#17 Minds & Machines: What does ChatGPT Search mean for SEO? What is GEO? + GCSE prompting.
Plus, add some creativity to your talking head videos + Nike's AI-generated trainers
Teaching at my first Google Digital Garage + Enterprise Nation event. Whoop!
Hello, hello,
I hope you’re good.
Welcome to my new subscribers. It’s lovely to have you here.
The last week or so has been fun and full.
I taught on my first Google Digital Garage event with Enterprise Nation, hosted a session for CopyCon, delivered two corporate full-day AI courses and lectured at my local uni.
I also treated myself to a course on Magic and Creative Writing hosted by the wonderful Rebecca Beattie in London. It was so joyful.
The next few weeks are looking busy too. I have 14 AI workshops/talks to deliver before Christmas. A mix of teaching for the CIM and DMA, plus writing and running my own sessions/courses.
I’m also hosting a non-AI creative workshop on overcoming perfectionism with a class of GPs. And I’ll be sitting on a log hosting a women’s writing circle for Winter Solstice.
It’s human + AI all the way. YES!
Right, let’s get on with the newsletter shall we?
What’s inside this edition:
👁️ AI News update
Meta tool can detect the accuracy of other AI models
ChatGPT Search has landed
Apple AI is released
AI models that take over your computer
✨ AI Tools to Try
ChatGPT Search – what does this mean for SEO?
💡 Prompting tip
GCSE prompting
🔗 Human + AI Creative Combo
How Nike designers used AI for inspiration
💛 The Human Element
Creativity and relaxation retreat
👁️ My top 4 news stories
I absorbed heaps of AI news and chose four key stories for content creators
OpenAI has released ChatGPT Search (see below).
Meta has designed a tool that can check the accuracy of other AI models without human intervention. This gives us a glimpse of what it might be like if AI agents could learn from their own mistakes. Find out more here.
Apple has rolled out its Apple Intelligence features with the iOS 18.1 and macOS Sequoia 15.1 updates. You can expect a range of new tools focused on boosting productivity, sparking creativity, and tightening up privacy. Here’s the lowdown.
Google and Anthropic have both revealed possible upcoming AI models that essentially take over your computer to browse the web and launch applications. Google’s is called Project Jarvis and here’s Anthropic’s announcement about what’s coming to Claude. Smart idea or a privacy nightmare? Maybe a bit of both.
✨ AI Tools to Try
A detailed look at a recent AI tool and how it can help you.
ChatGPT Search is here
They’ve talked about it for a while, now it’s here. Yep, ChatGPT has launched its search engine.
Of course, we’ve seen a flurry of “Google is dead” click bait headlines all week *rolls eyes*.
But there’s no denying the world of search is changing. And marketers will need to start thinking about Generative Engine Optimisation (GEO) as well as SEO.
Here are some thoughts from me.
What is ChatGPT Search?
Although you’ve been able to access the web through ChatGPT for a while, ChatGPT Search is an official search engine. It works within ChatGPT and gives you results with citations, plus a list of sources if you want them.
How do I access it?
At the moment, you need a paid account to access it. Just press the globe button in the bottom left of the prompt box to switch it on.
Is it better than Google search?
Personally, I think it’s too early to say. I can’t believe OpenAI’s knowledge graph is anywhere near as good as Google’s at the moment.
Plus, Google has a whole range of tools within its search capabilities – image search through Google Lens being one.
But ChatGPT Search has some nice benefits:
It gives you one answer rather than sources to check. It’s like Google’s AI Overviews but on every search.
It looks clean.
You can have a conversation with the search engine to find out more about your search (and easily go back over the full thread).
OpenAI has formed relationships with large publishing houses like the Financial Times and Wall Street Journal so ChatGPT search can deliver reputable information.
There are no ads.
And that last one is a big deal. It’s like Google used to be before it started monetising our views.
Will people leave Google search?
Well, Gartner predicts a 25% drop in search engine traffic by 2026 due to AI chatbots and virtual agents.
Right now, ChatGPT has over 200 million weekly active users and some of these will be using it for search.
On top of this, AI-search engine Perplexity has seen a 420% growth in the last year and has around 10 million active monthly users.
I’m a big fan of Perplexity and covered it in my newsletter a few months ago, but I still use Google. I wonder if this is habit though. It’s my default search engine.
Can I make ChatGPT my default search engine?
Yep. You can install the Chrome extension and make ChatGPT your browser's new default search engine.
What about SEO?
I’m not an SEO expert, but in my view marketers are still going to need SEO. Not least because Google holds an estimated 91% share of the search engine market.
However, GEO is now a thing. And it’s something marketers will need to consider alongside their SEO strategy.
What is GEO?
Generative Engine Optimisation. It’s a term that seems to have come from this research paper. And I’ve heard it mentioned a lot lately.
In a nutshell, it’s about optimising your website’s content to increase its visibility in AI-driven search engines like ChatGPT, Perplexity, Copilot, Gemini and Google AI Overviews.
How can I optimise my content for GEO?
I’ve read a fair bit on this topic over the last week and I have to say there are no definitive answers yet (sorry). Some of the elements you need seem to tie back to Google’s current EEAT guidelines.
I’ve seen references to:
Using simple language
Using headers and lists
Ensuring content is clear and well organised
Making sure your content is high quality
Incorporating expert quotes and citing sources (this has come up a lot)
No big surprises there.
To be honest, it’s early days and this is only just becoming a thing. We don’t even know if it will be called GEO yet!
So, we’ll probably need to try things out and see how our content works for the AI search engines. At least until there’s a clearer understanding.
I liked this quote from SEO Coach, Liam Carnahan, in a HubSpot article on GEO:
“When I’m trying to understand whether LLMs are ‘enjoying’ my content, I’ll go [to Perplexity] first, and type in questions and prompts I imagine people might ask, using keywords I know my content is ranking for, to see how often it shows up in citations there.”
He notes that this isn’t an elegant solution, but “for now, it can give me a good idea about which of my clients’ content is ranking in AI results”.
The thing to remember is this: GEO is new and AI-search engines are new. So it’s going to be a matter of innovating, adapting and learning as we go.
And in this era of AI, it feels like we’re already doing that anyway!
Use AI to make your talking head videos more creative
Talking heads video created with Runway’s Act One and iMovie
Want to give your talking head videos a new look? Try out Act One.
Give the model a still image of your choice and it will apply that style to your video.
You can choose from presets, including photorealistic images, illustrations and 3D animations (I love the cute dog).
Or you can give it any image you wish. I created some AI-generated characters on Midjourney and they worked well too (see frame below).
How to use Act One
Log in to Runway and press on the Act One banner.
Upload your video.
Choose a character reference image from the presets or upload your own.
Press generate.
That’s it.
In terms of cost, you’ll need some credits on your Runway Account. The cost is Act-10 credits per second with a minimum of 5 seconds.
Let me know how you get on.
💡 Prompting tips
Prompting tips and hacks to help you create your content
The GCSE prompt-writing tip
There are so many tips out there on what makes a great prompt. But someone on one of my training courses mentioned this to me. I believe it came out of Microsoft.
I think it’s brilliant and wish I’d come up with it.
So, if you’re looking for guidance on what to include in a prompt, or how to structure one, I’d really recommend this.
Here’s one of my slides to outline the four elements.
What do you think?
📋 More Useful or Lovely Stuff
A few more articles I’ve found on my travels
Interesting article on AI’s impact on design in the fashion industry. Research showed that consumers preferred AI-designed t-shirts — but only if they didn’t know they were designed by AI. Take a look.
If I ever want a cynical/realistic view on AI, I go to Gary Marcus. Here’s his recent article, calling BS out all the overhyped facts and numbers around AI at the moment. If you like this article, I’d recommend following his Substack. This is the general vibe.
According to a UC Berkeley researcher, humans are more creative writers than AI models, but the tech will still shape the way we write. See more in this Independent article.
🔗 Human & AI Creative Combo
Nice examples of human and AI creative collaborations
How Nike’s designers used AI to create new Air prototypes
Earlier this year, Nike’s innovation team used generative AI as part of the ideation process for its new A.I.R design prototypes.
The team started by carrying out detailed interviews with athletes. The feedback from this research was then incorporated into detailed prompts to create AI-generated visuals.
In just one afternoon the team generated hundreds of AI-created visuals for each specific athlete.
Here are just a few…
The human designers used these AI-generated forms, textures, figures and images as inspiration for their final prototypes.
It’s worth reading about the process. I was interested to see that it wasn’t always straightforward.
Apparently, as the focus was on air, the AI models tended to favour an organic, flowing aesthetic. So, the designers had to push back against this and find other points of inspiration in the AI visuals.`
That said, the use of AI certainly created great inspiration and took the designers’ thinking in new directions.
Here’s a nice summary from Roger Chen, Nike VP, NXT, Digital Product Creation:
"AI exponentially increases our creative process … Creating these starting points used to take us months to do. Now, we can create them in seconds.
We liken AI to a sharper, more intelligent pencil. The designer is still in control. It's what you do with the pencil that creates the magic.”
You can read the full article from Nike here.
💛 The Human Element
A celebration of our wild minds and creative souls
Creativity and relaxation retreat | Summer 2025
Our venue: Hazel Hill Wood, Hampshire | June 20th -22nd 2025
If you need something to look forward to on these dark evenings, here’s something for you.
From June 20th-22nd 2025, me and yoga guide Carolyn Thompson are hosting a two-night women's retreat in private woodland near Salisbury.
Here, you’re invited to shake off routine and step away from the demands of this busy life for a while. Come back to nature, the present moment, creativity – and your wild, free self.
This weekend is all about moving your body mindfully, eating nourishing food, dreaming with pen and paper, expressing yourself through playful art – and gathering around the fire, cuppa in hand.
No pressures. No expectations. Come exactly as you are.
It would be so lovely if you could come. Drop me a note, or head over here to find out more.
☀️ Upcoming Adventures
My upcoming public talks, workshops and events
I’m doing another AI content creation workshop at the Growth Hub. It’s all happening on the 14th of November, 10 am - 1 pm in Cirencester. It’s free!
The DMA’s Copywriting Club is back and I’m delighted to be speaking at the event in Bristol on 27 Nov, 6-8pm. It’s a free!
Yoga and Creativity Retreat: Carolyn Thompson and I are running another retreat. It’s called Create. Rest. Reset. Date: 20-22nd June 2025. Bookings are open and we’ve sold 5 places already.
I’m also cooking up a couple of new events and trainings for 2025. They’re very true to my ChatGPT generated image – nature and AI. Watch this space.
Excellent content curation and AI marketing guidance as always Kerrie! Thank you for the links and for the GEO and prompting tips in particular.