Communications Has a New Audience: The Model
For years, communications has been about shaping perception with people in mind. Consumers, customers, journalists, stakeholders, investors, policymakers, employees. The job was to manage what they saw, read, to influence perception, to drive action.
That hasn’t changed.
But now, there’s another audience: the model.
Large language models like ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Perplexity and others are becoming the first place people go to ask for information. These platforms don’t index the web the way traditional search engines do, and they don’t serve up information the way search engines do. They synthesize—or generate—answers.
This shift has profound implications for brands, how they communicate, the C-suite, and communications leaders.
No longer will Google serve up 10 links for a consumer to click on. Type a question, and ChatGPT or Claude will spin up a mini dissertation in response.
In short, the LLMs decide what matters.
This is the world of GEO — Generative Engine Optimization.
For communications, GEO changes how we think about narrative control, content strategy, reputation risk, and even how creativity breaks through.
It's Not Just About Being Seen. It’s About Being Remembered. By the AI.
In the SEO era, visibility meant ranking high on a page. In the GEO era, it means showing up directly in the model’s answer—as a reference, a source, or a proof point.
That shift comes with consequences.
It’s no longer just what we say, or where we say it. It’s whether the model:
Recognizes the brand in context
Understands what it does
Remembers it when it matters
So therefore what?
That shift creates a new reality for reputation: a brand’s audience is now split in two. Humans still read articles and watch interviews. But the model doesn’t. It only "sees" what it can crawl and compute—and that means if your story isn't clearly written, digitally structured, and reinforced in reliable sources, it might as well not exist in the machine's view of your brand.
And that means when a customer, investor, consumer or policymaker turns to ChatGPT, Claude or Gemini for information, they may not be getting your story—because if the model doesn’t remember you, your audience never will.
In the next blog we’ll talk about how to build communications strategy for the GEO era.
Interested in learning more? Reach out and say hello.