GEO Statistics 2026: Results From 140+ Agency Case Studies

Generative engine optimization (GEO) is the work of getting a brand cited and recommended in AI answers: Google AI Overviews, ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini and the rest. Most GEO statistics come from AI platforms and tool vendors: how many people use AI search, how often AI Overviews appear, how much clicks fall when they do. They don't tell you what a GEO program actually did for a client.

This page does. Every number below is counted from 142 GEO case studies published by 68 marketing agencies, all indexed in OpenServed's directory. Each case study names a client and states the results the agency reported: AI referral traffic, AI visibility and citations, organic traffic, leads and revenue.

Data as of November 2026. GEO is new, and these are results agencies chose to publish, so they show what a successful program looks like, not what an average one does. The directory keeps growing, so if you cite a number, please cite the date.

GEO statistics at a glance

• 142 GEO case studies from 68 agencies, covering 50 industries and clients in 11 countries.
• 73% of GEO case studies report an AI search metric: AI visibility, citations, mentions, AI referral traffic or leads from AI.
• 188% is the median reported increase in AI referral traffic. Half of the 25 case studies that state one fall between 78% and 720%.
• 158% is the median reported increase in AI visibility, citations or mentions, across 30 case studies.
• 73% of AI search gains are reported as at least doubling, and 16% as 1,000% or more.
• Google AI Overviews are the platform named most, in 25% of case studies. ChatGPT appears in 10%.
• 82% is the median reported increase in organic traffic, and 164% in conversions or leads.
• 90% of GEO case studies also list SEO. Only one lists GEO alone.
• GEO case studies tripled since September 2026, from 45 to 142, and now come from 68 agencies instead of 11.
• 16% are Client-verified, the highest share of any service.

What GEO case studies report

AI visibility is the result agencies report most. 49% of GEO case studies include a stat on AI visibility, citations, mentions or appearances in AI answers. Keyword rankings appear in 33%, leads or conversions in 31%, website or organic traffic in 30%, search impressions or clicks in 28% and AI referral traffic in 27%. Leads or revenue attributed to AI appear in 13%.

73% report at least one AI search metric. The other 27% list GEO as a service but report only traditional SEO results, such as organic traffic or rankings.

Most AI search results aren't percentages. Only 45% of AI search stats state a percentage change. The rest are counts or levels, such as "1,200 appearances in AI Overviews" or "AI visibility up from 0% to 21% across 1,500+ tracked prompts". There is no standard measure yet, and agencies use their own.

Only 13% tie AI search to leads or revenue. Results like "98 leads generated from LLM traffic in 6 months" are still rare. Most GEO case studies stop at visibility or traffic.

Which AI platforms GEO case studies name

Google AI Overviews dominate. 25% of GEO case studies name Google AI Overviews or AI Mode in their results. ChatGPT appears in 10%, Perplexity and Gemini in 4% each, Claude in 2% and Copilot in 1%.

Two in three don't name a platform at all. 66% of GEO case studies report AI results without saying which AI tool they come from, using terms like "AI referral traffic" or "AI visibility".

GEO results statistics

The median reported gain in any AI search metric is 200%. 51 case studies state a percentage gain in AI referral traffic, visibility, citations or AI-driven leads, with the middle half between 90% and 508%.

The median reported increase in AI referral traffic is 188%. 25 case studies state one, with the middle half between 78% and 720%.

The median reported increase in AI visibility, citations or mentions is 158%. 30 case studies state one, with the middle half between 64% and 336%.

AI search gains are large because the starting point is small. 73% of reported AI gains are at least 100% and 16% are 1,000% or more. AI referral traffic barely registered for most sites a year or two ago, so even modest growth shows up as a big percentage. The full spread:

• Under 50%: 6% of case studies
• 50% to 99%: 22%
• 100% to 199%: 20%
• 200% to 499%: 27%
• 500% to 999%: 10%
• 1,000% or more: 16%

Traditional search results are more modest. The median reported increase in organic traffic is 82% (34 case studies) and in search impressions or clicks 100% (26 case studies). The median gain in conversions or leads is 164% (36 case studies).

Leads and revenue from AI are too few to measure. 8 case studies state a percentage gain in leads, conversions or revenue attributed to AI, too few for a reliable median.

How GEO is sold

GEO is sold as part of SEO. 90% of GEO case studies also list SEO, and only one of the 142 lists GEO alone. The average case study lists 2.8 services, more than for any other service we've covered.

Content marketing is the next most common partner. Content Marketing appears alongside in 25% of GEO case studies, PPC in 19%, Local SEO in 11% and Web Design in 9%.

What changed since September 2026

We first looked at GEO case studies in September 2026, when the directory held 45 of them.

• The number of GEO case studies tripled, from 45 to 142. As a share of the directory it went from 2.2% to 1.8%, because the directory grew faster.
• GEO is no longer a few agencies' story. In September, four agencies published 71% of GEO case studies. Now 68 agencies publish them, and the top three account for 20%.
• More results are confirmed. In September none of the GEO case studies were Client-verified. Now 23 are.
• The pairing with SEO held. 93% of GEO case studies listed SEO in September; 90% do now.

GEO statistics by industry

To make 50 industry labels comparable, we rolled them up into 13 groups (see methodology). No industry has 20 data points for any result, so this section covers who buys GEO.

Manufacturers and software companies are the biggest buyers. Industrial & Manufacturing accounts for 16% of GEO case studies (23), Software & Technology for 15% (22), Healthcare & Wellness for 13% (18) and Retail & Ecommerce for 11% (16). Manufacturing and SaaS are the most common single labels, with 14 case studies each.

GEO statistics by client size

Client size is the client's employee count. It is recorded for 93 of the 142 case studies (65%), so this section covers only those.

Small businesses are the largest client group, at 44%. Of the 93 with a known size, 41 involve small businesses (1 to 50 employees), 23 medium businesses (51 to 200), 17 large businesses (201 to 1,000) and 12 enterprises (more than 1,000). No client size has 20 data points for any result.

GEO statistics by country

Country is the client's location, not the agency's. It is recorded for 121 of the 142 case studies (85%), so this section covers only those.

81% of GEO case studies are for US clients. 98 of the 121 located case studies are in the United States. The other 23 are spread across 10 countries, led by the United Kingdom (13).

US clients report a median 243% gain in AI search metrics. 35 US case studies state one, with the middle half between 86% and 616%. Their median AI referral traffic gain is 188% (21 case studies) and their median organic traffic gain is 72% (30).

How long GEO takes: what the data can't tell you

None of the 142 case studies records how long the program ran. 27% mention a time period in their results, most often "year over year" or "6 months". A few report results within weeks, such as "First AI-generated leads within days of launch", but there are too few to generalise.

GEO is too new for a reliable answer. If an agency quotes AI search results, ask over what period they were measured and what the starting point was.

The agencies behind the data

GEO is published by many agencies, each with few case studies. Coalition Technologies has 16, TripleDart Digital 7 and WebFX 6, together 20%. 40 of the 68 agencies have published just one GEO case study.

One agency shapes the organic traffic number. Coalition Technologies supplies 10 of the 34 organic traffic data points. Without it, the median organic traffic gain is 109% instead of 82%. The AI search figures don't depend on any single agency.

How much of this data is verified?

16% of GEO case studies are Client-verified. 23 of the 142, from 18 agencies, carry OpenServed's Client-verified badge, meaning the named client confirmed the results. That is the highest share of any service. The other 84% are agency-reported. No metric has 20 verified data points, so we can't compare verified and agency-reported results.

Keep this in mind with every number on this page. A published case study is an agency's best work, described in the agency's words. Without a client confirming it, it's a claim, not a benchmark.

What this means if you're hiring a GEO agency

• Ask what the agency measures. AI visibility has no standard definition yet. Ask which prompts are tracked, on which platforms, and with which tool.
• Ask for the starting point. A 1,000% gain in AI referral traffic can mean going from 10 visits to 110. 16% of reported AI gains are 1,000% or more.
• Ask which platforms. Two in three GEO case studies don't name the AI platform their results come from.
• Ask what AI search did for leads or revenue. Only 13% of GEO case studies tie AI search to leads or revenue.
• Expect GEO to come with SEO. 90% of GEO case studies also list SEO, and most AI visibility rests on the same content and authority.
• Ask whether the client confirmed it. 16% of GEO case studies are Client-verified, the highest share of any service.

You can browse every case study behind these numbers in OpenServed's GEO agency directory, and filter by industry, client size and location.

Methodology

• Source: all 142 case studies in OpenServed's directory that list GEO as a service, as of November 3, 2026, from 68 agencies. Each links to the agency's own published case study.
• AI search metrics: a stat counts as an AI search metric when it mentions AI, AI Overviews, AI Mode, ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, Claude, Copilot, LLMs, generative or answer engines. We split these into AI referral traffic (traffic, sessions, visits, users or clicks), AI visibility (visibility, citations, mentions, appearances or answers) and leads or revenue from AI.
• Other result stats: stats that don't mention AI were assigned by keyword matching to organic traffic, keyword rankings, impressions or clicks, leads or conversions, and revenue.
• Percentages only: medians use stats that state a percentage change. Counts, levels, multipliers such as "5x" and before-and-after pairs are left out, though they still count toward what case studies report.
• Other channels excluded: stats that name paid media, ads, cost per acquisition, ROAS, email or social media are not counted.
• One data point per case study: if a case study has several stats for the same metric, we use the first one listed.
• Median and middle half: we report the median, not the average, because a handful of gains above 1,000% would distort an average. The middle half is the range from the 25th to the 75th percentile.
• Minimum sample: we report a segment only when it has at least 20 data points for that metric.
• Missing details: client size is recorded for 65% of these case studies and location for 85%, so those sections cover only the case studies that have them.
• Bundled services: almost all of these case studies list other services alongside GEO, most often SEO. Results can't be attributed to GEO alone.
• September comparison: our September 2026 figures counted 45 GEO case studies out of 2,015 in the directory.
• Selection bias: agencies publish their wins, and the directory is not a random sample of the industry.
• Agency-reported: except for the 23 Client-verified case studies, results are as published by each agency and haven't been independently confirmed.

Cite this data: OpenServed, "GEO Statistics 2026: Results From 140+ Agency Case Studies", November 2026, https://openserved.com/blog/geo-statistics