The main benefits of GEO for B2B companies come down to visibility in a new type of discovery channel and higher intent buyers.
AI tools like ChatGPT and Perplexity are proving to be lucrative marketing channels because users tend to ask highly specific questions. Instead of searching a short keyword, they will describe exact needs, constraints, integrations, budgets, compliance requirements, industry, team size, and desired capabilities. For B2B companies, that is powerful because it maps closely to how real purchasing decisions are made. The buyer is often more qualified because they are effectively self segmenting through a complex query.
GEO is the process of optimizing to be discovered and cited in these LLM experiences. The important thing to understand is that these tools do not keep a separate index from traditional search engines. They rely on search engines and web sources for information, which is why GEO sits under the umbrella of SEO today. Strong SEO gives you most of the benefits of GEO, as long as you or your SEO partner is also optimizing for query fan outs and knows how to spot and target them.
The biggest lever is filling content gaps so your site matches more of those detailed questions.