81% of the 343 American marketing decision-makers surveyed by Fractl still refer to their AI visibility strategy as “SEO”, despite the spread of the acronyms GEO, AEO and LLMO across the industry (survey relayed on 24 August 2026 by Search Engine Land). The gap between the vocabulary of experts and that of buyers bears directly on how an agency should present its services: proof first, terminology second.
The facts
- Fractl surveyed 343 American marketing decision-makers responsible for their organisation's AI visibility: 81% still refer to the activity internally as “SEO”, and only 27% have formally adopted another word to describe it (full survey).
- Decision-makers devote an average of 24% of their search or content budget to visibility in generative AI, and 82% have already allocated a budget to it, according to the same survey (PPC Land).
- 71% of marketing decision-makers rank case studies, methodology or a track record of results as their first criterion of trust in a provider, against only 9% for command of the vocabulary; 36% even cite unexplained jargon as their first warning sign.
Why does vocabulary count for less than proof?
The gap owes less to ignorance than to the pace of adoption. Half of the marketers surveyed have already looked up the definition of a term after seeing a peer or competitor use it, yet only 27% have formally replaced “SEO” with another word, while 42% have explicitly decided the opposite. Executives use the new acronyms about three times as often as operational teams (28% against 9% for GEO, 17% against 3% for AEO), a sign that the vocabulary remains a hierarchical marker rather than a shared language. Faced with that confusion, 36% of decision-makers cite unexplained jargon as the first warning sign in a provider, and 42% consider that an acronym like GEO or AEO only works in a pitch if the context around it is clearly set out.
For a buyer, the consequence is clear: command of the vocabulary weighs only 9% in the choice of a provider, far behind case studies, methodology and track record, cited by 71% of respondents. Search behaviour confirms the gap: to find help, 70% of marketers would type “AI search optimization” (46%) or simply “SEO” (24%), and almost nobody searches for a conference acronym. An agency therefore gains by presenting a measurable result before an acronym, while the substance of the work stays the same: being cited by AI engines takes preparation. An advertiser comparing AI visibility offers keeps the same question to ask, whatever vocabulary is used across the table: what proof, on what scope, with what method.
AIxH's view
AIxH's SEO & GSO practice sees the same gap among Luxembourg and international clients: the acronym GEO opens a conversation, it does not close one. That is also why we are comfortable being both an SEO agency in Luxembourg and a GEO agency in Luxembourg: the foundation is shared, only the surface where results appear changes. Our comparative audits of visibility in ChatGPT, Perplexity and Gemini rest on verifiable citations and sources rather than on command of the jargon, and this GSO audit is free, on request through our contact form. If you are evaluating an AI visibility offer, the question to put to your provider stays the same: proof before vocabulary.