There's a number that should change how you think about your marketing budget.

According to research into AI-driven consumer behaviour, 89% of users say AI has influenced at least one purchasing decision. Not assisted. Influenced — as in, they asked an AI engine a question, got a recommendation, and acted on it.

Think about that for a moment. Nine out of ten of your potential customers are, at some point in their buying journey, asking an AI what to do. And the AI is telling them — with confidence, in clear sentences, citing specific businesses, products, and services.

The question is: is it citing yours?

What's Actually Changed in Search

For the past two decades, SEO was the game. Rank on page one of Google, get traffic, convert it. Businesses spent billions on it. Many still do.

But the search landscape has fractured. A growing share of search activity isn't happening on Google's traditional results page at all. It's happening in:

• ChatGPT — now one of the most visited sites on the internet, with over 100 million weekly active users
• Perplexity — an AI search engine growing at a rate that has Google's attention
• Google's AI Overviews — the generated summaries that now appear above organic results for a huge proportion of searches
• Microsoft Copilot — integrated into Windows and Office, handling queries that used to go to Bing
• Gemini — Google's own AI assistant, surfacing in Search, Gmail, and mobile

When someone types 'best accountant in Manchester' or 'what should I look for in a web agency' into any of these tools, they don't get ten blue links. They get a paragraph. Maybe a short list. And then, often, a specific recommendation.

If your business isn't in that answer, you didn't lose the click. You were never in the conversation.

Why Traditional SEO Isn't Enough Anymore

Let's be clear: SEO still matters. Organic search is still a significant channel and it's not going away. But there's a distinction worth understanding.

Traditional SEO optimises for Google's ranking algorithm. You structure pages correctly, build authority through links, produce relevant content, and earn positions in the results.

GEO — Generative Engine Optimisation — optimises for how AI engines read, understand, and extract information from the web. These are related but meaningfully different problems.

AI engines don't just look at where you rank. They look at:

• What's written about you — reviews, third-party mentions, press coverage, forum discussions
• How clearly you explain what you do — AI engines favour content that answers questions directly and completely
• Whether you're cited by authoritative sources — if respected publications, directories, and industry sites reference you, AI engines are more likely to surface you
• How your content is structured — schema markup, clear headings, FAQ formats, and well-organised information all make it easier for AI to extract and use your content
• Your overall topical authority — do you have genuine depth on the subjects your customers search for, or just surface-level coverage?

The businesses showing up in AI answers aren't necessarily the ones spending the most on Google Ads. They're the ones that AI has determined are credible, relevant, and well-documented sources of information.

The 89% Stat in Context

The research behind the 89% figure reflects a broader shift in consumer behaviour that's been building since generative AI tools became mainstream in 2023.

What makes this number significant isn't just its size — it's the nature of the influence. AI-influenced purchases tend to be driven by recommendation rather than comparison shopping. When a user asks ChatGPT 'what's the best [product/service] for [my situation]' and gets a specific answer, the majority of those users act on it. They don't go back and compare five options. The AI has already done that, in their perception.

This is fundamentally different from clicking a Google result. A Google ranking puts you in front of someone who is still making a decision. An AI recommendation, in many cases, has already made the decision for them.

The implication is significant: visibility in AI search is worth more, per impression, than visibility in traditional search. And most businesses have no strategy for it at all.

What GEO Actually Looks Like in Practice

GEO isn't a single tactic. It's a set of practices that, combined, increase the likelihood that AI engines surface and recommend your business.

1. Build genuine topical authority

AI engines evaluate depth of expertise, not just keyword density. A business with fifty well-researched, specific articles on their area of expertise is more likely to be cited than one with one generic page.

2. Structure content for extraction

AI engines pull clean answers from clear structures. Use descriptive headings. Answer questions directly before elaborating. Use FAQ sections. Implement schema markup — particularly FAQ Schema, HowTo Schema, and LocalBusiness Schema.

3. Earn third-party mentions

AI engines are looking for corroboration. Your website says you're great — so does everyone's. What they're really weighing is what other people say about you: reviews on Google and Trustpilot, mentions in trade publications, citations in relevant directories, coverage in local press.

4. Be consistent across platforms

Your business information — name, address, services, specialisms — should be consistent across your website, Google Business Profile, social media, and any directory listings. Inconsistency creates uncertainty for AI engines trying to verify and describe your business.

5. Answer the questions your customers are actually asking

This sounds obvious, but most business content is written from the inside out — describing what the business does, not answering what the customer needs to know. GEO-optimised content is built around the real questions buyers ask.

What This Means for Your Business

If your marketing strategy was built for the old internet — rank on Google, run some ads, post on social — it may still be working. But it's working on a shrinking share of where your customers are looking.

The businesses that get ahead of GEO now will be the ones that AI engines have learned to trust and cite. That authority builds over time, and it compounds. The businesses that ignore it will find themselves increasingly invisible to a generation of buyers who get their answers from AI before they ever visit a search results page.

The good news is that most of your competitors haven't done anything about this yet. The window to establish AI search visibility before your market gets crowded is still open — but it won't be for long.

What Blackstone Does About This

GEO is one of the disciplines we've built into our service offering precisely because we saw this shift coming and knew most of our clients weren't positioned for it.

We run GEO audits that show you exactly how visible — or invisible — your business currently is in AI search. From there, we build a programme of content, structured data, and authority development designed to get you into the answers your customers are receiving.

It's not a quick fix. Nothing sustainable in search ever is. But the businesses that start now will have a meaningful head start over those that wait until it's obvious.