Modern Retail+ Research: Marketers optimize GEO strategies amid the effects of zero-click search

This is an excerpt from our Modern Retail+ Research report “The marketer’s guide to AI applications, agentic AI, AI search and GEO/AEO in 2026,” which explores how marketers are navigating the opportunities and challenges AI brings as it becomes an indispensable part of marketing. The report is based on a survey of 142 brand and agency professionals, as well as individual interviews with marketing and technology executives responsible for AI investments and applications development. Marketers feel the effects of AI-generated search The number of AI-powered search applications is growing. Google introduced its AI Overviews search function in 2024, followed by AI Mode in 2025, while OpenAI rolled out its ChatGPT chatbot in 2022, later integrating a conversational search feature. Anthropic’s AI assistant Claude and “answer engine” Perplexity also feature conversational search results. This is a member-exclusive article from Modern Retail. Continue reading it on modernretail.co and subscribe to continue reading content like this.