Ask ChatGPT which protein powder to buy, or which shoe is the best for hiking, and it'll name a handful of brands with confidence. The question worth asking is whether yours is one of them.
AI Is Already Deciding What Gets Recommended
Every time a customer asks an AI tool for a recommendation, something is happening behind the scenes that most brands aren't paying attention to. Large language models crawl the web constantly, and for every visitor a Google search sends to a site, AI systems are estimated to crawl around 80,000 pages on it. They're not browsing the way a person does. They're parsing structure, checking for clear, citable answers, and deciding, largely without a brand ever knowing, whether it's worth recommending.
This is Generative Engine Optimisation (GEO) in practice: not ranking on a search results page, but earning a place inside the answer itself.
Why Most Brands Don't Make the List
Getting cited isn't about being the biggest name, it's about being the easiest to trust and the easiest to parse. A few things tend to separate brands that show up in AI answers from ones that don't:
- Content that answers the follow-up, not just the first question. AI conversations run longer than a typical Google search, so a product page that only covers the basics rarely gets referenced when the AI is working through someone's second or third question.
- Clear, structured product information. Specs, materials, sizing and use cases laid out plainly, rather than buried in marketing copy, give AI something concrete to cite.
- Consistency across the web. If a brand's claims, specs and positioning are repeated the same way across its own site, reviews and third-party mentions, that consistency reads as credibility to a system built to detect it.
The Advantage Compounds
None of this is a quick fix, and that's precisely why it's worth doing early. A brand that becomes a reliable answer for AI tools now builds an advantage that's genuinely hard for a competitor to buy their way into later, since it's built on structure and trust rather than spend.
Want the Full Picture?
This is one section of a much bigger conversation in Peak Performance, Velstar's guide to mastering eCommerce in the sports and apparel sector. Download the eBook to read the full breakdown, chapter by chapter.