Key Takeaways
Your website is no longer the front door to your business. It’s the plumbing behind the walls.
Today, when someone says, “Book me a flight to New York” or “Find the best accountant near me”, they don’t go to Google, click a blue link, land on your page, and browse.
An AI agent like ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude, Perplexity, or even a voice bot, handles it in seconds.
If your brand isn’t visible inside those answers, it doesn’t exist.
This isn’t “someday.” It’s already happening. And if you want your business to survive, you must master Generative Engine Optimisation (GEO), the skill of making your brand discoverable, trusted, and cited by agents.
Ask Engine Optimisation (GEO) is the evolution of SEO for the agent era. Instead of optimizing for search engine results pages (SERPs), you’re optimizing for agents and AI assistants that directly answer questions.
Key pillars of GEO:
As Dean Whitby (founder of Tenacious Sales (operating internationally as Tenacious AI Marketing Global)) puts it: “You must build a business AI can’t replace, and GEO is how you stay in the conversation when the agent answers instead of the SERP.”
Watch Dean break this down in more detail here: Speak with Power, Earn More: The AI Era Advantage.
For a deeper dive into how GEO differs from traditional SEO and why it matters in 2025, check out our blog:
AI adoption is accelerating at an unprecedented speed.
In fact, a Forbes report indicates that the generative AI market has grown 554% in the past four years, reaching $36 billion in 2024.
Platforms like WeChat Mini-Programs and Instagram Checkout show us the pattern: the transaction happens inside the ecosystem, not on your website.
Agents collapse the journey. No “10 blue links → click → browse → buy.” Just: “Book the flight.” Done.
If you’re not in the agent’s dataset, you don’t exist in the customer’s decision.
Here’s the hard truth: agents don’t see web design. They don’t care about banners, sliders, or pixel-perfect UX.
They consume signals.
In the agent world, your job is not to design pretty pages. Your job is to feed the machine clean, structured, trusted data so you get chosen.
The biggest risk: agents answer without your brand attached.
Imagine this: a user asks, “Best business consultant in the UK.” The agent says: “Here are three trusted consultants…”, but doesn’t mention you. That’s invisibility.
To prevent this:
Your brand must become the watermark on every answer.
Forget pageviews, bounce rates, and sessions. They mean nothing when users never visit your site.
What you must track instead:
And the stakes are massive: voice AI startups alone raised $398 million in VC funding in 2024, said one report of The Business Insider. Agents aren’t a side project; they’re where the money and innovation are flooding in.
Here’s how to start winning visibility inside agents:
Here’s the future:
At Tenacious Sales (operating internationally as Tenacious AI Marketing Global), we don’t just follow trends; we anticipate the future and engineer strategies that dominate it.
Explore our full GEO Services to see how we help brands stay visible in the Agent Era.
When AI agents replace websites as the default entry point, most businesses will fade into invisibility. We make sure you’re not one of them.
Here’s how we help you win in the Agent Era with Tenacious Sales (operating internationally as Tenacious AI Marketing Global):
With Tenacious Sales (operating internationally as Tenacious AI Marketing Global), you don’t just survive the agent revolution. You dominate it. Book a Growth Call to stay visible in the Agent Era.
Ready to take the next step? Contact us today, and let’s make sure your brand becomes the one agents choose.
The agent era isn’t a “future trend.” It’s here.
Your choice:
You don’t win this with pretty pages. You win it with signals, structure, authority, and relentless brand presence.
Because in the agent era, Invisibility = death. Visibility = dominance.
What does “websites are dead” actually mean?
It means websites are no longer the primary place customers start and finish decisions. In the agent era, the journey often begins inside AI assistants and voice agents, and many actions happen without the user browsing multiple pages. Websites still matter, but more as infrastructure, proof storage, and data feeds than as the front door.
Why do AI agents bypass websites?
Because agents optimise for task completion. Instead of “search, click, browse, compare”, they compress the journey into “choose and do”. If the user asks “book”, “find”, “compare”, or “recommend”, the agent tries to complete the action immediately using trusted sources, structured data, and integrations.
What is GEO and how is it different to SEO?
SEO optimises to rank in traditional search results. GEO (Generative Engine Optimisation) optimises to be understood, trusted, cited, and recommended inside AI answers. GEO is built on entity clarity, proof layers, structured content, and cross-source consistency so AI has confidence in your brand.
What signals do AI agents actually use?
Agents use structured signals more than design. That includes schema and JSON-LD, consistent business data across platforms, reviews and third-party mentions, clear service and product pages with FAQs, and in many cases video transcripts, listings, and community proof. The goal is to reduce ambiguity and increase confidence.
If websites still exist, what should my website do in 2026?
Your website should act like infrastructure. It should host canonical proof, service definitions, FAQs, pricing logic, credentials, and machine-readable structured data. It should also support “action”, clear CTAs, booking, enquiry flows, and integrations that make it easy for humans and agents to complete the next step.
How do I stop AI answers from removing my brand?
You “watermark” your authority by making your entity and proof unavoidable. Use consistent naming across platforms, publish structured content that includes your brand in definitions and FAQs, strengthen citations via PR and third-party profiles, and ensure your service pages are clear enough that AI can quote you without rewriting you into generic advice.
What should I measure if pageviews matter less?
Track metrics tied to agent-driven discovery and conversion: branded mentions, citation share, referral traffic from AI tools where available, assisted conversions, lead quality changes, and performance of booking and enquiry flows. The key question becomes “are we being selected”, not “are we being visited”.
Do AI agents hallucinate, and does that make this pointless?
They can hallucinate, which is exactly why GEO matters. The brands that win are the ones that reduce hallucination risk by feeding agents consistent, verifiable, structured information across multiple trusted sources. More clarity and proof equals higher AI confidence and better recommendations.
What are the first 5 steps to become visible in AI answers?
Start with: clean up entity consistency, fix listings and business data, publish structured service pages with FAQs, add schema, and build proof layers like reviews, case studies, and third-party mentions. Then test prompts in major assistants and iterate based on what appears and what is missing.
Which industries are most at risk if they ignore this?
Service businesses where trust and speed drive decisions are most exposed. That includes agencies, accountants, clinics, dentists, hospitality, restaurants, tourism, brokers, recruitment, home services, legal services, and B2B providers. If buyers can ask “best X near me” and get a shortlist instantly, you need GEO or you will be skipped.
