AI search engines like Google Gemini and ChatGPT now deliver direct answers, not links. Rich snippets and structured data help AI accurately understand and surface your content — at HAKE Digital we help businesses implement them strategically to maintain visibility in an AI-driven search landscape. Take a deeper dive into Answer Engine Optimisation (AEO) below.
Search is changing fast. The way people discover information today looks very different from even a year ago.
Generative search engines like ChatGPT, Google’s AI Overviews and Perplexity no longer return a simple list of links. Instead, they generate direct answers, pulling from sources they understand and trust.
That shift changes the rules. If your content is not clear, structured and credible, it will not be referenced. It will not be summarised. And it will not be surfaced.
This is where AI SEO, also known as Generative Engine Optimisation, comes in.
AI SEO is the process of preparing your content so generative search systems can:
Understand what you do and who you help
Trust your expertise and authority
Reuse your content accurately in generated answers
Connect your content across related topics, not just keyword
Traditional SEO focused on ranking pages. Generative search focuses on selecting sources.
If your business relies on content to educate, build trust or convert demand, becoming a selected source is now the real goal.
Ranking well for individual keywords still matters, but it is no longer the whole picture.
Generative engines evaluate content differently. They look for clarity of expertise, consistency of language, supporting context and real-world credibility. They care less about optimisation tricks and more about whether your content genuinely answers questions.
If your site is fragmented, vague or inconsistent, AI systems struggle to use it. And if they cannot use it, they will not cite it.
Most advice around AI SEO is heavy on theory and light on execution. At HAKE digital, we take the complexity out of it and focus on implementation.
Our approach is practical, structured and designed to scale with your business.