Sirte Pihlaja, a globally recognised ‘AI Whisperer’ and CX Thought Leader, pioneers Agentic AI in customer and employee experiences. As CEO of Shirute and Head of Team at CXPA Finland, she helps organisations navigate AI-driven transformation with human-centric business models and CX and AI governance frameworks.
As the world moves from traditional search engines to AI-powered search, many companies focus solely on visibility—what we call GEO (Generative Engine Optimisation). But GEO alone isn’t enough.
This isn’t just about technical optimisation—it’s about a fundamentally new type of customer journey, where AI doesn’t just look for information but acts on it. Without solid AIO, your company will be left out of transactions initiated by AI agents.
This blog builds on conversations I had with Valto Loikkanen following the release of my previous article. Valto also put together a good summary of these themes in the form of a NotebookLM podcast. You can listen to it here.
Visibility in an AI-First World
We’ve already explored the changing definition of visibility in the age of AI and how machine customers reshape purchasing paths. The next step is AIO—Artificial Intelligence Optimisation.
If GEO gets you on the AI search results, AIO ensures that AI agents can actually do business with you. And this is something most companies still haven’t ensured.
Our research supports this observation. In our Digital Assistants Experience study (Shirute & Elisa, 2024), we found that most companies are still unable to serve AI-based customers effectively. Service structures often don’t support AI interactions, and the service level is frequently inadequate.
That’s why this blog focuses on how AIO can enable a seamless and functional service capability for machine customers—not just visibility in AI search, but real readiness to support AI-driven customer needs, enable transactions, and provide value at every step of the AI-powered journey.
- This Isn’t SEO 2.0—It’s a Whole New Way of Thinking
GEO isn’t just an updated version of SEO—it’s a completely new perspective. Where SEO optimises for people navigating digital services, GEO structures content for AI models to understand and reuse.
AI doesn’t just find content—it builds answers. If your data isn’t machine-friendly, it remains invisible, no matter how great your content is.
Here’s the critical distinction: SEO aims for clicks. GEO ensures that AI uses your content in its responses.
- Own the Entire Machine Customer Journey
It’s essential that your company owns the full customer journey, not just the first step.
Just offering information isn’t enough if AI can’t act on it. If you don’t enable a clear and seamless flow to transactions—such as simple order paths—then the AI agent will bypass your service and choose the next available option.
If a competitor provides a smoother transaction flow, the AI will select them, even if your content and service offering are better.
Ask yourself: Can an AI transact with you automatically? Are APIs available? Is your product catalogue structured? Is language support in place? Can machine customers move through your service path without friction?
- Avoid the Optimisation Trap
Overemphasising GEO without AIO can backfire. If you focus solely on content structuring to please AI but don’t control the transactional layer, you risk training the AI to work in favour of your competitors.
Just like content without conversion paths doesn’t generate sales, GEO without AIO leaves your business sidelined in the AI purchasing process.
Visibility alone isn’t enough. You need to be part of the full value chain so that AI agents not only understand but also choose to transact with you.
- Reputation Among Machine Customers Will Shape Your Competitiveness
Future AI agents will learn continuously and operate as networks. As they interact with different organisations, they’ll take note of which companies are reliable across languages, platforms, and APIs.
In this network of machine-to-machine recommendations, a new competitive edge emerges: the reputation AI agents give for your business.
Critical trust signals will include ease of use, API compatibility, structured information, response speed, and error-free content. These form the foundation of a kind of “Trustpilot” for machines. Will your business be recommended in machine-to-machine conversations?
- AI Breaks Language Barriers—But Will You Be There?
AI agents operate globally in real-time. They don’t face the language limitations that humans do.
Machine customers compare, summarise, and recommend across language regions—but only if your content enables it. Companies whose systems and content don’t support multilingual AI interactions will be left out of international competition, no matter how great their offering is.
Your content must be easily translatable, your APIs linguistically scalable, and your customer support ready to serve AI customers.
When Will Your First Machine Customer Arrive?
GEO gets you visible, but AIO enables AI transactions. Without it, visibility means nothing, because no AI agent will do business with you.
If you want to be part of the AI purchase conversation, AIO is your best strategy to future-proof your organisation. You must understand—and be able to explain to others in your company—why AIO is the key to success in an AI-driven marketplace.
The future won’t wait. AI agents are already making decisions on behalf of humans, and soon they’ll buy autonomously and interact with other agents. Are you ready to serve this entirely new type of customer?
- To explore how AI is transforming customer experience strategy and what CX leaders must do to stay ahead, check out Sirte’s related article on closing the AI skills gap in CX.
The technical capabilities are already here. Leading brands are launching AIO-ready solutions. It’s only a matter of time before the general public adopts them, and customer masses turn AI-powered.
B2B buyers are already conducting A2A transactions seamlessly. According to Gartner, 4 in 10 consumers will try a machine customer this year—and within a couple of years, nearly half of the people in industrialised countries will use AI assistants to simplify everyday tasks.
AIO is not just technical optimisation—it’s a strategic move to prepare for the moment your first machine customer arrives. It won’t send an email. It will read the documentation, check your APIs, and make a decision.
When AI makes the decision, will your business be included in the mix, or left out of the new competitive landscape?
This post picks up where my previous blog post “Why SEO is no longer enough?” left off. Read it first if you want to know more about GEO vs SEO.
For more insights from Sirte Pihlaja, follow her on LinkedIn or subscribe to her podcast series AI Experience Podcast.
The author of three global bestsellers, including Customer Experience 2, 3, and 5, Sirte explores how multi-agent AI networks and machine customers reshape business and CX/EX strategies.
