Introducing signal: firstlight's GEO programme

GEO (generative engine optimisation) has quickly become the hottest acronym in town. Other three-letter terms, like AIO and AEO, are jostling for our attention too, in a kind of AI-based alphabet soup. But they all describe broadly the same thing: the practice of understanding and influencing the public signals AI systems draw on when generating answers about brands, categories and people.

You’ve probably heard of SEO – optimising how you appear in search engines. GEO is the next evolution: making sure you show up accurately and prominently when people ask AI tools questions about your industry, your category, or your brand.

It matters more than ever. Your audiences are already using ChatGPT, Perplexity and Google’s AI Overviews to find information, make decisions and form opinions. But those platforms don’t always get it right. Responses can be incomplete, outdated or simply inaccurate. If AI is misrepresenting you, that’s a risk to your reputation and pipeline.

signal is our answer

It’s firstlight’s GEO programme — a structured approach to understanding and shaping how you appear across AI. The programme has three parts:

• The Audit maps how you currently appear across AI platforms and identifies what’s shaping the responses.
• The Strategy interprets the findings and builds a communications programme across messaging, content and channels.
• The Shift is where we execute, measure what’s changing, and refine.

firstlight is well placed to lead this work. GEO doesn’t replace great communications – it raises its importance. We already shape the inputs AI learns from: earned coverage, authoritative sources, clear owned content. signal lets us take that work and target specific, measurable outcomes.

Whether you need a rapid audit with headline recommendations or a full end-to-end strategy and delivery programme, signal is designed to flex around your requirements, timeline and budget.

Get in touch to find out how signal could work for you.