Yes, and Google says why in its own optimization guide, last updated July 2026:
The best practices for SEO continue to be relevant because our generative AI features on Google Search are rooted in our core Search ranking and quality systems.
The citation data agrees. In the Cheers market baseline for the 28 days ending September 2, 2026, 32 home-services prompts run in 100 metro areas produced 356,019 citations across four engines, and 68.1% of them pointed at a business website. Directories and review platforms took 23.0%, google.com 3.3%, and social and forum pages 2.8%. The page an SEO team has been maintaining is still the thing the answer is built from.
Last verified: September 2, 2026.
What changes is the reporting, not the foundation. A team now needs search performance and answer-level evidence side by side. The full cuts are in AI visibility statistics, with the sampling rules in the methodology.
What's actually different now
When someone asks ChatGPT for a plumber in Austin, the response may name one business, several businesses, show local results, cite web pages, or decline to recommend one. Save the provider, prompt, market, answer, and citations before deciding what the result means.
SEO reporting still explains whether the site earns search visibility and traffic. GEO reporting adds whether the business appeared in the tested answer and which sources supported it. For a deeper introduction, see What is Generative Engine Optimization (GEO)?. For the local-pack comparison, read The Death of the Google 3-Pack.
What remains observable
Google publishes broad Search and local-ranking guidance, but AI products do not publish one shared recommendation formula. Operators can still inspect four evidence layers:
Search performance. Indexing, rankings, impressions, clicks, conversions, and local-pack visibility.
Generated answers. Appearances, citations, competitors, provider differences, markets, and answer accuracy. Source mixes move on their own: Reddit's share of AI citations fell from 2.57% to 1.05% in six weeks without any business changing anything.
Public business facts. Location, service, phone, hours, category, and booking information across relevant sources.
Customer evidence. Legitimate reviews and proof of work that help customers evaluate the business, without presenting either as a guaranteed AI signal.
Important
A correlation between one public artifact and one answer is an audit lead, not a disclosed ranking factor.
SEO and GEO overlap, but they're not the same
Useful, crawlable pages support both disciplines. The difference is the reporting surface. SEO explains search discovery and traffic; GEO explains a defined set of generated answers and their visible sources.
Pro Tip
Keep one content and technical foundation, then maintain separate SEO and GEO scorecards so a change in one channel is not misreported as a change in the other.
Next step
Is AI recommending your business?
Find out how visible you are across ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, and AI Overviews.
What adoption data can support
AI-assisted discovery is large enough to measure. BrightLocal's Local Consumer Review Survey 2026, published February 11, 2026, found 45% of consumers had asked a generative AI tool for a local business recommendation in the past year, up from 6% the year before. Google said in May 2026 that AI Mode had passed one billion monthly users. The consumer-side detail is in How Consumers Use AI to Find Local Businesses.
Both are self-reported or all-query numbers, so the operating conclusion stays modest: track the channel where customers may encounter the brand, and do not turn adoption snapshots into a prediction about future market share.
What to do about it
Don't abandon SEO. It still drives traffic, and the fundamentals (good site architecture, quality content, technical optimization) still matter.
Add GEO measurement where buyer prompts matter. Keep legitimate review collection, accurate profiles, useful local pages, and structured data aligned with the real business because those improve customer and crawler access. Measure AI outcomes separately rather than promising that any one task causes a recommendation.
If the decision is whether to keep a retainer or move the work into an operating system, use Local SEO Agency Alternative for Multi-Location Home Services. If the team is comparing tool categories, use Best Local SEO Software for Multi-Location Service Businesses.
Important
Keep rankings and search traffic in the report, then add tested AI appearances, citations, competitors, and answer accuracy as a separate channel view.
Use the free Visibility Grader for an initial snapshot, then keep SEO and GEO results separate enough to see which work changed which channel.
Sources
Every link below was opened and checked on September 2, 2026.
- Optimizing your website for generative AI features on Google Search. Google Search Central, last updated July 2026. Source of the quoted line about SEO best practices and the core ranking systems.
- Creating helpful, reliable, people-first content. Google Search Central, last updated December 2025. The people-first standard behind the content recommendations here.
- Local Consumer Review Survey 2026. BrightLocal, February 2026. The 45% adoption figure and its 6% prior-year comparison.
- A new era for AI in Search. Google, May 2026. AI Mode monthly users and Search integration.
- How does ChatGPT conduct local searches?. Search Engine Land, May 2025, by Damian Rollison. How the retrieval step behind a local answer works.
- Cheers market baseline, 28 days ending September 2, 2026. 32 home-services prompts, 100 metro areas, four engines, 356,019 citations classified by domain. Aggregate only. Methodology.
Dylan Allen-Arnegård is the CEO of Cheers, the local search platform for service businesses.