Introduction
Digital transformation has always been about anticipating where customer journeys will begin — and adapting fast enough to stay visible when they shift. Today, we’re facing one of the biggest shifts yet: the rise of AI agents as the new discovery layer.
For decades, brands optimised their digital presence for search engines. Now, traffic patterns are changing. Human visits to websites are slowing, while AI bots and assistants are increasingly active, crawling product data and shaping consumer decisions through generative responses.
The question isn’t whether this will affect your business — it’s how prepared you are when it does.
Why Being “AI Ready” Requires a Strategy That Scales
It can be tempting to think: “GEO is the new SEO — let’s go straight into APIs and AI-specific endpoints.”
But this mindset is risky for two reasons:
AI assistants still lean heavily on SEO signals.
Most models ground their answers using indexed search results and schema.org markup. If your SEO is weak, your brand is invisible from the start.Schema is the scaffolding.
You can’t build AI-friendly feeds if your baseline structured data is incomplete or inconsistent. APIs without authority are just raw data — not trusted sources.
Skipping SEO creates fragile GEO.
The Risk of Skipping Straight to GEO
To be AI ready, brands need a roadmap that combines immediate wins with a scalable foundation.
Phase 1: Mature + Expose (now to end of 2025)
Diagnosis & Audit: Establish baselines in SEO, schema coverage, API availability, and AI visibility.
SEO Quick Wins: Fix crawlability issues, optimise metadata, implement baseline Product/Offer schema, and improve Core Web Vitals.
GEO Basics: Extend schema with promotions, returns, reviews, shipping details; add organisation-level markup; test brand visibility in ChatGPT, Perplexity, Claude.
Pilot APIs: Expose 1–2 product category endpoints in AI-friendly JSON-LD, document them, and monitor usage.
Measurement & Impact Report: Quantify progress (indexed products, schema coverage, LLM citations, pilot API hits) and present to leadership.
Phase 1: Mature + Expose (now to end of 2025)
Full API templating across all product categories.
Model Context Protocol (MCP) implementation — a standardised way for AI agents to discover and call your APIs.
Agentic shopping readiness — enabling AI assistants not only to recommend products, but to transact: check inventory, apply promotions, and complete checkout.
Governance frameworks to control attribution, freshness, and brand authority in the agentic ecosystem.
Why the Model Context Protocol Matters
By the end of 2025, brands should be able to show progress across three dimensions:
SEO: More products indexed, schema coverage expanded, rich snippets appearing, improved Core Web Vitals.
GEO: Agents citing your brand more often, structured data enriched, early presence in AI answers.
APIs: Pilot endpoints consumed, logging bot/agent access, first examples of LLMs using your feeds.
This layered success becomes the business case for extending into 2026.
The Vision: From Optimisation to Transformation
From January 2026, the focus shifts from optimisation to transformation. The vision is clear:
Expand APIs across all categories.
Formalise MCP support.
Enable agentic shopping transactions.
This moves the brand from being found in AI answers to powering end-to-end AI-driven shopping journeys.
Closing Thought
AI agents are already shaping commerce. The winners won’t just be the ones who rush to expose APIs, nor those who only polish SEO. The winners will be those who understand the stacked nature of digital authority:
SEO to be discoverable.
GEO to be consumable.
APIs to be actionable.
Get the foundation right, build the layers in tandem, and your brand won’t just survive the AI shift — it will lead it.
FAQs
1. Is GEO replacing SEO?
No. GEO (Generative Engine Optimisation) is not a replacement for SEO — it’s an additional layer. SEO ensures your site is discoverable and authoritative in search engines. GEO builds on that by making your brand’s data consumable and trustworthy for AI agents. Without SEO foundations, GEO efforts are fragile and less effective.
2. Can’t AI agents just scrape my site anyway? Why bother with GEO?
They can — but scraped data is often stale, incomplete, or taken out of context. By providing enriched schema and official API endpoints, you ensure that AI agents use your fresh, authoritative source. This reduces misinformation, strengthens brand control, and increases the likelihood of being cited correctly.
3. Why focus on structured data if we’re moving towards APIs?
Because schema is the scaffolding. Structured data helps both search engines and AI assistants interpret your products consistently. APIs then provide real-time depth and freshness. The two reinforce each other — schema establishes authority, APIs operationalise it.
4. What is the Model Context Protocol (MCP) in simple terms?
MCP is like a sitemap for AI models. It tells AI assistants which endpoints exist, how to query them, and what results to expect. Instead of scraping or guessing, agents can directly access your brand’s authoritative data in a standardised way.
5. What does success look like in the short term?
By the end of 2025, success means:
More products indexed and enriched with schema.
Your brand cited more often in AI-generated answers.
API pilots showing early adoption and bot/agent usage.
A measurable uplift in brand visibility, both in SERPs and in AI responses.
