Here’s a scenario that’s probably already playing out for your business, whether you’re aware of it or not.
Someone is planning a weekend in the Finger Lakes. They open ChatGPT, Perplexity, or Google’s AI Overview and type: “What are some good marketing agencies in the Finger Lakes region?” Or maybe: “Who does branding and social media for small businesses in upstate New York?”
The AI reads the question, pulls from everything it has indexed and learned, and writes an answer. Not ten blue links to scroll through. Just an answer. And the businesses it mentions? They’ve already won the customer’s attention before a single website visit happens.
The question isn’t whether this is happening. It is. The question is whether your business is in that answer, or invisible to it.
This is the shift that most agencies aren’t talking about yet
There’s a term gaining traction in the marketing world: Generative Engine Optimization, or GEO. It sits alongside traditional SEO but serves a different machine with different priorities. Traditional SEO earns you a ranking on a search results page. GEO earns you a citation inside an AI-generated response. Related, but not interchangeable.
An article that ranks on page one of Google doesn’t automatically get cited by ChatGPT. AI systems tend to favor content that is clear, specific, well-structured, and genuinely useful, content that answers the actual questions real people are typing into these tools. That’s a different brief than what most agencies have been writing toward for the last decade, and the gap matters.
According to Y Combinator data, traditional search engine volume is projected to drop by 25% by 2026 and by 50% by 2028, with some of that volume replaced by generative search.
The numbers back this up. According to Y Combinator data, traditional search volume is projected to drop 25% by 2026 and 50% by 2028, with a significant portion of that shift going to generative search. Google AI Overviews now appear in more than a quarter of all Google searches. ChatGPT processes roughly two billion queries a day. These aren’t fringe behaviors. This is where discovery lives now.
What it means if you’re a small or regional business
Larger brands with deep content libraries, years of press coverage, and decades of online presence have an easier transition. They’ve already built the kind of authority AI systems trust.
For small businesses and regional brands, the kind that make up the backbone of communities like ours in the Southern Tier and Finger Lakes, the urgency is real. So is the opportunity.
AI search rewards specificity. A regional organization, artisan producer, or destination brand that clearly communicates what it does, who it serves, where it operates, and what makes it different is well-positioned to appear in targeted AI responses. The person asking ChatGPT “What’s the best full-service winery in upstate New York?” isn’t looking for a national brand. They’re looking for someone like you.
The businesses that win in AI search won’t necessarily be the biggest ones in the room. They’ll be the most clearly articulated.
Three things you can do right now
Write for questions, not just keywords. AI systems favor content that directly answers what people are actually asking. Go beyond general service descriptions. Write content that addresses the real questions your customers have: “How do I market my small business on a limited budget?” “What should I look for in a regional marketing partner?” “How does social media strategy differ for tourism brands?” When your content provides direct, useful answers, AI tools are more likely to pull from it.
Audit how clearly your brand reads online. Pull up your website and ask yourself: if an AI were reading this for the first time, what would it actually understand about my business? Is the location clear? Are services specific? Is the niche defined? Vague, aspirational copy that sounds appealing to humans often gets ignored by AI systems, matching a specific answer to a specific question. Specificity isn’t just good SEO. It’s survival in the new landscape.
Build presence beyond your own website. AI systems pull from the entire web, not just your homepage. Reviews, press mentions, social media posts, community forums, and third-party articles all feed into what AI knows about your brand. Reddit citations in AI responses surged in 2025. LinkedIn content gets referenced regularly. Showing up consistently across multiple platforms isn’t just a social media strategy anymore. It’s an AI visibility strategy.
The Honest Take
None of this replaces strong work, real relationships, or the kind of local knowledge that only comes from being genuinely embedded in a community. Those things still matter and always will. But in a landscape where the first point of discovery is increasingly an AI response rather than a search results page, businesses that pay attention early have a real head start over those that wait.
We’ve been watching this shift closely, both as practitioners and as a regional business navigating the same landscape our clients are. If you want to take a clear-eyed look at where your business stands on AI visibility, reach out. We’re glad to dig in with you.
One more thing worth saying out loud
As AI becomes the buzzword of every agency pitch deck, it’s worth offering a word of caution to any business or brand currently shopping for a marketing partner.
There are agencies right now using AI fluency as a selling point without having the foundational marketing knowledge to back it up. They can generate content, automate posts, and talk confidently about algorithms. What they can’t do is replace what actually makes marketing work: a genuine understanding of your brand’s story, your audience’s motivations, and the community context that gives your business meaning in the first place.
AI is a tool. A powerful one, when used correctly. But a tool in the hands of someone who doesn’t truly understand your brand is just efficient mediocrity. It scales the wrong message faster.
This isn’t an abstract concern for us. As destination marketers with years of real work in the Finger Lakes and Southern Tier, we’ve seen firsthand where AI hits its ceiling. It can surface data, assist with structure, and speed up production. It cannot replicate the institutional knowledge of a region, the nuance of a local audience, or the kind of storytelling that builds lasting loyalty between a brand and the people it serves. No prompt produces that. It comes from being in the room, on the ground, knowing the history, and caring about the outcome beyond the deliverable.
When you’re evaluating who to trust with your brand, ask them what AI can’t do for you. The answer will tell you a lot about whether they actually know what they’re doing.