GEO (Generative Engine Optimization) is an emerging discipline theorized in 2023 by researchers from Princeton and Georgia Tech, aimed at optimizing content so it gets cited and recommended by large language models (LLMs): ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, Claude. Unlike traditional SEO, which optimizes at the web page level, GEO optimizes at the level of the fact and the claim.
According to the venture capital firm a16z (Andreessen Horowitz), "SEO was built on links, GEO is built on language." The numbers confirm how urgent this shift is: AI-referred sessions grew by 527% between January and May 2025. For law firms, being cited by ChatGPT or Perplexity in response to a legal question is becoming an acquisition channel in its own right.
The keys to GEO for legal content are: clear, factual definitions at the start of each paragraph, sourced statistics every 150 to 200 words, named expert citations, and a structure that makes it easy for AI models to extract facts. GEO complements legal SEO (for Google) and AEO (for featured snippets), forming a visibility triptych that is essential in 2026.