Over a million people in Ireland now use ChatGPT every week. According to OpenAI’s own figures shared with the Taoiseach in May 2025 and released under Freedom of Information that represents roughly 28% of the population using a single AI tool to ask questions that used to go to Google: recommend a plumber, compare solicitors, find the best café nearby. If your business isn’t showing up in those answers, you’re not losing a Google ranking. You’re losing a recommendation.
This is the shift that most Irish SMEs haven’t noticed yet. A March 2026 survey of 400 Irish SMEs, commissioned by Google and conducted by Amárach Research, found that while 80% of Irish small businesses believe AI can benefit them, 57% admit they’re behind competitors in actually doing anything about it. The gap between how Irish consumers search and how Irish businesses present themselves online is widening.
Generative engine optimisation, or GEO, is the practice of making your business visible to AI-powered search tools like ChatGPT, Google AI Overviews, and Perplexity. And here’s what matters most: if you’ve been doing local SEO properly, you’re already halfway there.
What GEO Actually Is (and Why It’s Not a New Headache)
There’s a temptation to treat GEO as an entirely separate discipline from SEO. Irish agency websites are full of comparison tables framing them as two different strategies. That framing isn’t useful for a business owner who already struggles to find time for one marketing channel, let alone two.
GEO is better understood as a layer on top of what you’re already doing. The foundational research from Princeton University a peer-reviewed study by Aggarwal et al., presented at ACM KDD 2024 found that adding statistics, citing sources, and including expert quotations in existing content can increase AI citation visibility by up to 40%. Those aren’t radical changes. They’re content tweaks.
If you already have a Google Business Profile, a website with clear service descriptions, and some customer reviews, you have the raw material. GEO is about structuring and extending that material so AI platforms can find it, understand it, and cite it.
Why traditional SEO still matters
Google AI Overviews, which launched in Ireland in March 2025, pull their answers primarily from content that already ranks well in Google’s organic results. Google AI Mode followed in October 2025, offering even more advanced AI-powered search for Irish users. So the work you’ve done on local SEO, directory listings, and keyword targeting isn’t wasted. It’s the foundation.
Domain authority built through consistent backlinks, directory citations, and a well-maintained online presence remains one of the strongest predictors of AI citations. An SE Ranking study of 2.3 million pages (November 2025) found that sites with high domain traffic earn roughly 3.5 times more AI citations than low-traffic sites. The businesses that have been doing the “boring stuff” well keeping their Golden Pages listing current, maintaining consistent details on YourLocal.ie, responding to Google and Trustpilot reviews are the ones best positioned for GEO.
Where AI Platforms Get Their Answers
Not all AI platforms find information the same way. If you’re a business owner, you need to know the basics, because the platform your customers prefer will shape what you should prioritise.
ChatGPT
ChatGPT draws on a hybrid retrieval system, using Bing’s index among other sources. It favours well-structured, encyclopaedic content and tends to cite authoritative websites with clear, direct answers. With 900 million weekly active users globally (OpenAI, February 2026), it’s the AI platform your customers are most likely using. For Irish businesses, this means your website’s opening paragraphs need to answer specific questions clearly not bury the useful information below three paragraphs of waffle.
Perplexity
Perplexity rewards recency and community-generated content. If a customer posted a positive recommendation of your business on r/cork or r/galway six months ago, Perplexity may already be citing it. SE Ranking’s analysis found that content updated within the past three months is approximately twice as likely to be cited by AI platforms, which makes freshness a genuine factor.
Google AI Overviews
Google’s own AI summaries pull from content already performing well in Google Search. If you rank on page one for “accountant Dublin,” you’re well placed for AI Overviews too. If you don’t, GEO tweaks alone won’t compensate.
An important nuance: research by Ahrefs (August 2025), analysing 15,000 prompts, found that only about 12% of sources cited by ChatGPT, Gemini, and Copilot rank in Google’s top 10 organic results for the same query. That means a business can rank well on Google but be completely invisible to ChatGPT, or the reverse. These are overlapping but distinct ecosystems.
The Irish Local Business Advantage Nobody’s Talking About
Small, local Irish businesses have a structural advantage in GEO that no Irish marketing article seems to address.
AI platforms reward specificity. They reward niche expertise and clear entity signals. When someone asks ChatGPT “best electrician in Limerick,” the competition for that answer is almost non-existent right now. National chains and comparison websites often dominate those answers by default not because their content is better, but because nobody local has given the AI anything to work with.
To see this in action, try these queries yourself. Ask ChatGPT “recommend a good solicitor in Kilkenny” and you’ll likely get generic advice about how to find a solicitor, or a list dominated by national directories and Law Society search tools rather than specific local firms. Ask Perplexity “best boiler service in Galway” and you may see Reddit threads or national comparison sites rather than actual Galway-based heating engineers. Ask Google’s AI Overview for “emergency plumber Cork” and watch whether any sole traders appear, or whether the answer defaults to directories and national brands.
These gaps are the opportunity. A sole trader in Limerick or a small practice in Kilkenny with a well-structured website, consistent directory listings, and a handful of genuine online mentions can outperform a national brand in AI answers for location-specific queries. The window for this is open now, but it won’t stay open indefinitely. As more businesses catch on, the advantage shrinks.
The Reddit Factor
Reddit is the single most-cited domain across major AI answer engines. A Semrush study from June 2025 found it appeared in approximately 40% of AI-generated responses, ahead of Wikipedia at roughly 26%. Although citation patterns have shifted since ChatGPT reduced its reliance on Reddit in late 2025 Reddit remains a top-tier source across platforms, and more recent analyses by Peec AI (March 2026), covering 30 million sources, confirmed Reddit as the most-cited domain overall.
For Irish businesses, this creates a specific, actionable opportunity. Irish subreddits r/ireland, r/irishpersonalfinance, r/cork, r/galway are small communities. The bar for visibility is low. A genuine, helpful comment from a tradesperson or professional in their area of expertise can persist for years and feed AI answers indefinitely.
This isn’t about gaming the system. It’s about being present in the places where AI looks for trusted, community-validated information. If someone on r/galway asks “can anyone recommend a good boiler service?” and you’re a heating engineer who gives a helpful, honest answer, that comment becomes part of the data AI platforms draw on. Most of your competitors are not on Reddit at all. Boards.ie Ireland’s largest and longest-running online forum is another source AI platforms index, though Reddit currently carries more weight in citation data.
What to Actually Do: A Practical Starting Point
If you’re running a business with 1 to 10 employees and no dedicated marketing team, here’s where to focus your time. You don’t need paid tools to start.
Check your current AI visibility
Open ChatGPT and Perplexity. Type the queries your customers would use: “best [your service] in [your town],” “recommend a [your profession] near [your area].” See what comes back. This takes 15 minutes and the results are often a wake-up call. That’s your free audit.
Fix your entity signals
Make sure your business name, address, phone number, and service descriptions are identical across your Google Business Profile, Golden Pages, YourLocal.ie, and any industry-specific directories. For solicitors, that’s the Law Society directory. For architects, RIAI. For financial advisors, check your listing on the relevant Central Bank register. Consistency tells AI platforms you’re a real, verified entity. It’s also worth ensuring your Companies Registration Office (CRO) listing is up to date this is a trust signal that AI systems can cross-reference.
Rewrite your homepage opening
Your first paragraph should answer the question a customer would ask an AI tool. Not “Welcome to Murphy & Sons, established in 1987.” Instead: “Murphy & Sons provides residential and commercial plumbing services across Galway city and county, including emergency callouts, boiler servicing, and bathroom installations.” Clear, specific, and immediately useful.
Add FAQ content based on real questions
Think about the questions your customers ask you on the phone or by email. Write them down, word for word, and answer them on your website. “How much does it cost to fix a burst pipe in Galway?” is exactly the kind of query an AI tool will try to answer. If your website has a clear, honest response, you become a candidate for citation.
Add FAQ schema markup to those pages using Google’s free Structured Data Markup Helper. The tool walks you through selecting question-and-answer pairs on your page and generates a block of JSON-LD code. If you’re on WordPress, plugins like Yoast or Rank Math can add this code for you without touching any files. If you’re on a custom-built site, pass the generated code to your web developer it’s a 20-minute job to paste it into the page’s header.
Earn third-party mentions
AI engines strongly favour “earned media” mentions from authoritative sources that aren’t your own website. A write-up in a local newspaper, a listing in an industry directory, a genuine mention on Reddit or Boards.ie, a positive Trustpilot review. These carry more weight than anything on your own site. The SE Ranking study found that domains with profiles on review platforms like Trustpilot and G2 have three times higher chances of being cited by ChatGPT than sites without them. Think about where your expertise could add value in an existing conversation, online or offline, and show up there.
A note on Irish-language queries
If your business operates in a Gaeltacht area or uses bilingual branding, be aware that AI tools currently handle Irish-language queries inconsistently. A search for “pluiméir i nGaillimh” may return very different results or none at all compared to the English equivalent. If you serve Irish-speaking customers, including both Irish and English service descriptions on your site improves your chances of being found regardless of which language the query uses.
Timelines and Honest Expectations
Structural changes like adding schema, rewriting homepage content, and fixing directory consistency can begin influencing AI results in 4 to 8 weeks. Building the kind of domain authority and third-party mentions that drive sustained AI visibility takes 3 to 6 months, sometimes longer.
Anyone promising you’ll be cited by ChatGPT within days is overselling. But the flip side is also true: the businesses that start now, while competition in the Irish market is minimal, will be the ones AI platforms learn to trust first.
How to track your progress
You don’t need expensive tools to monitor your GEO results. Start with a monthly query test: pick five to ten queries your customers would ask, run them through ChatGPT and Perplexity, and record whether you appear, what position you’re in, and what sources are cited instead of you. Keep a simple spreadsheet with the date, query, platform, and result. Over three to six months, patterns emerge.
Google Search Console is free and already tracks how your site appears in Google’s search results, including AI Overviews. Check the “Search appearance” filter for any AI-related impressions. For brand mentions, a monthly search of your business name across Google, Reddit, and Boards.ie takes ten minutes and tells you whether your third-party presence is growing. If you want to go further, set up a free Google Alert for your business name to catch new mentions as they happen.
The goal isn’t perfection it’s a baseline you can measure against. If you’re showing up in one more AI answer per month than you were three months ago, the strategy is working.
A Note on Data Protection
Irish SMEs operating under GDPR may have questions about AI tools using their publicly available business data. If you have concerns about how AI platforms process information about your business, the Data Protection Commission (DPC) is the relevant authority and publishes guidance on AI and data protection on its website. Making your business information deliberately public and structured through your website, directories, and schema markup is not a GDPR issue; it’s the opposite of the problem GDPR addresses.
Where to Get Help
If you want support, it’s worth knowing what’s available. Ireland’s European Digital Innovation Hubs (EDIHs) offer free or reduced-cost digital upskilling for SMEs, with hubs operating across Dublin (CeADAR at UCD), Mullingar, Sligo, and Cork. Your Local Enterprise Office can point you toward AI training workshops.
Google’s “AI Works for Ireland” initiative, launched in March 2026 in partnership with the Local Enterprise Office network, is running regional events in Galway, Cork, and Monaghan, with up to 10,000 AI scholarships on offer for practical training. OpenAI’s SME AI Accelerator launched in early 2026 in partnership with Booking.com is delivering hands-on workshops for Irish small businesses, with events already held in Dublin (March 2026) and further sessions planned nationally.
Several Irish agencies now offer generative engine optimisation as a service, though the market is new and quality varies. Before hiring anyone, do the free audit yourself. You’ll be a better client for understanding what you’re actually asking for.
The Real Point
GEO for Irish businesses isn’t about mastering a new technical discipline. It’s about documenting the expertise you already have, in ways that AI platforms can find and trust. The businesses that will win in AI search are the ones that have always been good at answering customer questions clearly, building a genuine local reputation, and showing up consistently across the places that matter.
The difference now is that “the places that matter” have expanded beyond Google. Over a million Irish people are already searching differently. The question isn’t whether this trend will affect your business. It’s whether you’ll be in the answer when it does.
If you’re ready to assess your AI search visibility and build a GEO strategy that fits your business, talk to us. We’ll start with a free review of what you already have, show you exactly where the gaps are, and give you a clear first step whether that’s rewriting your homepage opening or fixing your directory listings.
