Imagine this: You are an SEO executive, earning a six-figure salary at a corporation – and you throw it all away. For an AI startup. Sounds crazy? Not for Malte Landwehr.
We speak with Malte about his doubts regarding SEO – and why for him, this is not an end, but a beginning. His prognosis: “GEO – meaning optimization for AI systems – will be 100 times bigger than SEO”.
From there, we delve into the technical details. We discuss: The customer journey in AI systems, measures for AI optimization, prompt strategies, AI bots, and much more.
The entire deep dive into the SEO & AI transformation is available in our podcast. Some highlights are presented here in the article.
Our Guest: Malte Landwehr
Malte Landwehr is CMO at the AI monitoring software Peec AI. Malte is a well-known expert in the SEO industry. Previously, he was Vice President SEO at the price comparison site Idealo and a member of the management board. Now he has changed jobs – from a position as a corporate executive with a six-figure salary to a startup.
“I was afraid of becoming obsolete,” says Malte. “A very significant transformation is currently taking place – in user acquisition and opinion formation on the internet. Existing companies find it significantly harder to deal with this than startups that work directly with this perspective.”
Since early 2025, Malte has advised Peek AI – and finally decided to make the switch. Ultimately, only three days passed between his decision and the contract signing and resignation.
Peec AI is also making waves at the investor level. The Berlin-based startup has just successfully raised 7 million Euros in investment capital. We also use the tool for our GEO / LLMO consulting.
Why GEO Will be much Stronger than SEO
“SEO traffic is a channel that has always had massive scaling potential,” says Malte. Because organic visitors via Google are not associated with “incremental costs,” unlike ad-based models. “SEO is therefore a very efficient channel for new customer acquisition.” Nevertheless, SEO was often secondary for many large brands. They tended to rely on classic branding and sales models through retailers. On the internet, all topics related to their product world, such as usage, comparisons, etc., were covered by other websites.
Through language models or AI systems, the customer journey changes completely. To get information, users today still enter terms into Google hundreds or thousands of times, visiting numerous websites from publishers, blogs, comparison portals, and review portals. These “intermediaries” have provided valuable information. However, in ChatGPT and similar systems, the entire journey takes place in a chat. Therefore, it becomes highly relevant for brands to be recommended there. “GEO will be much more important for brands than before,” says Malte. Anyone who doesn’t appear here will no longer play a role with potential customers.
Deepen your Knowledge in SEO, GEO, and LLMO
How to Optimize for AI Systems?
In the optimization of AI systems, there are two levels that we discuss in the interview. Firstly: The answers that are generated purely from the language model. Here, there are no quick optimization possibilities. Because, simply put, language models have the entire internet as knowledge – and generate answers based on this. “Here, we should think in terms of quarters or years if we want a change,” says Malte. It’s different when AI systems perform a search for support (RAG, Search Grounding). Here, changes in AI answers are often seen within hours or days. But here too, it must be said: This is the current state, mid-2025. New AI training bots may also be developed that specifically evaluate current information.
What kind of content is likely to be preferred by LLMs? Here, Malte refers to E-E-A-T factors, which Google has also emphasized for many years. It’s about the sources needing to be trustworthy. Here too, brands have significant advantages again, because they are well-known (entities) and frequently searched for. However, in our work, we also see that brands are perceived very differently in language models, especially in direct competition. This is precisely where LLMO or GEO comes into play. GEO measures are, on the one hand, “Off-page,” meaning in which sources a brand appears more prominently. And “On-page,” meaning the texts on the website itself – and the question of whether these can be well recognized by the language models.
Further GEO & LLMO Topics We Discuss
Further aspects we discuss:
- What role do AI Visibility Tools play in analysis?
- Which prompts should be monitored?
- Should AI crawlers be excluded?
- Which department should be responsible for GEO / LLMO?
- What role will SEO managers have in the future?
One thing is certain for us: SEO will change completely. This has implications for companies and marketing managers.
Even the introduction of AI Overviews has had extremely negative effects on SEO traffic – and they haven’t even been fully rolled out yet. Companies must face these changes, developing new metrics, strategies, and measures. Intermediaries will come under pressure – and must also evolve at the business model level. Brands will have significant advantages in the new AI world.
Our Conversations with SEO Professionals from the Industry
We Advise Marketing Managers on SEO & AI
For anyone seeking an SEO sparring partner or comprehensive SEO consulting, Fabian and Benjamin are the perfect choice. As an in-house SEO expert, I sought competent SEO support and found it with them. During a very pleasant introductory meeting, we jointly developed an approach to establish SEO among the individual stakeholders and thereby gain more internal visibility for the subject. Based on this initial discussion and a joint kick-off with the stakeholders, they developed a sound SEO and content strategy for a product area. Since then, they have both supported me as sparring partners during implementation.
The collaboration with Fabian and Benjamin is a great pleasure for me and all project participants, as they are masters of their craft and bring immense passion for SEO. This combination is infectious and motivates everyone to achieve peak performance.
I look back with great satisfaction on the SEO project that we carried out with Benjamin and Fabian. Firstly, the collaboration was on a very pleasant, goal-oriented level. Secondly, the consultation was structured in such a way that we could immediately start with the implementation. We received very concrete optimization suggestions that were tailored to our internal capacities and therefore realistically implementable. Even though only a few months have passed, we can already see the first results of our work in the Google rankings. Traffic for our relevant keywords is steadily increasing, and we still have enough concrete work packages from Benjamin in the pipeline to boost our site. Furthermore, through the consultation, we have acquired so much internal SEO know-how that we can now optimize our site independently. And most importantly: Visitor numbers have doubled – with correspondingly positive effects on sales.
