GEO and the agentic newsroom: The new battleground for media traffic

For many years, digital publishing has relied on SEO to reach audiences. It influenced how stories were written, how headlines were crafted and how websites grew. Today, the landscape is shifting again. 

A new concept, Generative Engine Optimisation (GEO), is beginning to shape how information is discovered. As language models, answer engines and AI agents become the first place users turn to, GEO is emerging as the next frontier where visibility and credibility are determined.

From SEO to GEO

SEO was designed for a world where users typed queries into a search bar and clicked results. Ranking was guided by keywords, backlinks and technical signals. But more people now rely on AI assistants that summarise information directly instead of sending them to a webpage. 

In this environment, what matters more is whether the content is structured, easy for machines to interpret and trustworthy enough to be cited. It asks whether both humans and machines can understand the information. 

This is where the concept of EEAT (Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness) becomes paramount. AI systems are increasingly trained to prioritise sources that demonstrate high EEAT, essentially using it as a quality filter for content they cite or summarise.

Attention, short-form consumption and the rise of AI agents

Human attention spans continue to shrink as short-form video becomes dominant. Increasingly, a visitor to a publisher’s site may not be a person but a personal AI agent fetching information on the user’s behalf.

These agents do not read articles like humans do. They extract structured facts and summaries. This feature makes modular journalism more important. A single story must offer a brief summary for quick readers, clear data points for AI agents; and a detailed narrative for those who want depth.

Why GEO matters for India

India's linguistic diversity, varying bandwidth conditions and wide range of devices make GEO especially important. AI agents can help deliver consistent experiences across regions by translating or summarising content instantly. 

At the same time, high-quality machine-readable content in Indian languages is limited. Publishers who invest in structured and credible vernacular content will play a vital role in shaping how AI systems understand India. 

Building the agentic newsroom

To adapt to this shift, newsrooms cannot treat AI as a separate tool. It needs to be part of the editorial workflow. A simple model is helpful here: human, AI, human.

1. The journalist sets the intention and gathers facts. 
2. AI tools then handle tasks such as transcription, entity tagging, headline suggestions and content adaptation for different platforms.
3. Finally, an editor reviews the output, adds judgement and ensures accuracy.

Editorial practices for the GEO era

Preparing for GEO requires a shift in mindset rather than a long list of new tools. Content should be created in a way that both humans and machines can interpret easily. 

Clear attribution helps AI understand where information comes from. Tagging people, places and events allows machines to identify context. When fact-checking work is done, using recognised metadata standards signals to AI systems that the content is verified.

Revenue models for an AI-driven future

As AI agents deliver answers directly, traditional page views may decline. But new revenue opportunities are emerging.

1. Structured archives can be licensed to AI platforms as training data, giving publishers a new income stream.
2. Micro payments allow users to buy access to individual stories or beats, similar to sachet-sized offerings in consumer goods.
3. Peek-then-pay models allow an AI agent to preview a small part of premium content before triggering a purchase.

These approaches reflect changing consumption habits and offer publishers flexible new ways to generate revenue.

Supporting journalists through the transition

AI’s growing presence naturally creates concerns within newsrooms. Writers may worry about job security or loss of creative control. Leadership must position AI as an extension of human capability rather than a replacement. When AI handles repetitive or mechanical work, journalists can invest more time in meaningful reporting, empathy and original insights.

As synthetic content increases, human-verified journalism will become even more valuable. Trust will be the defining factor in a noisy information environment.

GEO Is the next stage of publishing

GEO is not a short-lived trend. It is a natural evolution for a world where both humans and machines consume information. For publishers in India, GEO offers a way to strengthen clarity, structure and credibility while serving a multilingual and diverse audience.

The organisations that succeed will be those that treat content as an ongoing, structured conversation. They will build workflows that respect human curiosity and machine logic, ensuring that truth and diversity remain central to digital publishing in the years ahead.

 
(Tony Thomas is the Chief Technology Officer at Oneindia, specialising in scalable AI-driven solutions across social media, online media, video, and AdTech.)