Short answer: Gartner forecast that traditional search-engine volume could fall 25% by 2026 as some queries move to AI chatbots and virtual agents. That is a forecast about aggregate search activity—not proof that every site will lose 25% of organic traffic or that SEO is obsolete. Geostar is a real startup selling AI-visibility monitoring, optimization and managed services, but its traction and case-study results are largely company-reported. For most businesses, the defensible response is to add measured generative-engine optimization (GEO) to solid SEO rather than replace SEO.
What Gartner actually predicted
On February 19, 2024, Gartner said traditional search-engine volume would drop 25% by 2026 because generative-AI tools could become substitute answer engines. Read the forecast precisely: it concerns the number of searches conducted through traditional engines, not a guaranteed traffic loss for each website.
Gartner did not say that 25% of all searches would move to ChatGPT, that Google would disappear, or that SEO would become unnecessary. Search volume, impressions, organic clicks, AI citations and conversions are different measurements. A fall in one does not automatically produce the same percentage change in the others.
Demand may also move rather than vanish. Informational questions that can be answered in one response may be especially exposed to AI summaries. Navigational, urgent, local, transactional, highly visual and regulated searches may continue to depend on conventional search, maps, marketplaces or specialist services.
Do these 3 things before closing this tab:
1Fix the driver behind crashes, sound loss and screen glitches2Clear out junk files and repair common Windows errors3Scan for outdated or missing drivers - takes under a minute#1 Best Overall
Gartner’s January 20, 2026 consumer survey provides an important qualification: only about one-third of surveyed U.S. consumers considered GenAI as effective as search engines. Gartner advised marketers to optimize for both AI-driven and traditional search, reinforcing a coexistence model rather than an SEO extinction event.
Read Gartner’s February 19, 2024 forecast and its January 20, 2026 survey qualification.
What GEO means
Generative-engine optimization (GEO) is a commonly used, still-unstandardized term for improving the chance that an organization, product, expert or source will be mentioned, cited, summarized or recommended in an AI-generated answer. There is no universal GEO ranking formula, certification or stable industry standard.
Practical GEO work can include:
- Answering natural-language questions clearly in ordinary, crawlable HTML.
- Making prices, specifications, policies, credentials and locations easy to extract and verify.
- Maintaining consistent company, product, author and business-listing information.
- Publishing evidence-backed material with identifiable authors and sources.
- Using accurate structured data that reflects visible page content.
- Building legitimate independent references on reputable websites.
- Testing how different AI systems describe a brand and correcting factual gaps or outdated claims.
- Measuring mentions, citations, prominence, sentiment, referrals and conversions rather than relying on a single “AI ranking.”
Geostar describes GEO as optimizing content for AI search engines to improve brand visibility and citations on its pricing page. That is a vendor definition, not a formal rule imposed by the platforms.
Quick wins for a faster PC:
Scan for outdated or missing drivers - takes under a minuteDriver Scan →Clear out junk files and repair common Windows errorsFree Scan →Fix the driver behind crashes, sound loss and screen glitchesFind Drivers →SEO and GEO solve overlapping but different problems
| Traditional SEO | GEO or AI visibility |
|---|---|
| Improves a page’s ability to rank for queries | Improves the chance of inclusion in generated answers |
| Tracks positions, impressions and clicks | Tracks mentions, citations, prominence, sentiment and referral behavior |
| Emphasizes crawlability, relevance, links and page experience | Adds extractable facts, direct answers, source authority and off-site corroboration |
| Often starts with a known keyword set | Must account for conversational prompts and many possible phrasings |
| Results are comparatively observable and repeatable | Outputs vary by model, date, location, language, user context and browsing access |
| Usually sends a user to a results page or website | Can influence a decision before a click, sometimes without a referral |
The foundations overlap. Technical accessibility, useful content, reputable references, clear architecture and a trustworthy brand can support both conventional search and AI retrieval. Optimizing only for machine extraction can instead produce bland, duplicated or inaccurate pages that hurt readers and search quality.
Rank #2
What Geostar is building
Geostar is a Pear VC-backed startup founded by Mack McConnell and Cihan Tas. VentureBeat reported on October 29, 2025 that it had emerged from stealth and was approaching $1 million in annual recurring revenue after four months. Those revenue, customer and performance figures were reported company claims, not independently audited results.
Geostar’s current website presents a combined software-and-services model rather than a conventional position tracker. Its described capabilities include:
- AI-visibility monitoring, prompt execution and brand tracking.
- Citation and competitor analysis, including sentiment and share-of-voice reporting.
- Content creation, optimization and product-detail-page rewriting.
- Regional monitoring and broader platform coverage on higher plans.
- Citation-source outreach and managed implementation.
The company says it serves ecommerce brands, law firms, dental practices, home-service businesses, SaaS companies, agencies and other organizations. Its main site emphasizes ecommerce and AI-discovery work, while its agency page describes execution for customers that want changes made rather than merely reported.
Current public plans
| Plan | Publicly listed terms | Advertised coverage |
|---|---|---|
| Lite | $249 per month with monthly billing shown. Annual billing advertises $600 in yearly savings, implying about $199 per month when paid annually. | 6,000 prompt executions per month, agent analytics, basic reporting, email support, Google AI Overviews, ChatGPT and Perplexity. |
| Enterprise | Custom pricing | Broader platform coverage, unlimited executions and regions are advertised. |
| Full-Service | Custom pricing | Managed execution, broader coverage, unlimited executions and regions are advertised. |
VentureBeat described Geostar’s pricing in October 2025 as approximately $1,000–$3,000 per month. The difference from the current $249 Lite listing may reflect changed packaging or a distinction between software and managed services; prospective buyers should request a current statement of exactly what is included. See Geostar’s current pricing.
What the reported evidence does—and does not—show
VentureBeat reported several claims supplied by Geostar:
Rank #3
- Nearly $1 million in annual recurring revenue after four months.
- A 27% increase in AI mentions for RedSift within three months.
- A page reaching first-page Google and ChatGPT visibility in four days.
- Approximately $1,000–$3,000 monthly pricing at the time of the article.
- A two-founder operation with no employees when the article was reported.
These are useful signals about the company’s commercial story, not independent benchmarks. A mention increase does not prove more qualified demand, and a single page appearing for a prompt does not establish a repeatable ranking system. Before buying, ask for the prompt set, sampling dates, regions, model versions, historical results, source-level citations, error rates and downstream lead or revenue evidence.
Read the October 29, 2025 VentureBeat report for the attribution and context.
Why AI visibility is difficult to optimize
Outputs are variable
ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, Claude, Google AI features and other systems can produce different answers to the same prompt. Results may change with location, language, user history, model updates and whether browsing is available. A single successful test is weak evidence; repeated prompts across dates, models and regions are stronger.
A mention is not a customer
An AI response can name a business without linking to it, generating a visit, a call or a purchase. Conversely, an AI system may cite a page that would have received conventional search exposure anyway. Separate visibility, referral traffic, assisted conversions and direct revenue in your reporting.
Citations can be wrong or unhelpful
Models may rely on reviews, directories, forums, news coverage or public databases instead of the company’s own site. They can repeat an outdated price, incorrect credential or competitor substitution. More citations are not automatically better: relevance and source quality matter.
Optimization has quality and compliance risks
Mass-produced AI pages can create duplication, factual errors and search-quality problems. Law, health, finance, insurance and other high-stakes categories need current rules, professional review, accurate credentials and appropriate disclaimers. Visibility is never a reason to weaken safety or compliance.
Recommended Free Tools
A practical hybrid GEO-and-SEO program
1. Establish a baseline
Create a representative prompt library covering:
- Brand, product and service names.
- “Best,” comparison and competitor-alternative questions.
- Local, regional and problem-aware searches.
- High-value commercial questions involving price, trust, safety, expertise or credentials.
For each test, record whether the brand appears, its prominence, cited sources, competitors, factual errors, sentiment, links, referral sessions and conversions. Repeat the same prompts over time rather than treating one output as a trend.
2. Repair foundational information
- Keep business name, address, phone, hours, service areas and contact details consistent.
- Update product specifications, prices, policies, availability and staff credentials.
- Use author pages and expert attribution where expertise matters.
- Add only accurate, relevant schema for content visible on the page.
- Use descriptive headings and concise factual sections in normal HTML.
- Maintain sitemaps, crawl access, canonicals, redirects and page performance.
3. Build independent authority
Prioritize legitimate mentions from industry publications, professional associations, regulators, government sources, suitable review platforms, expert interviews, original research and customer case studies. Do not buy fabricated reviews, mass-produce low-quality references or hide text to manipulate systems.
4. Measure business outcomes
Combine AI visibility and citation quality with branded-search demand, direct and referral traffic, assisted conversions, leads, sales, calls, conversion rate, customer-acquisition cost, accuracy and sentiment. Treat correlation as a hypothesis until controlled, repeatable evidence supports causation.
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.When Geostar may be worth considering
Potentially good fit
- Your customers compare named providers or products during a research-heavy journey.
- AI answers currently omit, misstate or replace your brand with competitors.
- You have differentiated evidence, expertise and authority for systems to cite.
- You can track qualified leads or sales, not just impressions or mentions.
- You need multi-platform monitoring and lack the staff to build it internally.
Potentially poor fit
- Your fundamentals are weak: inaccurate listings, poor reviews, stale information or low-quality content.
- Most demand comes from repeat customers, offline referrals or tightly controlled procurement.
- Your offering cannot be evaluated or purchased digitally.
- A vendor will not show prompt methodology, historical data, source-level reporting or outcome measurement.
- The proposal promises guaranteed AI rankings or mainly supplies generic AI-written pages.
Questions to ask before signing
- Which models, features, regions and languages are tested, and how often?
- Can you export every prompt, response, citation and timestamp?
- How do you distinguish a mention from a favorable recommendation and from a qualified referral?
- Who reviews website edits and off-site outreach, and does the client approve publication?
- How are hallucinations, outdated claims and regulated-category requirements handled?
- What baseline-versus-follow-up data and conversion evidence will be reported?
Software, managed service or internal program?
Geostar’s Lite plan may suit a small or midsize business seeking an off-the-shelf tracker. Enterprise and Full-Service plans are custom-priced and aimed at broader monitoring or execution. A managed service can save staff time, but buyers should clarify deliverables, approval controls and attribution.
PC Slower Than It Used to Be?
A free scan shows the junk files, broken settings and background clutter dragging Windows down - then fixes them in one click.Free scan · Windows 10 & 11Outdated Drivers Are Slowing You Down
One free scan finds every outdated or missing driver and matches the right update for your exact hardware.Free scan · exact hardware matchAn internal program can start with Google Search Console, analytics and referral logs, a documented prompt library, manual tests across major platforms, structured-data validation and a shared record of mentions, citations, competitors and errors. It costs less in vendor fees but requires consistent sampling and analysis.
An established SEO or digital-marketing agency may be preferable when the immediate needs are technical remediation, content strategy, digital PR, local SEO, conversion optimization and analytics. Confirm that any GEO offering includes platform-specific monitoring and evidence, rather than simply relabeling ordinary content work.
Bottom line for businesses
Search is fragmenting, not simply disappearing. Gartner’s 25% figure is a 2024 forecast about traditional search-engine volume by 2026, not a universal 25% SEO-traffic decline. Geostar offers a credible commercial response to the emerging AI-visibility problem, but its revenue, customer and performance claims remain primarily company-reported, and AI outputs are too variable to function like guaranteed rankings.
Preserve technical SEO, useful content, authority, accurate listings and conversion measurement. Then test GEO with a repeatable prompt set and judge it by qualified demand, accuracy and revenue—not by an attractive mention count alone.
The Tool Desk
Outbyte PC Repair FREEClear out junk files and repair common Windows errorsFree Scan →Outbyte Driver Updater FREEScan for outdated or missing drivers - takes under a minuteDriver Scan →Quick Recap
Product prices and availability are accurate as of the date/time indicated and are subject to change. Any price and availability information displayed on Amazon at the time of purchase will apply.
