The GEO Show

It's Friday, so host Paris Childress is back with his regular co-host Simon Young of Question.Marketing. They debate five of the week's biggest stories in GEO and AI search: Google's AI Mode money problem, closed gardens vs open agent protocols, shrinking AI Mode citations, ChatGPT as a search and ads channel, and murkier measurement.
In this episode:
  • Google's AI Mode money problem. Alphabet fell about 13% on 29 Oct 2026, its worst day ever, wiping out roughly $500 billion in value, after search revenue growth slowed from 17% to 12% ($63.35 billion). Can Google put ads in AI Mode without losing user trust?
  • Sponsored agents. Google's ad ranking has always blended bid and relevance across several ad slots. A sponsored agent in a conversation may be winner take all.
  • Good bots clicking ads. Simon shares a client whose agent negotiated a Hong Kong hotel deal. When authorized agents click ads for real users, what are advertisers really paying for? More than half of web traffic is now automated (Imperva 2026 Bad Bot Report).
  • Closed gardens vs open protocols. Amazon says over 400 million customers used Alexa for Shopping in the past 12 months and still blocks Meta's Muse. Google launched its Connected Apps Platform on MCP, Visa says nearly 50 AI partners are in production, and Shopify moved its AI agent knowledge base into the admin.
  • A race to the bottom. If agents negotiate every deal, what happens to marketplace margins and the customer relationship?
  • Fewer citations. In data analyzed by The Search Spot, AI Mode sources per answer fell from 16.3 to 4.3 (74%). Muck Rack finds over 84% of AI citations come from earned media.
  • ChatGPT as a search and ads channel. seoClarity estimates 1.24 billion search-like ChatGPT messages a day, about 7.5% of Google's volume. ChatGPT Ads creative enhancements are on by default from 30 Oct (advertisers can opt out), and ChatGPT ads can be bought through Amazon DSP.
  • Measurement murk. Semrush and Ahrefs confirm poisoned Google results hitting rank trackers, a ChatGPT bug dropped UTM tags from about 8 to 15 Oct, and AI Overviews appear on 82.5% of US brand searches (SE Ranking).
Correction: In the episode, the AI Mode ads expansion is described as including the UK, Brazil and Mexico. The 10 markets that went live on 28 Oct 2026 are Australia, Canada, India, Kenya, Malaysia, New Zealand, Nigeria, Pakistan, the Philippines and Singapore. The UK, Brazil and Mexico are planned for Q4 2026.
Find Simon Young and Question.Marketing at question.marketing.
Watch on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Xjs_YU167E
The GEO Show is hosted by Paris Childress, founder of Hop AI and co-founder of GEOforge. getgeoforge.com

What is The GEO Show?

The GEO Show is about generative engine optimization (GEO) and AI search: how B2B brands win AI visibility in ChatGPT, Perplexity, Google AI Overviews and AI Mode. Each episode breaks down what is changing in the way AI assistants and answer engines find, cite, and recommend brands, and what marketers should do about it.

The show is built for B2B SaaS marketers, SEO and content leads, and founders who want their brand to show up when buyers ask AI for answers instead of scrolling a page of blue links. If you own organic growth, demand generation, or brand, you will come away with practical GEO tactics you can test, a clear read on the latest AI search news, and better ways to measure AI visibility when traffic alone no longer tells the whole story.


Episodes mix a few formats:




  • Solo deep dives on GEO strategy, from how large language models choose which sources to cite to how content, earned media, and brand mentions shape AI answers.


  • News breakdowns on the latest moves from OpenAI, Google, Perplexity, and the rest of the AI search landscape, and what each change means for your pipeline.


  • Expert guests, including SEO and GEO practitioners, content and PR leaders, agency operators, and founders building for AI search.


  • The Friday catch-up with regular co-host Simon Young of Question.Marketing, where the two unpack the week's biggest AI search stories and debate what actually works.


Your host is Paris Childress, CEO of Hop AI and co-founder of GEOforge. Paris brings a practitioner's view of GEO and AI visibility, focused on what B2B teams can apply right away, not hype.


Learn more about GEOforge at https://getgeoforge.com.


Subscribe to The GEO Show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, or wherever you listen so you never miss an episode, and share it with a teammate who is figuring out AI search.