The other morning, I was typing a silly prompt into ChatGPT: “I have oats, yogurt, and bananas in my pantry - what can I make for breakfast?”
Halfway through typing, new prompt suggestions popped up. For a split second, it felt like a Google search engine déjà vu moment - only faster, more conversational, and almost unsettling.
That flash made me realize: AI isn’t just “helping” us search. It’s rewriting what search even looks like.
And in marketing, that’s where LLM SEO comes in.
What is LLM SEO?
LLM SEO stands for Large Language Model Search Engine Optimization (sometimes also called Generative Engine Optimization (GEO) or Answer Engine Optimization (AEO)).
In simple terms, it’s how brands ensure their content appears when people use AI assistants like ChatGPT, Gemini, or Perplexity to ask questions.
I first heard about this shift while working at a student-led food-tech startup. We were running campaigns to boost catering orders, and my founder casually mentioned that some customers had discovered us because ChatGPT recommended our service. At the time, I brushed it off as just another quirk of word-of-mouth. However, after reading a recent article on Search Engine Land, I realized just how significant this shift really is.
Traditional SEO has always rewarded patience and backlinks. You’d publish content, wait for Google to crawl and index it, and slowly climb the rankings.
But LLMs don’t work that way. They don’t crawl in a “wait and rank” cycle. They surface your content instantly if it’s clear, useful, and trustworthy.
That means:
There’s no competition for “10 blue links.”
It doesn’t matter how many months you’ve waited for ranking updates.
The only question is: “Does this answer help the user right now?”
That shift from waiting to instant surfacing is why LLM SEO is considered a game-changer.
Why Brands Need to Pay Attention:
People don’t use LLMs exactly like search engines. The queries are contextual, trust-heavy, and often consultative, closer to asking a real expert than just Googling.
If your brand plays in a space where clarity and trust matter (restaurants, healthcare, finance, even fashion), and your content isn’t AI-ready, you’re likely missing the exact kinds of requests these models are built to answer.
And it’s not just ChatGPT anymore. Traffic is already becoming a multi-model landscape. Each assistant - Gemini, Claude, Perplexity favors slightly different content formats, sources, and structures. Knowing where your AI traffic comes from will matter just as much as how much.
This isn’t a 2026 prediction. It’s already in the analytics of many brands today.
What This Means for Marketers Like Me:
For me, as someone just stepping into the marketing field after UBC Sauder, this shift is exciting.
At CaterDash, I saw firsthand how adding FAQs and keyword-rich blogs made a huge difference in orders. Those same principles - clarity, structure, helpfulness are exactly what LLMs now prioritize.
It tells me two things:
Curiosity matters. Marketers who stay curious and test new ideas will adapt fastest to this “instant surfacing era.”
It’s not optional anymore. If we don’t start writing for AI now, our competitors will.
Conclusion
The way users find answers is being rewritten. So is the way brands find visibility.
SEO is no longer about waiting for Google to reward you. It’s about making sure your content is structured, trusted, and ready to be surfaced instantly by AI.
For brands, the question is no longer “How do we rank?” but “How do we become the answer?”