The ground is shifting beneath digital marketing—and I mean that quite literally. What we're witnessing right now isn't just another algorithm update or platform tweak. It's a fundamental restructuring of how brands get discovered, evaluated, and chosen.

Here's the headline that's been keeping me up at night: traditional search engines are projected to see a 25% volume decline by the end of 2026. Nearly 60% of searches now end without a single click. The era of fighting for page-one rankings? It's fading faster than anyone predicted.

But here's where it gets interesting—and honestly, exciting. In its place, we're seeing the rise of something called "Share of Model" (SoM), a metric that tracks how often AI systems mention and recommend your brand. It's a completely different game, and today I'm breaking down exactly how to win it.

📍 In This Issue:

Let's dive in.

Traditional SEO asked one question: "How do I rank higher?" Generative Engine Optimization asks a completely different one: "How do I get cited by AI?"

This shift matters because AI-powered tools like Perplexity, Claude, and ChatGPT are increasingly providing conversational answers that fulfill user intent without requiring anyone to visit your website. The search isn't ending—it's being answered differently.

Princeton research has identified specific structural changes that dramatically increase your chances of being cited by AI engines:

The key insight here is that AI models are hungry for factual foundations. They want to cite you, but only if your content gives them something concrete to work with.

🎯 KEY TAKEAWAY

The new goal isn't "ranking"—it's "citability." Your content needs to be structured so AI systems can easily extract, verify, and reference your expertise.

The AP-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research dropped data that should reframe your entire audience strategy: nearly three-quarters of users under 30 are using AI to find information at least some of the time. Search is now the most common application of generative technology for this demographic.

Why This Matters: If your target audience skews younger, they're not Googling you—they're asking Claude or ChatGPT about you. Your SEO strategy built for Google may be completely invisible to them.

✅ Action Item: Test your brand's visibility in AI responses. Ask ChatGPT and Perplexity questions your customers would ask. Are you being mentioned? If not, you have work to do.

Remember "vibe coding" where developers focused on outcomes rather than code structure? That philosophy has jumped into marketing. "Vibe Marketing" treats your brand as a culturally relevant peer rather than a sales entity—focusing on emotional texture and mood over conversion mechanics.

The early results are compelling:

Why This Matters: Consumers are rejecting content that feels "soulless" or synthetic. Sprout Social research shows 66% of Gen Z and Millennials trust human-generated content more. The "uncanny valley" of unedited AI output is real—and it's costing brands engagement.

✅ Action Item: Review your last month of AI-assisted content. Does it have personality? Does it feel like your brand, or like "generic marketing content #47"? The human touch isn't optional—it's the differentiator.

Here's a tool most marketers are completely ignoring: prediction markets. These platforms now serve as real-time sentiment analysis for everything from Fed policy (96% conviction on holding rates steady) to corporate performance (NVIDIA at 97% probability of maintaining largest market cap).

Why This Matters: Prediction markets often signal shifts before traditional data catches up. Marketers tracking these signals can anticipate consumer confidence, plan capital projects, and position messaging before competitors.

✅ Action Item: Bookmark Polymarket or Kalshi and start tracking predictions relevant to your industry. This is leading-indicator intelligence that most of your competitors aren't using.

New case studies released this week show that content reviewed by humans for "emotional resonance" achieves 30-40% higher engagement than minimally edited AI output. Agencies are now using AI to cut research and drafting time by 50%, then handing work to human "vibe-checkers."

Why This Matters: The winning workflow isn't "AI does everything" or "humans do everything." It's AI handling the mechanical work while humans inject personality, empathy, and brand voice.

✅ Action Item: Build a review step into your AI content workflow. Even 10 minutes of human editing can be the difference between content that converts and content that gets scrolled past.

As we shift from SEO to GEO, the question becomes: how do you actually track your "Share of Model"? How do you know if ChatGPT is recommending you or your competitor?

Goodie AI is emerging as the comprehensive answer. This enterprise-grade platform provides real-time tracking and attribution specifically designed to monitor brand mentions across the primary AI search engines—including DeepSeek, Claude, Perplexity, and ChatGPT.

✨ SPOTLIGHT FEATURES

What Makes This Noteworthy: While most analytics tools are still optimized for Google rankings, Goodie AI is built from the ground up for the GEO era. It answers the question that will define marketing success in 2026: "Are AI systems recommending us?"

Potential Use Cases:

Pricing: Enterprise pricing (contact for details)

🔗 Learn more: goodie.ai

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Here's a tactical approach to GEO optimization you can implement this week:

Step 1: List the top 20 questions your ideal customers ask before buying. Not keywords—actual questions in natural language.

Step 2: Ask those exact questions to ChatGPT, Claude, and Perplexity. Document who gets cited in each response.

Step 3: For questions where you're not being cited, analyze the content that IS being cited. What do those pages have that yours don't? (Hint: look for statistics, expert quotes, and structured summaries.)

Step 4: Update your existing content to include those elements. Add a clear, direct answer in the first 50 words. Include at least one statistic and one authoritative citation.

Step 5: Repeat the AI queries in 2-4 weeks and track changes.

📋 Success Metric: Track the number of questions where your brand appears in AI responses. Your goal is to increase this "citation count" by 25% over the next quarter.

All of this GEO optimization is valuable—but it means nothing if your ads aren't reaching the right people in the first place.

Here's the thing about AI-powered search: it's changing how people discover brands, but paid advertising remains the fastest way to get in front of high-intent audiences right now. The challenge? Building those audiences used to take hours of research and guesswork.

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What You Can Do With It:

While you're optimizing for the GEO future, don't let your paid advertising fall behind. The marketers winning right now are combining long-term GEO strategy with immediate paid reach.

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The data from this week points to three traits that will define successful brands this year:

1. Citable Authority — Maintaining presence in AI-generated answers through structured data, factual anchoring, and earned media.

2. Emotional Resonance — Using AI for productivity while relying on human insight to avoid the "soulless" uncanny valley of pure automation.

3. Predictive Resilience — Utilizing prediction markets and Physical AI to anticipate shifts before they show up in traditional search data.

The organizations that fail to bridge these capabilities risk becoming invisible in an increasingly automated but discerning digital ecosystem.

That's a wrap for today. The shift from SEO to GEO isn't coming—it's here. The brands that adapt fastest will own the next era of digital discovery.

See you in the next issue,

Aleric & Greg KeywordSearch.com

P.S. Curious how AI can supercharge your ad targeting while you build your GEO strategy? Take KeywordSearch for a test drive with our unlimited 5-day free trial and see for yourself. Start free →

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