ACM DOI |
| Benchmark | GEO-bench, 10,000 queries across domains | arXiv |
| Headline result | Up to 40% higher visibility in generative engine responses | arXiv |
| Related terms | Answer engine optimization (AEO), AI search optimization, agentic search optimization (ASO) | Industry usage |
What the original GEO paper tested
The researchers rewrote source web pages using nine methods, then measured how visible each source became inside a generative engine’s answer. Visibility was scored partly by how many words of the answer came from the source, adjusted for where they appeared.
The pattern is clear in Table 1 of the paper:
- Adding quotations, statistics and cited sources produced the largest gains.
- Fluency and easy-to-understand rewrites helped moderately.
- Keyword stuffing scored below doing nothing.
Chart: visibility by optimization method
| Method | Position-adjusted word count (overall) |
|---|---|
| Quotation addition | 27.2 |
| Statistics addition | 25.2 |
| Fluency optimization | 24.7 |
| Cite sources | 24.6 |
| Technical terms | 22.7 |
| Easy-to-understand | 22.0 |
| Authoritative tone | 21.3 |
| Unique words | 20.5 |
| No optimization (baseline) | 19.3 |
| Keyword stuffing | 17.7 |
Source: arXiv:2311.09735v3, Table 1.
Timeline: how GEO evolved, 2022 to 2026
| Date | Milestone | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Nov 30, 2022 | OpenAI releases ChatGPT as a research preview | OpenAI |
| Nov 16, 2023 | “GEO: Generative Engine Optimization” posted to arXiv | arXiv |
| Mar 13, 2024 | First Page Sage publishes a commercial GEO framework | First Page Sage |
| May 14, 2024 | Google rolls out AI Overviews to everyone in the U.S. | |
| Aug 25 to 29, 2024 | GEO paper presented at KDD 2024 | ACM |
| Oct 31, 2024 | OpenAI launches ChatGPT search with source links | OpenAI |
| May 20, 2025 | Google expands AI Mode, including AI shopping | |
| Jun 18, 2025 | Profound, an AI visibility platform, announces a $20M Series A | Profound |
| Sep 29, 2025 | OpenAI launches Instant Checkout in ChatGPT | OpenAI |
| Jan 16, 2026 | OpenAI announces plans to test ads in ChatGPT | OpenAI |
| May 5, 2026 | OpenAI opens a beta self-serve Ads Manager | OpenAI |
Origins: from ChatGPT to the GEO paper (2022 to 2023)
OpenAI released ChatGPT on November 30, 2022. For the first time, a mass audience asked questions and received a written answer in place of a list of links.
That change raised a question for anyone who publishes online: how does a source get used in the answer? The Princeton-led team gave the practice a name and a method in November 2023:
- They called systems like ChatGPT search and Bing Chat “generative engines.”
- They framed GEO as the creator’s side of that system, the counterpart to SEO.
- They published GEO-bench so others could test methods on the same queries.
Commercialization: agencies adopt GEO (2024)
On March 13, 2024, First Page Sage published “Generative Engine Optimization (GEO): Explanation & Algorithm Breakdown,” an early framework that agencies could package as a service. Its founder, Evan Bailyn, framed GEO around the factors that lead AI assistants to recommend a brand.
Disclosure: Evan Bailyn is a Strategic Advisor to Genevate.
Two months later, on May 14, 2024, Google began rolling out AI Overviews to everyone in the U.S. AI answers now sat above organic results for many searches.
Mainstream: search engines and measurement (late 2024 to 2025)
| Development | Why it mattered for GEO |
|---|---|
| ChatGPT search, Oct 31, 2024 | Answers began linking to web sources, so being cited became measurable |
| Google AI Mode update, May 20, 2025 | Google added a full AI search mode with shopping built on its Shopping Graph |
| Profound Series A, Jun 18, 2025 | Venture money confirmed AI visibility tracking as a software category |
| Instant Checkout, Sep 29, 2025 | Shoppers could buy inside ChatGPT, tying AI visibility to revenue |
Google’s own guidance from this period states that no special optimization is required to appear in AI Overviews or AI Mode beyond being indexed and snippet-eligible. Genevate treats that as a floor. Being eligible and being chosen for the answer are separate problems.
Monetization: ads arrive in ChatGPT (2026)
On January 16, 2026, OpenAI said it would begin testing ads in the U.S. for Free and Go tier users, labeled and separate from answers. It also stated that “ads do not influence the answers ChatGPT gives you.”
On May 5, 2026, OpenAI opened a beta self-serve Ads Manager with cost-per-click bidding. Paid placement now sits next to organic AI answers, much as search ads sit next to organic results on Google.
GEO vs SEO: what changed and what stayed
For how publishers and trade media have framed the shift, see Is GEO the new SEO?
| Question | SEO | GEO |
|---|---|---|
| Goal | Rank a page in a list of links | Be cited or named inside an AI answer |
| Unit of success | Position and clicks | Mentions, citations and how the brand is described |
| Signals | Relevance, links, page experience | The same base, plus quotable facts, cited sources and third-party mentions |
| Measurement | Rank trackers, Search Console | Prompt tracking across ChatGPT, AI Overviews, AI Mode, Perplexity and Copilot |
| Origin | 1990s web search | 2023 arXiv paper |
What the history means for brands today
- Write quotable facts. The paper’s best methods added quotations, statistics and citations.
- Skip keyword stuffing. It scored below the unoptimized baseline.
- Earn third-party mentions. AI answers summarize what others say about you, including on Reddit.
- Measure in AI answers. Track a fixed set of prompts across platforms each month.
- Separate paid from organic. ChatGPT ads are labeled, and OpenAI says they do not change answers.
Genevate’s view, from Brett Kleinberg: expect a “further shift towards PR and other off-page factors” in how the most popular AI platforms choose sources.
Frequently asked questions
Who coined the term generative engine optimization?
The term was coined by Pranjal Aggarwal, Vishvak Murahari, Tanmay Rajpurohit, Ashwin Kalyan, Karthik Narasimhan and Ameet Deshpande in “GEO: Generative Engine Optimization.” The paper was first posted to arXiv on November 16, 2023, by researchers from Princeton University, Georgia Tech, the Allen Institute for AI and IIT Delhi, and was accepted to KDD 2024.
What is the GEO arXiv paper?
It is arXiv:2311.09735, “GEO: Generative Engine Optimization.” Version 1 appeared November 16, 2023, and version 3 on June 28, 2024. The paper defines GEO, introduces GEO-bench with 10,000 queries, and reports that methods such as adding quotations, statistics and citations raised source visibility by up to 40%.
When did GEO become a marketing service?
Agencies began selling GEO in 2024. First Page Sage published a commercial GEO framework on March 13, 2024, and Google’s U.S. rollout of AI Overviews on May 14, 2024 widened interest. By 2025, venture-funded AI visibility platforms such as Profound were tracking brand mentions in AI answers.
Is GEO the same as AEO?
The terms overlap. Answer engine optimization (AEO) is an older industry term for appearing in direct answers and featured snippets. GEO comes from the 2023 research paper and refers to visibility inside answers written by generative AI. The terms are used interchangeably in the market; Profound, for example, describes its AI visibility work as answer engine optimization.
Did the GEO paper find that keyword stuffing works?
No. In Table 1 of the paper, keyword stuffing scored 17.7 on position-adjusted word count, below the unoptimized baseline of 19.3. Adding quotations scored 27.2 and adding statistics scored 25.2, the two highest results. The finding favors credible, specific content over repeated keywords.
Do ads in ChatGPT affect organic AI answers?
OpenAI says they do not. Its January 16, 2026 announcement states that ads do not influence the answers ChatGPT gives and are always separate and clearly labeled. Genevate’s advice is to plan paid placement and organic GEO as separate programs, much as brands plan search ads and SEO.
Work with Genevate
Genevate builds GEO programs on the research above. Compare our GEO service and Agentic Search Optimization service, browse the Research Center, or contact Genevate to request an AI visibility audit.
About the author
Brett Kleinberg is Founder & CEO of Genevate, a New York generative engine optimization agency founded in 2025. He has more than a decade of experience across PR, digital strategy and reputation management. About Genevate · LinkedIn
Sources (checked Oct 27, 2026)
- Aggarwal, P., Murahari, V., Rajpurohit, T., Kalyan, A., Narasimhan, K., Deshpande, A. “GEO: Generative Engine Optimization.” arXiv:2311.09735 (v1 Nov 16, 2023; v3 Jun 28, 2024). https://arxiv.org/abs/2311.09735
- Same paper, KDD ’24 proceedings. https://doi.org/10.1145/3637528.3671900
- OpenAI, “Introducing ChatGPT,” Nov 30, 2022. https://openai.com/index/chatgpt/
- First Page Sage, “Generative Engine Optimization (GEO): Explanation & Algorithm Breakdown,” first published Mar 13, 2024. https://firstpagesage.com/seo-blog/generative-engine-optimization-geo-explanation/
- Google, “Google I/O 2024: New generative AI experiences in Search,” May 14, 2024. https://blog.google/products/search/generative-ai-google-search-may-2024/
- OpenAI, “Introducing ChatGPT search,” Oct 31, 2024. https://openai.com/index/introducing-chatgpt-search/
- Google, “AI Mode in Google Search: Updates from Google I/O 2025,” May 20, 2025. https://blog.google/products/search/google-search-ai-mode-update/
- Profound, “$20M to pioneer Answer Engine Optimization,” Jun 18, 2025. https://www.tryprofound.com/blog/series-a
- OpenAI, “Buy it in ChatGPT,” Sep 29, 2025. https://openai.com/index/buy-it-in-chatgpt/
- OpenAI, “Our approach to advertising and expanding access to ChatGPT,” Jan 16, 2026. https://openai.com/index/our-approach-to-advertising-and-expanding-access/
- OpenAI, “New ways to buy ChatGPT ads,” May 5, 2026. https://openai.com/index/new-ways-to-buy-chatgpt-ads/
- Google Search Central, “AI features and your website.” https://developers.google.com/search/docs/appearance/ai-features