Generative Engine Optimization (GEO) should be coordinated across PR, SEO and content marketing, with one person accountable for strategy and measurement. SEO provides the technical foundation, content supplies information AI systems can retrieve, and PR builds the independent authority that helps establish a company’s credibility.
For growth-stage technology companies, the challenge is deciding who owns the work, how responsibilities are divided and how success should be measured.
And increasingly, that decision is landing on the CMO’s desk.
A few years ago, the organizational structure was relatively straightforward.
SEO was responsible for search visibility.
Content marketing produced articles, guides and other owned materials.
PR secured media coverage, managed reputation and built relationships with journalists.
Each discipline had its own budget, reporting and objectives.
Then ChatGPT arrived.
Google introduced AI Overviews and AI Mode.
Customers started asking AI systems to recommend products, compare companies and explain which vendors they should consider.
Suddenly, three marketing disciplines that had operated somewhat independently found themselves trying to influence the same answers.
SEO agencies began selling GEO.
PR agencies began talking about AI citations.
Content teams started optimizing articles for ChatGPT.
Software vendors introduced AI visibility dashboards.
Everyone had a reasonable argument for why GEO belonged in their department.
The problem is that no single discipline controls all the information that shapes AI-generated answers.
And for a growth-stage CMO trying to build a serious GEO program, that creates a fairly important management question.
Who should actually be responsible?
Why GEO creates an ownership problem
Generative Engine Optimization is the practice of improving how a brand, product or company is understood, represented, cited and recommended by AI systems.
Unlike traditional search optimization, which has historically concentrated on improving a website’s visibility in search results, GEO also considers how brands appear within AI-generated answers.
A customer might ask:
- What are the best cybersecurity platforms for mid-sized businesses?
- Which electric bike brands are worth considering?
- What are the leading alternatives to Salesforce?
- Which European technology companies have a strong US presence?
- What are the most reliable mechanical keyboard brands?
The response may draw on product documentation, editorial coverage, comparison articles, customer reviews, industry publications and other publicly available information.
Some of those sources belong to the company.
Many don’t.
The website needs to be technically accessible.
The content needs to answer relevant questions.
The company needs sufficient independent evidence supporting its claims.
And somebody needs to measure whether the company actually appears in the answers that matter.
That combination creates an organizational problem because the work crosses several established marketing functions.
The question for the CMO is how to organize those functions around a shared objective.
1. What does SEO contribute to GEO?
SEO has a legitimate claim to a significant part of GEO.
In fact, any company considering a GEO program should start by examining its technical search foundation.
AI-powered search experiences still need ways to discover and retrieve information.
For Google specifically, the connection is explicit.
In its official guidance on optimizing for generative AI features, Google explains that AI Overviews and AI Mode are built on its existing Search ranking and quality systems.
Google also describes how retrieval-augmented generation allows these experiences to retrieve relevant information from its Search index.
That makes traditional SEO expertise highly relevant.
Where SEO contributes
SEO teams can help ensure that:
The website is crawlable. Important pages need to be accessible to search engines and relevant retrieval systems.
The site architecture makes sense. Product categories, services, industries and use cases should be organized logically.
Information is available in readable formats. Important product details shouldn’t be buried inside inaccessible interfaces or images.
Internal linking establishes relationships. Pages should connect products, categories, applications and supporting information.
Structured data is accurate. Appropriate markup can help search engines interpret eligible content, although Google does not require special GEO schema to appear in AI Overviews.
Technical problems are identified and corrected. Indexing issues, canonicalization errors and poorly implemented JavaScript can make useful information harder to discover.
Google’s AI features documentation confirms that standard SEO best practices remain relevant and that no special AI-specific markup is required for inclusion in AI Overviews or AI Mode.
These are meaningful contributions.
A company with a technically poor website is creating unnecessary obstacles for both traditional search and AI discovery.
Where SEO’s responsibilities become less clear
Technical SEO can make a company’s information accessible.
But accessibility doesn’t establish market credibility.
A website can be perfectly structured, load quickly, contain accurate schema and rank for relevant keywords while having a relatively weak presence in the third-party sources customers use to evaluate its products.
Consider a technology company claiming to have the most secure product in its category.
An SEO team can optimize the product page.
It can improve internal linking.
It can create a useful security resource center.
It can ensure that technical documentation is indexed.
But it cannot simply manufacture an independent product evaluation from a respected publication.
Nor can it guarantee that an industry expert will recommend the product.
Those outcomes require work beyond the company’s website.
This is where PR becomes relevant.
2. What does PR contribute to GEO?
PR has traditionally been responsible for building credibility outside the company’s owned channels.
Journalists.
Industry publications.
Product reviewers.
Analysts.
Expert commentators.
Trade media.
Podcasts.
Conferences.
Independent research.
Those relationships matter because companies have limited control over how independent third parties describe them.
A company can publish a page declaring itself the category leader.
Whether customers accept that claim is another matter.
Independent coverage, testing, reviews and expert commentary can provide evidence that the company cannot credibly create on its own.
And research increasingly suggests that the wider information environment is associated with AI visibility.
What the research says about earned authority
In December 2025, Ahrefs analyzed 75,000 brands across ChatGPT, Google AI Mode and AI Overviews.
The study found that branded web mentions had a strong positive correlation with AI visibility, ranging from approximately 0.66 to 0.71 across the platforms studied.
YouTube mentions showed an even stronger correlation of approximately 0.737.
By comparison, the number of pages on a company’s website had a much weaker correlation of approximately 0.194.
These are Spearman correlation coefficients. Values closer to 1 indicate a stronger positive relationship between the variables being measured.
Ahrefs cautions that correlation does not establish causation.
A company appearing frequently across the web may also have stronger brand recognition, larger marketing budgets and greater market share.
Those factors are difficult to separate.
Still, the research suggests that a brand’s presence beyond its own website deserves serious attention.
Publishing more pages alone is unlikely to address every AI visibility problem.
What AI citation research tells us
Muck Rack’s May 2026 What Is AI Reading? study analyzed more than 25 million cited links from ChatGPT, Claude and Gemini responses across 17 industries.
The research classified:
- 84% of citations as earned media
- 27% as journalism
- 0.3% as paid or advertorial content
Muck Rack uses a broad definition of earned media that includes externally controlled information beyond traditional journalism.
The findings describe the sources cited in its dataset. They don’t establish that earned media placements directly cause AI recommendations or that every AI platform uses the same source mix.
There’s another important finding.
According to Muck Rack’s methodology analysis, industry-trend questions generated more than twice as many journalism citations as how-to questions.
The types of sources cited vary depending on what the user asks.
That’s particularly relevant to GEO.
It suggests that the value of a media placement needs to be considered in relation to the questions a company wants to appear in.
Where PR contributes
A strong PR team can help build:
Category association. Relevant coverage connecting the company to the problems, products and industries it wants to be known for.
Independent product validation. Reviews, evaluations and comparisons that examine the product beyond its marketing claims.
Executive authority. Expert commentary that establishes executives as knowledgeable sources.
Third-party citations. References from relevant publications, experts and other external sources.
Original research distribution. Media attention around proprietary findings, industry data and credible analysis.
Competitive positioning. Coverage that explains where the company belongs within its category.
These activities can create useful evidence for customers and potentially strengthen the information environment AI systems draw upon.
Where PR falls short
Traditional PR teams aren’t necessarily equipped to handle technical website architecture.
Many don’t understand structured data, indexing or the technical requirements of search.
Others have limited experience developing content around search intent.
And some still measure success almost entirely through media placements and estimated reach.
A PR team may secure excellent coverage without knowing whether the company appears more frequently in commercially relevant AI answers.
That’s a significant limitation.
Earned authority is one of PR’s strongest contributions to GEO. But PR needs technical, content and measurement capabilities to connect that authority to a broader AI visibility strategy.
3. What does content marketing contribute to GEO?
Content marketing supplies much of the information a company can directly control.
Product explanations.
Buying guides.
Comparison articles.
FAQs.
Research reports.
Technical documentation.
Customer stories.
Educational resources.
These assets help establish what the company does, which problems it solves and where its products belong.
For growth-stage technology companies, content is particularly important because buyers often research categories before they know which vendors to consider.
Consider someone asking ChatGPT:
“What should I look for when choosing an enterprise cybersecurity platform?”
The buyer may be several steps away from asking for vendor recommendations.
A useful educational resource can help explain the category.
Later, that same buyer might ask:
“Which cybersecurity platforms are best for financial services companies?”
Now the information requirements change.
The buyer needs vendor-specific evidence, comparisons and relevant experience.
Further along, the question might become:
“How does Company A compare with Company B on deployment time and security certifications?”
That requires detailed product information.
A serious content program should account for these differences.
What makes content useful for GEO?
Google’s guidance on creating helpful, reliable, people-first content emphasizes original information, reporting, research, analysis and demonstrable expertise.
It also encourages publishers to provide substantial value beyond simply summarizing information already available elsewhere.
Those principles are relevant to GEO.
A company publishing its twentieth generic article about the benefits of cybersecurity is unlikely to contribute much new information.
A company publishing original research into cybersecurity incidents across 500 customer deployments has something potentially more useful.
Likewise, detailed product comparisons based on actual testing provide information that generic marketing copy cannot.
Where content contributes
Content teams should be responsible for developing:
Category education. Explaining important problems, technologies and buying considerations.
Product information. Accurate specifications, capabilities, limitations and use cases.
Comparison content. Helping customers understand differences between products and approaches.
Original research. Publishing proprietary data, surveys and analysis.
Customer evidence. Case studies, implementation examples and documented outcomes.
Technical resources. Documentation that answers specific questions about products and integrations.
Post-purchase information. Troubleshooting, setup and usage guidance.
These assets give AI retrieval systems potentially useful information to surface.
Where content marketing falls short
A content team can produce a detailed comparison article about its own product.
That doesn’t make the comparison independent.
A company can publish a research report.
That doesn’t guarantee anyone else will reference it.
A brand can create hundreds of educational articles.
That doesn’t necessarily establish a meaningful presence in third-party sources.
Content needs distribution, technical accessibility and external validation.
Which brings us back to SEO and PR.
4. Where do PR, SEO and content overlap?
The three disciplines have different strengths, but their responsibilities increasingly intersect.
Consider an original research report.
The content team develops the report.
SEO ensures the report is technically accessible, properly structured and discoverable.
PR pitches its findings to journalists and industry publications.
The GEO program monitors whether the report and related coverage appear in relevant AI answers.
Each discipline contributes something different.
The same applies to product launches.
Content produces product pages, specifications, comparisons and supporting resources.
SEO handles technical implementation and search discoverability.
PR secures reviews, interviews and relevant editorial coverage.
GEO measurement examines whether the product is being surfaced accurately in AI-assisted discovery and evaluation.
The challenge is coordinating the work.
A practical GEO responsibility matrix
For growth-stage CMOs, I’d divide responsibilities approximately as follows.
| GEO activity | Primary responsibility | Supporting teams |
| Technical website audit | SEO | Web development |
| Crawlability and indexing | SEO | Web development |
| Site architecture and internal linking | SEO | Content |
| Structured data implementation | SEO | Web development |
| Customer prompt research | GEO lead | Content, PR, customer research |
| Prompt universe development | GEO lead | SEO, content, PR |
| Educational content | Content | SEO, subject experts |
| Product comparisons | Content | Product, SEO, PR |
| Original research | Content/research | PR, subject experts |
| Media relations | PR | Product, executives |
| Executive thought leadership | PR | Content, executives |
| Product reviews and editorial outreach | PR | Product marketing |
| Third-party citation analysis | GEO lead | PR, SEO |
| Competitive AI visibility analysis | GEO lead | PR, SEO, content |
| Share of Answer measurement | GEO lead | Analytics |
| Commercial performance analysis | Marketing analytics | GEO lead, sales |
| Overall GEO strategy | CMO or designated GEO lead | All three disciplines |
This is a proposed operating model, rather than an industry standard.
The important point is that each activity has an accountable owner.
Shared responsibility shouldn’t mean nobody is responsible.
5. Why GEO needs a different measurement framework
One reason GEO ownership becomes contentious is that the established disciplines measure different things.
SEO measures rankings, impressions, organic traffic and conversions.
PR measures coverage, reach, Share of Voice, sentiment and reputation.
Content measures engagement, traffic, leads and content performance.
GEO introduces another set of questions.
Does the company appear in relevant AI answers?
Is it recommended or merely mentioned?
How does it compare with competitors?
Which sources are cited?
Is the information accurate?
Does the company appear during discovery, evaluation and purchase?
These require a different measurement approach.
Why traffic alone is insufficient
In July 2025, Pew Research Center examined how people interacted with Google’s AI summaries.
The study analyzed browsing data from 900 US adults.
It found that users clicked a traditional search result in 8% of visits when an AI summary appeared, compared with 15% when no AI summary appeared.
Clicks on links contained within AI summaries occurred in just 1% of visits where a summary was present.
The research doesn’t establish that every AI search experience produces the same behavior.
But it highlights a measurement problem.
A company might be mentioned in an AI-generated answer without receiving a website visit.
That exposure may influence the customer’s consideration of the brand, but conventional traffic analytics won’t fully capture it.
Conversely, a company might receive more AI referrals without being recommended across its most commercially important prompts.
GEO therefore needs its own visibility metrics alongside existing marketing measurements.
The GEO scorecard
I’d recommend that growth-stage CMOs track the following.
| Metric | What it measures | Why it matters |
| Share of Answer | How frequently a brand appears across a defined set of AI prompts | Measures overall visibility |
| Non-branded prompt coverage | Visibility when buyers don’t mention the company’s name | Tests category discoverability |
| Competitive Share of Answer | Brand visibility relative to competitors | Shows competitive position |
| Recommendation rate | How often the company is actively recommended | Distinguishes recommendations from passing mentions |
| Position in answer | Where the brand appears within AI responses | Adds context to visibility |
| Owned citation rate | How frequently the company’s own content is cited | Measures owned-source visibility |
| Third-party citation footprint | External sources cited in relevant answers | Identifies authority opportunities |
| Accuracy | Whether products and capabilities are represented correctly | Identifies misinformation and ambiguity |
| AI referral traffic | Visits attributable to AI platforms where measurable | Provides a commercial signal |
| Conversions and assisted outcomes | Leads, sales and other downstream activity | Connects GEO to business performance |
A useful scorecard should separate branded and non-branded prompts and distinguish educational questions from purchase-oriented ones.
Otherwise, a company could improve its overall Share of Answer while remaining invisible when customers ask which product they should buy.
At Proper Propaganda, our GEO measurement framework uses six connected phases:
Audit → Strategy → Foundation → Content → Authority → Measurement
The framework combines customer research, technical optimization, content development, external authority and ongoing measurement.
The underlying principle is that GEO should be measured against the questions customers actually ask.
6. The biggest mistake is assigning GEO based on who owns the budget
Here’s where I think CMOs need to be careful.
If SEO has the largest budget, GEO may automatically land with SEO.
If PR has been pushing the issue internally, GEO may end up with communications.
If the content team is already publishing extensively, leadership may assume it can handle the work.
Those decisions are understandable.
But departmental convenience is a poor basis for deciding ownership.
The better question is:
Which team has the capabilities, authority and resources to coordinate the entire program?
Consider three scenarios.
Scenario A: GEO sits entirely with SEO
The SEO team improves technical accessibility, develops keyword-informed content and tracks AI visibility.
That’s a reasonable start.
But suppose the company rarely appears in independent product reviews or relevant industry publications.
Competitors dominate the editorial sources cited in important AI answers.
The SEO team can identify the problem.
It may struggle to address it without media relations expertise.
The program has a third-party authority gap.
Scenario B: GEO sits entirely with PR
The PR team secures relevant media coverage, builds executive authority and generates third-party references.
The company’s editorial footprint improves.
But its website has indexing problems.
Product pages contain inconsistent information.
Important content is difficult to retrieve.
And nobody is systematically monitoring AI visibility.
The program has a technical and measurement gap.
Scenario C: GEO sits entirely with content
The content team publishes educational resources, product comparisons and detailed FAQs.
The information is useful.
But it receives limited distribution.
The company has weak third-party validation.
Competitors are more frequently discussed by independent sources.
The program has an authority and distribution gap.
Each team can make progress.
Each can also reach the limits of its capabilities.
That’s why GEO needs coordination.
7. Who should own GEO at a growth-stage technology company?
My preference is to give GEO a single accountable owner with the authority to coordinate PR, SEO, content and analytics.
For many growth-stage companies, that person should report to the CMO.
The title matters less than the mandate.
It could be a Head of Growth.
A Director of Digital Marketing.
A VP of Marketing.
A Head of Communications with the necessary technical support.
Or a dedicated GEO lead.
The right choice depends on the company’s existing team.
When SEO should lead
SEO is a reasonable lead when the company’s primary problems involve technical discoverability, weak search infrastructure, poor site architecture or gaps in owned content.
An SEO-led program can work particularly well when the company already has a strong PR function.
When PR should lead
PR may be the better lead when the company’s principal challenge involves weak category recognition, insufficient independent coverage, poor competitive positioning or a lack of third-party credibility.
This is particularly relevant for technology companies entering new markets or competing against established brands.
But the PR lead needs reliable SEO and content support.
When content should lead
Content can lead when the company has strong technical infrastructure and external authority but lacks useful information across important stages of the customer journey.
The content team must still coordinate with PR and SEO.
When a dedicated GEO lead makes sense
For companies investing significantly in AI visibility across multiple products, markets or business units, a dedicated GEO lead may be justified.
That person should coordinate the work, establish priorities and own measurement.
They don’t necessarily need to execute every activity.
My preference for most growth-stage companies is a CMO-sponsored GEO program with one accountable lead and clear responsibilities across PR, SEO and content.
It’s a more practical structure than creating another department before the company knows what work is required.
8. How should a CMO organize a GEO program?
I’d start with a shared operating framework.
At Proper Propaganda, we use six stages to structure the work.
The following is how I’d translate those stages into an internal management process.
Stage 1: Audit
Lead: GEO owner
Start by establishing the company’s current position.
Which AI platforms do customers use?
What questions do they ask?
Which competitors appear most frequently?
Which sources are cited?
Does the company’s website contain the necessary information?
Where are the biggest visibility gaps?
The audit should combine customer research, AI visibility analysis, technical SEO and third-party citation research.
Output: A prioritized list of problems and opportunities.
Stage 2: Strategy
Lead: CMO and GEO owner
Decide which categories, audiences and prompts matter commercially.
Not every prompt deserves equal attention.
A company selling enterprise software may care much more about appearing in vendor comparison prompts than in broad educational questions about the history of its industry.
The strategy should reflect those priorities.
Output: A GEO roadmap aligned with business objectives.
Stage 3: Foundation
Lead: SEO
Address the technical and structural problems identified during the audit.
Improve website architecture.
Fix indexing and accessibility issues.
Clarify product and category relationships.
Ensure that important information is accurate and consistent.
Output: A technically sound website that clearly explains the company and its products.
Stage 4: Content
Lead: Content marketing
Create the information customers need throughout their buying journey.
This might include educational articles, original research, comparisons, technical resources and customer evidence.
SEO should support discoverability.
PR should identify opportunities to turn useful information into external coverage.
Output: A growing library of relevant, original and useful content.
Stage 5: Authority
Lead: PR
Build the independent evidence surrounding the company.
Secure relevant editorial coverage.
Develop executive authority.
Pursue product reviews and expert commentary.
Distribute original research.
Identify third-party sources that matter to customers and the category.
Output: A stronger external information footprint.
Stage 6: Measurement
Lead: GEO owner and analytics
Track the results.
Which prompts improved?
Which competitors gained visibility?
Which sources are being cited?
Where is the brand accurately represented?
Where does it remain absent?
What commercial signals are changing?
Use the findings to determine the next round of work.
Output: A measurable program that can adapt based on evidence.
The process should repeat.
AI visibility changes.
Competitors publish new information.
New products appear.
Customer questions evolve.
GEO requires ongoing evaluation.
9. What should the first 90 days look like?
For a growth-stage CMO starting from scratch, I’d resist the temptation to immediately commission dozens of AI-optimized articles.
The first 90 days should establish a functioning program.
| Period | Priority | Primary responsibility | Expected outcome |
| Days 1–30 | Customer research, prompt mapping, AI visibility baseline, technical and citation audits | GEO lead, SEO, PR | Clear understanding of current position |
| Days 31–60 | Fix priority technical issues, develop content, establish media and authority priorities | SEO, content, PR | Initial improvements and coordinated execution |
| Days 61–90 | Continue content and authority work, monitor visibility, assess competitive changes | GEO lead, analytics | First performance review and revised priorities |
By day 90, the company should know which activities are underway, what has changed and what still needs attention.
That doesn’t mean it should expect category dominance in three months.
Building independent authority takes time.
But the CMO should have a baseline, an operating system and a clear understanding of where the investment is going.
10. Should GEO have its own budget?
Eventually, perhaps.
But I wouldn’t automatically create a separate GEO budget for every growth-stage company.
The decision depends on the maturity of the marketing organization.
If the company already has strong PR, SEO and content teams, GEO may initially require additional investment in customer research, AI visibility measurement and coordination.
The existing teams can execute much of the work.
If the company has weak third-party authority, however, simply adding GEO software to the SEO budget won’t solve the underlying problem.
Likewise, if the website has serious technical deficiencies, increasing the PR budget won’t address those issues.
The CMO should allocate investment according to the gaps identified during the audit.
Three practical budgeting models
| Model | Best suited for | How it works |
| Integrated existing teams | Companies with established PR, SEO and content capabilities | One GEO owner coordinates existing resources and adds measurement |
| Specialist-led program | Companies with significant gaps in one or two disciplines | Internal marketing coordinates external specialists |
| Integrated PR + GEO agency | Companies needing both third-party authority and GEO execution | An external partner coordinates PR, GEO strategy, content and measurement with internal SEO and web teams |
None of these structures is inherently superior.
A company with an excellent internal SEO team and a strong PR agency may already have most of the capabilities it needs.
Another company may require a more integrated external partner.
The key is ensuring that somebody is responsible for connecting the work.
11. Earned authority is the piece many GEO programs underestimate
This is where I think the current GEO conversation deserves more scrutiny.
A significant amount of attention is going toward content optimization.
How should articles be structured?
Should pages include FAQs?
How long should answers be?
What schema should be implemented?
How frequently should content be updated?
Those are legitimate questions.
But they can distract from a more fundamental issue.
Does the wider web contain enough credible evidence that your company belongs in the answers you’re trying to influence?
Consider two competing technology companies.
Both have technically sound websites.
Both publish useful content.
Both have clear product information.
Both answer relevant customer questions.
But Company A has been independently reviewed by several respected publications.
Its executives regularly contribute expert commentary.
Its research is cited by industry journalists.
Its products appear in relevant comparisons.
Customers discuss its products across specialist communities.
Company B has very little of that external footprint.
It would be reasonable to expect Company A to have a stronger body of publicly available third-party evidence.
That doesn’t guarantee it will be recommended more frequently by AI systems.
But the difference is strategically important.
And it highlights something that content optimization alone cannot accomplish.
Independent authority has to be earned.
An SEO agency can help identify which publications and sources matter.
A content team can create information worth referencing.
But neither can simply declare that independent third parties now consider the company credible.
That takes sustained work.
It may involve PR.
It may involve original research.
It may involve better products and customer experiences.
It may involve independent testing, industry participation and expert relationships.
In many cases, it requires all of them.
This is why I’d be cautious about GEO programs built almost entirely around publishing more content.
They may improve the company’s owned information footprint while leaving a substantial external authority gap untouched.
12. Five questions every growth-stage CMO should ask before assigning GEO
Before deciding which department owns GEO, I’d ask five questions.
1. Where is our biggest AI visibility problem?
Are we technically difficult to discover?
Do we lack useful content?
Or does the wider web contain insufficient independent evidence about our company?
The answer should influence ownership.
2. Which team can address that problem?
Technical issues belong with SEO and development.
Content gaps belong with content and subject experts.
Third-party authority gaps require PR and broader market engagement.
3. Who will coordinate the work?
Someone needs the authority to prioritize activities across departments.
4. How will we measure progress?
The program should track commercially relevant prompts, competitors, citations and recommendation patterns.
Traffic and placements alone are insufficient.
5. How will GEO contribute to business outcomes?
Improved AI visibility should eventually support discovery, consideration, qualified leads, sales or other measurable objectives.
If nobody can answer these questions, the company probably isn’t ready to decide who should own GEO.
It needs an audit first.
The answer: GEO needs one owner, but three disciplines
For growth-stage CMOs, GEO presents an organizational challenge that will become increasingly difficult to ignore.
SEO has an important role.
It provides the technical foundation that helps search and retrieval systems discover and interpret information.
Content marketing has an equally important role.
It creates the information customers need as they research, compare and evaluate products.
PR contributes something that is particularly difficult to reproduce through owned channels.
Independent authority.
The editorial coverage, expert commentary, product reviews, industry references and external evidence that help establish a company’s credibility.
The research from Ahrefs and Muck Rack provides good reasons to take that external information footprint seriously, while leaving important questions about causation and platform differences unresolved.
A company that coordinates all three disciplines has a more complete approach to GEO than one relying on any single function.
That doesn’t require PR to own SEO.
It doesn’t require SEO to manage journalists.
And it doesn’t require the content team to become responsible for everything ChatGPT says about the company.
It requires a clear strategy, defined responsibilities and shared measurement.
My recommendation is straightforward: Put one person in charge of GEO, give them access to PR, SEO and content, and make them accountable for improving visibility across the customer questions that matter commercially.
Then measure whether the work is changing anything.
The department that owns the budget matters considerably less than whether the company is building the information and authority needed to compete.
For a growth-stage technology company, that’s where the real GEO opportunity sits.