The Great SEO Upskilling: The New GEO Specialists Driving AI Visibility

The advent of AI engines like Google AI Mode and ChatGPT is changing the local search landscape quickly — and with it, the job descriptions for search engine optimization specialists.

There’s a visibility crisis we’re seeing in search: Roughly 68% of local businesses appear incorrectly or insufficiently in AI results, often due to fragmented data, thin content, or inconsistent location signals. This is a problem traditional SEO strategies and dashboards weren’t built to solve.

Who’s reporting on how multi-location brands are being perceived and recommended by AI agents? That’s exactly the gap the upskilled SEO — the GEO specialist — is designed to fill. A new kind of search expert who combines strong SEO foundations and is focused on increasing visibility, brand authority, and location performance across the entire search journey, wherever consumers are.

‍

Why the GEO Specialist Role Exists Now

Let’s cover the obvious first.

The practices that make up good Generative Engine Optimization (GEO) today are the practices that made up good SEO yesterday. And by extension, the tasks have seen some continuity too, such as E-E-A-T, schema markup, and structured H tags. 

What has changed is that brands now face deep blind spots in understanding how they appear in AI responses — and which competitors are being surfaced alongside them. Many brands struggle to track citations, mentions, and AI-generated recommendations across multiple locations, leaving them unsure where they stand or how to influence outcomes.

They’re small nuances but important ones when it comes to increasing brand engagement and conversions, because while these may well still come from organic search, the highest-intent searches are increasingly flowing through AI search streams. In fact, $750 billion is expected to flow through AI search by 2028.

That’s why more budget than ever is being allocated to GEO and why executives are now seeing AI search optimizations as critical for their success. 

Good SEOs are, however, nothing if not adaptable. They’ve been adjusting to algorithms, penalties, and Core Updates for decades. They’ve had to learn on the go, use their initiative and critical thinking, and strategize further. And where there is potential money left on the table from not appearing optimally across AI search, they will find ways to close that gap.

And thus, the GEO specialist was born. A role that treats AI visibility as a strategic business metric with direct impact on the bottom line. This specialist bridges the gap between brand strategy, content execution, measurement, and AI optimization.

What Is the Typical Day Like for an AI Search Specialist?

What does an SEO specialist do in today’s search?

Unlike traditional SEO roles, which are optimized for keywords and search engine rankings, a GEO specialist does much of the same work as the traditional search engine specialist — but with an added layer: optimizing how AI systems perceive and surface their brand.

Extrapolating what’s just “search noise” versus legitimate industry signals is still critical. Overoptimization has always been a problem in search, and the upskilled SEO will continue to have to decide on their priorities based on fact versus fiction.

These nuances define the GEO specialist role, which we explore further in our GEO Playbook.

1. They Monitor AI Visibility

A GEO specialist tracks how their brand appears — and doesn’t appear — in AI-generated responses across major platforms. They benchmark location accuracy, trust signals, mentions, citations, and competitive performance to understand where AI sees their brand and where it doesn’t. 

2. They Analyze Prompts and Intent

Understanding the questions consumers actually ask AI is central to this role. GEO specialists map high-value prompts to content opportunities — often using query fan-out — identifying the queries where their visibility influence the bottom line most. They prioritize optimizing thin or missing content to fill these gaps.

3. Strategic Content Engineering

A solid GEO strategy doesn’t just involve creating quality, optimized content like before; it’s about making it AI-readable. Specialists structure everything — from location pages to FAQs to review responses — so generative systems can interpret, trust, and cite it confidently. They think in terms of coverage and authority, not just locally relevant keywords.

4. They Coordinate Across Teams

This role collaborates with SEO, content, product, and analytics teams, aligning stakeholders around shared goals like Mention Rate, Citation Rate, and Share of Voice — GEO metrics that reflect actual AI visibility.

5. Measurement and Iteration

But a GEO specialist obviously doesn’t stop at reporting; they audit, optimize, and go again. They audit performance, test approaches, and iterate on content and data strategies to continually improve how their brand is perceived by AI systems.

It’s the Era of the Upskilled SEO

I mean a search engine specialist has never stopped upskilling. But AI search now demands a certain skillset and access to specific data.

And the stakes when SEOs fall short of these skillsets and lack access to this data is high. More than half of consumers, after all, now turn directly to AI systems for answers. 

Brands that treat AI visibility as a core business function — not a side project — are the ones that will get chosen, cited, and trusted. Those who actively support and facilitate the upskilling of their SEOs will by extension ensure their brand- and location-level content is consistently structured, trustworthy, and comprehensive.

Forgive the cliche, but with great power comes great responsibility — and the upskilled SEOs are going to be instrumental in funnelling those high-intent consumers into converting customers by 

• Deciphering GEO noise from proven optimization methods and communicates insights to teams
• Building long-term authority recognized by both humans and AI systems
• Diagnosing visibility gaps across prompts and models
• Drives measurable business impact from AI discovery