Wall Street Journal: How Brands Can Adapt to AI-Driven Search

In a Wall Street Journal article, Meltwater CEO John Box outlines how brands must adapt their visibility strategies for the age of AI search and large language models (LLMs), where generative AI engines are reshaping how people find information online.

Read the full article here: Wall Street Journal – Mastering GEO: How to Future-Proof Your Brand for AI Search

The article explores how traditional search engine optimization (SEO) is no longer enough in a world where AI assistants like ChatGPT and Gemini are often people’s first stop for answers about brands. Instead, Box highlights the growing importance of Generative Engine Optimization (GEO), the practice of ensuring a brand’s narrative and key information are accurately and positively reflected inside AI‑generated responses. As AI‑driven discovery becomes the norm, brands that optimize for this landscape can protect reputation, increase visibility, and stay relevant in real‑time.

As Box notes, “A few months ago, visibility in LLMs was maybe 1 in 10 brand conversations. Today it’s 9 in 10,” illustrating how quickly generative AI is becoming the primary frontier for brand discovery.

Monitoring LLM Mentions and Insights

Meltwater’s GenAI Lens helps PR, marketing, and communications teams giving them visibility into how their brand, products, and competitors are described by major LLMs. The tool tracks exact responses, underlying source citations, sentiment trends, and competitive context across top AI platforms like ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude, Perplexity, Grok, and more. This insight helps teams understand what LLMs are saying about their brand and make data‑informed decisions to shape the narrative before it spreads.

Meltwater is a global leader in media, social, and consumer intelligence, helping over 27,000 brands worldwide understand and shape their stories across media, social and LLM environments. Learn more about Meltwater.