W·T·F is GEO?

“The PR, social media and communications world throw acronyms around and then wonder why clients look at us sideways. This series is our attempt to fix that with a breakdown of the terms we use most, written specifically for those of you in the home, interior and design industry.”

 

You keep hearing about AI search, but what does it actually mean for your firm or brand? Here’s what we’re seeing in real time and why the work we do together is more relevant than ever.

How does AI Search affect the way clients find designers and brands?

GEO stands for Generative Engine Optimisation. Where SEO is about appearing in a Google results list, GEO is about appearing in the actual answer that Claude, ChatGPT, Google’s AI Overview, or Perplexity gives someone before they’ve clicked a single link.

The discovery journey now has a verification step in the middle that didn’t really exist a few years ago. Someone sees work they love on Instagram, gets curious, and then before they ever visit a website or reach out, they ask an AI to tell them more. 

They might type “recommend a luxury interior designer in New York” or “is this brand well regarded in the design industry” and get an answer back instantly. Whether your name comes up in that answer, and how you’re described when it does, depends entirely on what AI can find and verify about you.

This is where the press coverage we secure for you matters more than it ever has. Every feature, placement or brand mention in a publication like Architectural Digest, Elle Decor or House Beautiful creates a backlink, a trust signal that both search engines and AI systems use to evaluate credibility and authority. The work hasn’t changed. The reasons it matters have multiplied.

The 5 things that actually matter

There is a new step in how clients find you.

Before a potential client reaches out, they are likely asking AI about you, making that moment a new and significant part of your first impression. Whether you appear in that answer, and how you’re described when you do, is now shaping decisions before a single conversation has taken place.

Press is what AI learns from.

Features in credible publications are the primary signal AI uses to understand who you are and how to describe you. Every placement, brand mention and expert quote we secure for you is contributing to that picture. Those quote requests we send? They are part of this too, appearing as a source, not just a subject, signals a different level of authority entirely.

Instagram and TikTok don’t feed AI but they still matter.

These platforms aren’t indexed in a way AI can read, so they won’t put your name in an AI-generated recommendation. What they do is create the initial desire that sends someone searching in the first place. They are also where shortlists are formed, the “I want to find out more about them” moment that then goes to AI for verification.

YouTube is the exception worth knowing about.

Unlike Instagram and TikTok, AI does index YouTube captions and titles. If you are creating video content, paying attention to how those are written is a genuinely worthwhile step right now and one that not many brands in this space are thinking about yet.

Social and press are a team, not competitors.

Social is where someone finds you and decides they like you. Press is what AI says when that feeling turns into a search. For those working with us across both, we are thinking about that full picture more intentionally than ever because the brands that understand how these two things work together are the ones showing up at every stage of the journey.

We are navigating this shift alongside you and if it feels equal parts new, exciting and a little unpredictable, that’s because it is. What we do know is that the fundamentals of building a credible, well-regarded brand remain the same. The channels through which that credibility is read and verified have simply expanded.