Search & Discovery (SEO / GEO / Agent)
- What it is: how a brand becomes findable and chosen — by humans clicking links, by humans reading AI answers, and increasingly by AI agents retrieving and shortlisting on a buyer's behalf.
- The 2026 shift: discovery is going zero-click and answer-first — Google still sends the overwhelming majority of referral traffic, but a fast-growing slice of intent is resolved inside an AI answer (no visit), and the leading edge is agent retrieval, where no human reads anything at all.
- The hard truth: today GEO is influence without a click, not a traffic firehose — so your measurement has to change before your tactics do.
- Don't: treat GEO as a bolt-on, chase
llms.txt, or quote a single AI-search "share" number without saying which metric.
How this domain is organized internally — and the decision logic, runnable workflows, and agent angle — are in the full map.
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Current as of 2026-06-22. Informational only — not legal, financial, or professional advice; verify time-sensitive facts against primary sources before acting. Single-source/vendor claims are flagged in the full map. © The Modern Marketing Map.