Mapping GEO: One Awkward Question at a Time
An Interview with Alisa Scharf
Alisa Scharf, VP of SEO & Generative AI at Seer
When I first set out to learn about Generative Engine Optimization (GEO), I thought I’d be asking some simple questions and getting simple answers. After all, I’ve been in optimization for years; how hard could this be?
Spoiler alert: very.
For our very first Mapping GEO interview, I sat down with Alisa Scharf of Seer, who has been living and breathing search for more than 15 years. Within minutes, it was obvious that she operates on an entirely different intellectual plane from me. I came armed with curiosity and a recording device; she came armed with actual knowledge.
What I Learned (Or Tried To)
Alisa explained that despite all the hype around ChatGPT, Perplexity, and other AI-driven discovery tools, Google search is bigger than ever. In 2024, searches hit nearly 5 trillion , and millions of people still rely on “old-school” search engines—even AOL and Yahoo are hanging on (3, 4).
Credit: Giphy - Tom Hanks, You’ve Got Mail (AOL)
How Have Habits Actually Changed?
Question: “So how have people’s search habits actually changed?”
Alisa: “People are creatures of habit. A lot of us still default to Google as our daily driver. But there’s also a minority who say, ‘I only use ChatGPT now’ or ‘I only use Perplexity.’ The truth is more fragmented; people are mixing tools rather than abandoning one for another.”
So, while my kids dismiss Google search results as “AI slop,” the reality is more complicated. The kids, and many others, often default to using Reddit or go directly to the brands or aggregators they trust to search for products. Research shows that most people are searching more than ever, but they’re also experimenting with AI assistants, Reddit threads, and other sources (3, 4, 5, 6). In Alisa’s words, discovery is “fragmented and evolving” — not a neat before-and-after story of “Google then, ChatGPT now.”
Another gem from Alisa: AI search doesn’t exist in a vacuum. When you ask an AI a question, it sometimes pulls from its training data, but often it’s still calling Google or Bing under the hood (3) . So, optimizing for AI discovery is still (sometimes) optimizing for search engines, with some new twists.
When you ask an AI a question … it often still calls Google or Bing under the hood. So, optimizing for AI discovery is essentially still SEO…
The Marketer’s Dilemma
We also talked about the rise of zero-click searches. That’s when Google (or another AI tool) answers your question directly, without ever sending you to a brand’s website. Sounds terrifying for marketers, right? And it should.
Credit: Giphy, Schitts Creek.
Researchers define zero-click searches as any search that ends without a click — whether the user is satisfied, frustrated, or just rephrasing their query (4, 6). Which means fewer chances for your brand to show up, fewer opportunities to build trust, and fewer conversions if you’re not strategic about where you compete.
Do Zero-Click Searches Kill Conversions?
Question: “If AI is just giving answers, what does that mean for brands?”
Alisa: “We’ve known for a long time that not all queries are equal. Some invite clicks and conversions; others never did. So yes, traffic may go down, but that doesn’t mean conversions should. The key is focusing on the queries that actually matter.”
That’s the danger — and the opportunity. Brands need to know which queries are likely to drive clicks and which ones are satisfied right on the results page. The trick is also showing up in AI-generated answers, where even impressions can build trust and awareness (4, 6).
But how do you know which queries invite clicks and which content shows up in AI results? That’s the tough part. Alisa pointed me toward Peec.ai, a platform that tracks brand visibility across ChatGPT, Perplexity, Claude, and Gemini. It monitors both brand mentions and source citations, so you can see where you’re part of the answer — and where you’re invisible. It’s not a magic bullet, but it gives marketers a fighting chance to measure AI visibility in the same way we’ve long measured SEO (1, 9).
Alisa: “The content itself has to be built with a deep understanding of who your audience is, who your ideal customers are, in what they need to know, in the moment when they're searching for whatever it is you're trying to rank for…. The ideal brand marketing strategy is to be present at that point of influence, to be sending the right signals, where, if somebody is looking for specific criteria, you are doing everything you can to send those signals and capture that person. I think also, you can't necessarily just say you are the best solution for every single type of customer."
And then there’s the murky side of zero-click. Maybe your content shows up, but no one clicks. That doesn’t mean it’s worthless — repeated exposure might still build awareness.
But as Alisa put it, measurement here is “still really funky.” It’s hard to go from “we got impressions” to “we got revenue” (6). KPIs that used to guide SEO now feel less reliable in a GenAI world, where the data we typically rely on is harder to measure (8).
If impressions in AI overviews don’t connect to clicks and revenue, then marketers need new yardsticks for success.
Authenticity vs. “Slop”
I’ll confess: I was itching to ask about authenticity. My kids aren’t wrong—the internet is drowning in generic, keyword-stuffed content.
Does Authenticity Really Matter to Google (or AI)?
Question: “SEO has always felt a bit ‘icky’ to me. What really matters most today if you want your content to be found — authenticity or tactics?”
Alisa: “There’s always been tactical fine-tuning — FAQs, summaries, schema — but that’s about how content is served. The real win comes from deeply understanding your audience: what problems they face, what they need in the moment. Authenticity is about aligning content with those needs, not chasing every keyword.”
At Seer, they don’t chase every keyword. Instead, they build content for their ideal customer profile (ICP) — people who actually need their services. That means saying no to generic, keyword-stuffed pages and yes to content that solves real problems for the right audience (2, 7). Structure still matters — headings, FAQs, schema markup — but what really wins is sincerely addressing your ICP’s needs.
What I Still Don’t Know
By the end of our conversation, I realized how much more I have to learn and how far down the rabbit hole GEO goes. Every time I thought I had a handle on one concept (like zero-click searches), Alisa gently reminded me that the landscape is more nuanced, more fragmented, and more dynamic than my tidy questions allowed. (Don’t worry, I’m already scheduling another interview with Alisa and many other folks way smarter than me. More to come!)
Where Is This All Heading?
By the end, I couldn’t resist asking the crystal-ball question: if things have changed this much in the last year, how much different will they be tomorrow? And what should we focus on learning?
Alisa: “It’s not a simple before-and-after story. We’re moving toward a more fragmented, evolving landscape, part Google, part AI, part social platforms. The challenge isn’t choosing one lane, it’s learning how they all work together.”
That answer floored me. I came in looking for a clean narrative, but what I got was a map with a dozen unfinished roads. And that’s exactly why we’re doing this series. I’ll keep asking the “dumb” questions, and people like Alisa will keep sharing the smart answers. Maybe, together, we’ll start to chart this shifting terrain.
credit: Giphy, Kermit looking at map
Explorer’s Log
Here’s my reading list for this piece — think of it as a trail you can follow (or wander off from) to keep learning. And maybe you’ll get there faster than me (it wouldn’t be challenging…).
How Search Works – Google Search Central Blog. Google’s own explanations (and spin) on how search engines work.
SEO for AI Search Engines: An Early POV – Alisa Scharf, Seer. A practical intro to AI search engines and what “optimization” looks like today.
Study: the AI Search Landscape Beyond the SEO vs GEO Hype – Alisa Scharf & Marketa Williams, Seer. A sharp breakdown of the emerging GEO space, cutting through the noise to explain what’s hype and what’s real.
2024 Zero-Click Study – Rand Fishkin, SparkToro. Essential for understanding the rise of no-click behavior.
The First-Ever UX Study of Google’s AI Overviews – Kevin Indig, Growth Memo. A user-experience perspective on how people interact with Google’s AI-generated answers, with lessons for marketers.
The Impact of AI Overviews on SEO – Kevin Indig, Growth Memo. A data-driven look at how Google’s AI Overviews are reshaping SEO strategy and visibility.
How AI Overviews Are Impacting CTR: 5 Initial Takeaways – Nick Haigler, Seer. Data on how Google’s AI Overviews affect user clicks.
Why 2020’s SEO KPIs Won’t Work in 2024 in a GenAI & Data-Scarce World – Wil Reynolds, Seer. A must-read on rethinking metrics in a GenAI-driven world.
The Next Big Thing: AI Browsers – Alisa Scharf, John Lovett, & Jordan Strauss, Seer. A look at AI browsers and their potential disruption.
