A joint reflection by Pete Mullarkey, Insights Network Manager at B2B International, and Rachael Murdoch, Managing Partner – SEO at dentsu.
This article has a simple objective: to help you recognize a quiet shift in how buyers discover, trust and shortlist brands – and to give you a clear, practical next step, all in 3 minutes.
If you lead brand, marketing, comms or commercial strategy, you don’t need to become an LLM expert. You do need to know whether your brand is being chosen by generative systems – or quietly bypassed. This article is designed to help you understand what’s changing, why it matters, and how to respond with confidence.
The night the machines didn’t stop
There’s a story we keep coming back to – a small but defining moment in industrial history. The night factories stopped closing. The night machines kept running long after people went home.
It didn’t make headlines. No ribbon was cut. But from that moment, entire sectors reshaped themselves. The companies who embraced “always on” accelerated. The ones who didn’t found themselves staring at rivals who were suddenly miles ahead.
Recently, in our work across B2B International and dentsu’s SEO & LLM teams, we’ve realized we’re standing in a moment just like that – one most businesses haven’t quite clocked yet.
Because with the arrival of paid GEO (Generative Engine Optimization) and the rapid advance of LLMs, the landscape has quietly shifted.
Not loudly. Not dramatically. But undeniably.
What changed: discovery moved upstream
Today, while teams log off, inboxes fall silent, and boards wait for their next quarterly review… the generative ecosystem never stops moving.
It answers. It recommends. It cites. It shapes opinions. It influences buying journeys – sometimes before a human ever clicks a link.
That leads to an uncomfortable truth:
If your brand isn’t optimized for GEO, it isn’t simply behind – it’s absent.
Not in a dramatic way.
Not in a way you can always see in Google Analytics.
But in the moments where someone asks an LLM a question that should lead to you… and the model answers with someone else.
This is why GEO isn’t just “SEO with extra steps”. It’s a new layer of brand visibility where:
- the structure and clarity of your content matters as much as creativity
- the places your credibility shows up matter as much as your own channels
- your brand story needs to be legible to machines as well as humans
Five things we’re learning – and why they matter to leaders
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LLMs don’t search – they decide
Search shows options. Generative engines provide answers. If you’re not part of the answer, you’re part of the noise.
Leadership implication: If you don’t know whether you’re showing up in answers, you have a visibility blind spot.
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AI ready infrastructure is now basic hygiene
If models can’t reliably interpret your content, you effectively disappear – even if your thinking is strong.
Leadership implication: Interpretability is the new baseline for visibility.
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Generative visibility is becoming a commercial KPI
Boards will soon treat “answer share” the way they once treated share of voice – because it signals who gets shortlisted.
Leadership implication: This will move quickly from experiment to expectation.
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B2B brands have a short window of advantage
Many competitors aren’t ready. Early movers can establish authority that compounds over time.
Leadership implication: There are few moments where small early moves create lasting advantage – this is one of them.
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Model citation is a new form of market insight
Understanding what sources models trust – trade press, communities, forums, standards bodies – reveals how categories are being shaped.
Leadership implication: GEO isn’t only about visibility; it’s also about insight.
Three questions worth asking now
If nothing else, ask these internally:
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When buyers ask generative engines about our category, do we appear – and in what role?
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Which sources and narratives are shaping those answers today?
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Is our content structured consistently enough to be interpreted objectively by machines?
If those answers aren’t clear, you’re not alone – but you are exposed.
A practical path from curiosity to confidence
What we’re seeing again and again is organizations oscillating between panic (“we need an LLM strategy now”) and paralysis (“this feels too new”).
There’s a calmer middle ground – built on clarity before commitment.
Together, B2B International and dentsu are helping brands move through three sensible stages:
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GEO & LLM Visibility Diagnostics
A fast, focused snapshot of how your brand currently appears – or doesn’t – in generative answers, what’s influencing that visibility, and where displacement is already happening.
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Narrative led Answer Share Audits
Turning technical signals into a clear, board ready story about credibility, visibility and commercial risk.
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LLM Readiness Strategy
A structured plan covering content, schema, feed enrichment and publishing – designed to create durable visibility, not short term hacks.
The aim isn’t transformation overnight. It’s momentum with direction.
All three of these stages can be better understood and informed using Deibu, dentsu’s proprietary LLM Analysis tool that measures how you compare to your competitors and if your brand attributes are positive or negative.
Why this works best together
This isn’t just a search problem – it’s a brand and market understanding problem.
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B2B International brings deep audience, category and decision making insight, helping identify what should influence buyers.
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dentsu brings practical expertise across search, performance and the evolving generative ecosystem, translating that understanding into visibility.
Together, that means brands don’t just react to change – they read it, shape it and act with intent.
A clear next move
If this resonates, the worst response is to file it under “interesting, but later”.
The smartest brands we’re speaking to aren’t trying to solve GEO or LLM visibility in one leap. They’re doing something far simpler – and far more effective: they’re getting a clear view of where they stand right now.
That starts by answering three practical questions:
- When buyers ask generative engines about our category, do we appear – and in what context?
- Which sources and narratives are shaping those answers today?
- Where are competitors quietly gaining authority that could compound over time?
From there, the path becomes obvious.
At B2B International and dentsu, we’re helping teams take that first step through short, focused diagnostics that turn an abstract shift into something tangible – showing where visibility is being won or lost, and what would make the biggest difference fastest.
Not a wholesale transformation.
Not a leap of faith.
Just clarity, direction, and momentum.
Because this shift isn’t coming at some point. It’s already shaping decisions – quietly, continuously, and without waiting for permission.
The question isn’t whether GEO matters.
It’s whether your brand is already part of the answer – or not yet.
To request your complimentary deibu analysis and find out more about dentsu’s GEO and LLM solutions, email us at b2b@dentsu.com.
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