Why Your Press Release Is a GEO Asset (If Distributed Right)

With AI transforming how information is found and brands are discovered, a new discipline has entered the PR and communications playbook: Generative Engine Optimisation, or GEO – the practice of ensuring your digital infrastructure and content is optimised for AI visibility. Much of the conversation around GEO has been focused on what happens after content is published – tracking how brands appear in AI-generated answers, measuring AI search visibility, and optimising outputs. The dominant narrative is simple: track your visibility in AI outputs and then optimise . But this perspective on GEO overlooks an important question: where does AI visibility come from? AI Visibility and GEO, Downstream or Upstream? The answer: AI visibility is created upstream , at the point of content distribution, before any GEO tool can measure it – and the best way to ensure GEO authority and AI visibility is to create upstream foundations . AI visibility is not created in the reporting layer . The idea that brands can just optimise their way into AI visibility at the reporting stage overlooks a simple fact: AI cannot cite what does not exist . This is a core principle of GEO. While most approaches focu