GEO Is the New SEO: How Generative Artificial Intelligence (AI) Is Transforming Health and Science Visibility
In today’s fast-evolving digital landscape, how people learn about medical and scientific breakthroughs is rapidly changing.
We explore strategic ways health and science innovators can effectively harness Generative Engine Optimization (GEO) to maximize reach, authority, and visibility. In an era when media, investors, and key opinion leaders increasingly turn to AI-powered tools like ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Google’s Search Generative Experience (SGE) to guide decisions, ensuring your content is AI-ready isn’t optional—it’s essential.
From pre-clinical developments to pivotal trial readouts and regulatory approvals, our industry moves fast. In our previous blog, we cover the Pros and Cons of Adopting AI in Investor and Public Relations, but building robust visibility in the world of AI requires even more. GEO empowers brands to cut through noise, and it is imperative that the information is accurate to build trust.
Don’t Chase Clicks—Chase Credibility
GEO isn’t about replacing SEO—it’s about evolving with it.
As key opinion leaders and institutional investors shift from keyword-based search to asking generative engines direct questions, your content needs to evolve from being found to being trusted. According to IPREX’s 2023 State of Communications and Marketing Report, half of respondents believe communicating across borders will become easier in the coming years, with one-third directly attributing this optimism to advancements in technology—particularly AI and its related capabilities.
To rise to the top in this new paradigm, health and science communicators must prioritize:
- Structured, credible, human-centered content
- Strategic use of AI for both optimization and creation
- Long-term thought leadership over short-term traffic spikes
If SEO helped people find you, GEO helps AI understand, recommend, and cite you. And when AI becomes the front door to the internet, being part of its knowledge base is the new competitive advantage.
“It’s not just about market share—it’s about knowledge share. The aim is to become the trusted source AI turns to for answers,” says Andrew Korda, Account Director, LaVoieHealthScience.
What Is GEO?
Generative Engine Optimization (GEO) is the art and science of crafting content that generative AI platforms can understand, reference, and integrate into their answers. It’s the digital PR of the future—especially powerful for sectors where accuracy, context, and credibility are paramount.
Unlike traditional SEO, which aims to rank your site on Google’s results page, GEO focuses on being cited as a source in AI-generated responses. That means your messaging—whether about a mechanism of action, pipeline update, or corporate milestone—needs to be structured and semantically rich, ready to be pulled in real time by advanced language models.
Why GEO Is Essential for Health and Science Communications Now
The stakes in health and science communications are uniquely high. Whether you’re launching a pivotal trial, engaging KOLs pre-launch, and getting commercially ready, visibility and trust help to build understanding and acceptance of your message.
Here’s what’s changing:
- Zero-click search is rising – Users get answers without visiting your website.
- Information quality over ranking factors – Authority and clarity matter more than backlinks.
- AI citation is the new credibility currency – Being cited by an AI model becomes the digital gold standard.
In this landscape, being overlooked in an AI summary is equivalent to being left out of a media story on your competitors, conference panel, or analyst coverage.
For help with your GEO/SEO strategy, contact us at hello@lavoiehealthscience.com.
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