The Sudden Rise of “GEO Managers” — And Why the Role Isn’t What HR Thinks It Is
Gordon Barker SEO Manager and Author 2nd Dec 2025
There is a new job title making the rounds in digital marketing departments: the “GEO Manager”, short for Generative Engine Optimisation Manager.
It sounds futuristic, urgent, and even slightly mysterious. Newly minted GEO managers are being hired to help companies “stand out in AI search results”, To choose the right words, tone, data formats, website structures, and social content so that generative AI tools such as ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude and Grok pick up their brand’s information.
But what exactly is this new role? And is it genuinely new — or simply a rebranded version of jobs SEO professionals have been doing for years?
What a GEO Manager Really Does
Strip away the buzzwords and the responsibilities sound very familiar. A GEO manager is expected to understand how generative AI models collect, interpret, embed, and repeat information. They must ensure the company’s content is visible, clear, authoritative, and designed in a way AIs can understand.
If that sounds a lot like the job of an SEO manager or content strategist, it’s because it is.
For more than two decades, SEO has involved optimising wording, structure, metadata, schemas, content quality, brand authority, user intent alignment, and website infrastructure. Generative AI hasn’t changed these fundamentals. It has simply created a new surface where content can appear.
Why GEO Managers Are Suddenly a Thing
The rise of this job title has almost nothing to do with new skills suddenly being required, and almost everything to do with industry panic and corporate trend-chasing. Three things are happening:
- Executives fear that chatbots will replace traditional search.
Some analysts suggest GenAI will overtake Google Search by 2030, so companies want to “future-proof” themselves. - HR departments love a catchy new job title.
A role that sounds modern and technical looks good in hiring plans. - Consultants and agencies are rebranding their SEO services as GEO services
to sell “new” solutions to old problems.
The result is a wave of GEO job descriptions that read almost identically to SEO roles, only with more AI buzzwords sprinkled on top.
But Here’s the Reality: Good Content Gets Included Anyway
Generative AI tools behave exactly like search engines in one crucial way:
if your website publishes fresh, authoritative, well-structured information, the AI will find it and use it naturally.
These tools crawl, evaluate, embed, and summarise content from across the internet. They rely on structured data, clear entities, trusted sources, and quality information — which are the same principles SEO managers have worked with for years.
There is nothing magical about “optimising for AI”. The basics still matter: write clearly, cite facts, structure your pages well,
and demonstrate authority.
The Only Real Difference Between SEO and GEO
Classical search directs users to your site.
Generative AI often gives users the answer directly inside the chatbot.
This means a brand might not always get the click, but being cited as the source still matters — and that depends on proper technical SEO, entity optimisation, and structured content. Again, all familiar territory for seasoned SEO professionals.
The Risk: Misunderstanding Leads to Disappointment
Hiring GEO managers without understanding what the role actually involves will only create frustration.
Companies may think they have hired an AI wizard who will unlock magical brand visibility, but if they overlook SEO fundamentals, nothing will work.
In many cases, GEO roles will overlap heavily with SEO jobs, creating tension and confusion within teams.
SEO specialists will understandably feel their tasks are being relabelled and handed to someone else.
The Future: GEO Will Merge Back Into SEO
This hype cycle is not new. We saw the same thing with “metaverse strategists”, “NFT experts”, and
“digital transformation officers”. The pattern is always the same:
- The industry gets excited.
- New job titles emerge overnight.
- Reality sets in.
- The roles vanish or get absorbed into existing teams.
SEO is not going anywhere. It is simply evolving to include a growing focus on how large language models read and use online information. Good SEO will naturally lead to good GEO. The two are not separate disciplines — just two sides of the same coin.
A Final Thought
Companies should absolutely care about how their brand appears in AI outputs, but creating an entirely new job title to do work that SEO managers have mastered for years is unnecessary. Instead of chasing fashionable acronyms, businesses would be better served by strengthening the fundamentals of search visibility, content quality, and brand clarity.
The truth is simple: publish good content, make it technically accessible, and generative AI will include it.
The rest is just noise.
