Behind the Curtain: What AI Search Means for Franchise Brand Visibility
Behind the Curtain breaks down what’s actually working inside franchise systems, cutting through surface-level best practices to spotlight the strategies brands are using to win right now, pulled directly from our monthly insider newsletter, Franchise Unfiltered. Each edition captures the behind-closed-doors conversations, experiments, and proven tactics shaping real franchise growth before they become industry talking points.
With the rise of AI search, consumer behavior is already starting to change. Many people are moving away from Google and going directly to tools like ChatGPT to do research. Even for those who continue to use Google, the first result is increasingly an AI-generated answer from Gemini.
Whether we like it or not, AI search is only going to become a bigger part of everyday life. I think that is ultimately a good thing for consumers because it speeds up the research process and provides more direct answers. However, it also creates a new challenge for brands. It forces them to rethink what visibility means in a world where large language models, or LLMs, are increasingly deciding what information gets included in the answer.
From SEO to Generative Engine Optimization
This shift has created more focus on Generative Engine Optimization, or GEO.
Similar to how brands have spent years trying to improve where they rank on Google, GEO is about increasing the likelihood that a brand appears in an AI-generated answer.
For franchise brands, this matters on both sides of the business. Prospective franchisees may use AI to compare franchise opportunities, while consumers may use it to decide which local business best fits what they are looking for.
That means appearing in AI-generated answers can influence both franchise development and consumer demand.
Why Earned Media Matters More in an AI Search World
I think the rise of GEO is a good thing for both franchise brands and consumers because pay-to-play is no longer going to be the only recipe for visibility.
Earned media is becoming increasingly important because LLMs pull from an array of outside sources to determine which information they trust. This gives PR a much larger role in how brands are discovered.
I’ve seen this firsthand at Fishman PR, which has started offering AI visibility services that examine how brands appear across LLMs and build strategies around where they’re being left out.
This can be a massive value driver because third-party content gives brands credibility beyond what they say about themselves. The more credible information that exists across trusted outside sources, the more likely an LLM is to view the brand as a credible source and include it in its answers.
GEO Forces Brands to Get Clearer About Their Positioning
This shift also provides a unique opportunity for brands to take a closer look at how they’re positioned.
To show up across LLMs, brands need to clearly understand what makes them different and the concrete reasons consumers and prospective franchisees choose them. Generic positioning becomes much harder to hide when an AI platform is comparing a brand against dozens of other options and trying to determine which ones deserve to be included in an answer.
In doing this work, brands can move away from guesswork and develop a clearer picture of why people actually choose them.
And that may ultimately be one of the biggest benefits of the shift toward AI search. GEO is not just changing where brands need to show up. It is forcing them to become much clearer about what they want to be known for in the first place.
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