Even if the AI bubble bursts, businesses will still need to be found wherever their customers look for answers. Generative engine optimisation, or GEO, will remain relevant as long as AI search helps people research purchases. Its value will depend on the information buyers can find about your business and whether that helps them choose.
The concern about an AI bubble has a concrete basis. Reuters reported that China’s AI-heavy STAR50 index fell 40% in less than four months, erasing about $480 billion in market value. The same report describes a smaller US setback, with AI stocks leading a 6% Nasdaq decline from its recent record high. The 40% fall refers specifically to China’s STAR50.
The Reuters article, published on 26 October 2026, says there was no obvious trigger for China’s sell-off. Traders cited high prices and tax bills. They also pointed to the threat of the United States or other countries banning Chinese equipment in data centres. These were possible contributing pressures; the report does not establish a single cause.
A fall in company valuations can make funding harder to obtain. Suppliers may close products or charge more for services that were previously subsidised. Marketing teams could face tighter budgets, especially for work whose results are difficult to explain.
Those risks apply to businesses selling GEO services, including GEO Fix. We have a commercial interest in this subject, and a downturn could make customers more cautious about what we offer.
The figures in the report measure lost market value. They tell us little about whether someone will use an AI assistant tomorrow to compare accounting firms or research software. That behaviour needs to be assessed separately.
An AI market correction would therefore change the spending decision. Business owners would have more reason to ask what a GEO project fixes and how they will check the outcome.
Why GEO will still matter even if the AI bubble bursts
A buyer looking for payroll software needs information about the product’s suitability and limitations. An AI assistant may help that buyer narrow the options, even during a period when investors are losing money on AI companies.
For a software business, the practical job is to publish information that answers those questions. A product page should explain who the software serves. Integration details should be easy to find. Claims about features should agree with the documentation a customer will read later.
GEO addresses how that information can be found and understood in AI search. The work remains useful when a platform changes its model, provided that customers continue to use the service for research.
The platform itself may change. A tool your customers use today could lose users or shut down. Keeping your business facts on your own website makes them available to other services that can access those pages. That gives the work value beyond a single provider.
This does not justify unlimited spending. A channel that brings little relevant attention deserves a smaller budget. The case for GEO becomes stronger when you can connect the work to a specific obstacle, such as an inaccessible service page or missing information buyers need.
Can AI search systems read your key pages?
The free Express Check identifies access and readability issues that could affect how AI systems read your website.
Google SEO and ChatGPT visibility share useful work
Google SEO and ChatGPT visibility involve different selection systems, but both depend on the information available about your business. Preparing a website for AI search can build on work you already do for Google.
Google’s guidance for AI search features says established SEO practices remain relevant to AI Overviews and AI Mode. Pages must be indexed and eligible for snippets to appear as supporting links. Google specifies no additional technical requirements or special optimisations for these features.
That makes ordinary website work a sensible place to start. Important details should be available as readable text. Internal links should help visitors reach useful pages. Any structured data, the labels that help machines interpret a page, should match what people can see.
A business can rank in Google and still receive no mention in ChatGPT. The assistant may retrieve different sources or interpret the question differently. A strong Google position alone cannot tell you how another service presents your business.
Our GEO vs SEO guide explains where separate checks help. For budgeting purposes, the overlap is useful: improving a confusing service page can support discovery across channels without requiring a separate version of the website for each one.
Consider a hypothetical US accounting firm whose homepage describes it only as a “trusted growth partner”. Adding a clear explanation of its tax services and the clients it serves would help a prospective customer assess the firm. Search systems would also have more specific information to work with.
A Shopify store could face a different problem: its return conditions appear only inside an image. Publishing those conditions as text makes them easier to access. Neither example guarantees more traffic, but each fixes an identifiable weakness in the page.
What to check before spending more on GEO
Begin with the pages customers use to evaluate your business. Review them as a buyer would, then check whether the search systems you want to reach can access the same information.
Check
Evidence that helps you decide what to do
Access to a priority page
A recorded access failure, followed by a successful check after the fix
Missing buyer information
A specific question the page leaves unanswered
Inaccurate structured data
A mismatch between the markup and the visible page
Need for ongoing monitoring
A recurring issue or a website change that warrants another check
Crawler access needs care. Platforms can use different automated visitors for search discovery and model training. Blocking a training crawler alone does not establish that your business cannot appear in an AI answer. Review the relevant platform’s documented controls before changing access settings.
Measure what happens after the work. Where available in your Search Console property, Google’s generative AI performance report shows impressions in AI Overviews and AI Mode. It counts impressions only, with no separate click or click-through-rate metrics and no breakdown by search query. Google says the report may be absent when a site has too few AI impressions.
Use referral analytics to assess visits from other services where the source is identifiable. Ask new customers how they found you when that information is useful to your sales process.
Keep visibility and business results separate in your reporting. An impression shows exposure; an enquiry gives you another piece of evidence about whether that exposure was useful. If you test answers in an assistant, record the question and date because the response can change.
GEO Fix’s free Express Check reports technical readiness issues. Monitoring plans are intended to add repeat checks when that service launches. GEO Fix cannot guarantee inclusion in AI answers or sales. The business readiness guide explains how to choose which issues to address first.
FAQ
GEO will remain relevant wherever customers use AI answers to research businesses. A crash could affect the services available and the cost of using them. Review your customers’ behaviour before changing the budget for that channel.
Keep maintaining the pages that help customers find and evaluate your business through Google. Google’s guidance says the same SEO practices remain relevant to its AI features. Work on access and useful content can support both.
Google says you don’t need to create new machine-readable files, AI text files or markup to appear in its AI features. Treat llms.txt as an optional file to assess for a particular use, rather than a requirement for appearing in Google’s AI answers.
GEO Fix identifies technical readiness issues that you can address. AI platforms control which businesses they mention, so a completed fix cannot guarantee a recommendation or a sale.
Review your main service or product page for unanswered buyer questions.
Check access before paying for additional content or monitoring.
Set a review date for your GEO spending and assess it against the customer activity you can observe.
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Find the website issues worth fixing
The free Express Check gives you an HTML report of AI search readiness issues. When monitoring launches, paid plans will add repeat audits to check whether fixes hold.
