It makes me feel like a dinosaur to admit this, but apparently, saying “Google It” is officially going out of style.
Fewer and fewer people are using traditional search engines to find fun things to do this weekend. More often, they’re relying on AI tools like ChatGPT, Gemini, and Claud…and with good reason.
An AI prompt can take your personal preferences into account. You can tell it exactly what kinds of activities you enjoy, what your budget is, and any other criteria you want to include. A Google search gives you generic results; AI responses are tailored just for you.
If your event business isn't showing up in that answer, it's effectively invisible to that buyer, and they never even opened a search results page to find you.
We are living in the world of GEO and AEO. Here's what that actually means, why it matters for events specifically, and…just as important…how you can flip the script and use AI yourself to run your events more efficiently.
Generative Engine Optimization (GEO) is the practice of optimizing content so it gets cited by AI search engines like ChatGPT, Perplexity, Google AI Overviews, Gemini, and Claude. Answer Engine Optimization (AEO) is closely related: it focuses on winning direct-answer placements like featured snippets and AI answer boxes, while GEO focuses more specifically on earning citations inside a generated response.
The simplest way to think about the difference from classic SEO: SEO chases a ranking position, AEO chases the answer slot, and GEO chases the citation inside the AI's actual response. They overlap heavily and none of them replaces the others: strong domain authority and clean, well-structured content still help across all three.
This isn't a minor shift. Search volume itself is moving: widely cited zero-click study found that nearly 60% of Google searches now end without any click to the open web, and ChatGPT alone had crossed 800 million weekly active users by early 2026, now with live web retrieval built in so it can cite sources directly in its answers.
Here's the part that should get your attention: AI search engines are increasingly naming specific vendors, venues, and platforms directly in response to buyer questions…not just linking out to a list of options for the person to sort through themselves.
When someone asks an AI tool "what's a good ticketing platform for a small festival" or "what should I look for in an event venue," the AI doesn't just describe categories…it recommends. And when it does, that means a brand mention or citation, ideally in a positive or neutral context, and ideally appearing consistently across the range of prompts relevant to its category. That's a real, measurable outcome: it just doesn't show up in Google Analytics the way traditional traffic does.
The stakes are also different depending on which AI tool someone's using. A recent benchmark found that Google's AI Mode and Perplexity draw roughly 90% of their citations from Google's existing top-10 search results, while ChatGPT pulls only about 30% from those same rankings…meaning strong traditional SEO alone won't guarantee visibility across every AI surface. You have to earn it in more than one place.
And the traffic that does come through tends to be worth the effort. Visitors referred from AI search convert at notably higher rates than typical organic search traffic; in one analysis, ChatGPT-referred visitors converted at 15.9%, compared to a 1.76% conversion rate for standard organic search. People arriving from an AI answer usually aren't casually browsing; they've already done their research and arrive with a pre-formed shortlist in mind.
You don't need to overhaul your entire content strategy overnight, but a few structural habits genuinely move the needle. I definitely don't have all the answers, but here are a few simple strategies that can help increase your visibility in AI searches:
Answer the question in the first few sentences. AI tools that pull real-time information tend to evaluate a page's relevance based heavily on its opening content, so the first part of any article should directly answer the core question rather than building up to it gradually.
Back claims with real numbers and sources. Research on what actually improves citation rates found that adding statistics, quoting sources, and citing outside data each measurably increased how often a source got surfaced in AI-generated answers.
Structure content in clearly labeled, extractable sections: the same instinct you'd use for a well-organized FAQ or how-to page.
Keep publishing consistently. Citation authority is cumulative…the brands showing up in AI answers today are largely the ones that built strong content and SEO foundations over time, and that compounding effect is expected to keep growing in importance.
Here's the thing worth sitting with: while your content needs to adapt to how AI search works, AI is also quietly becoming one of the most useful tools event organizers have for managing the actual work of running an event.
The adoption numbers are striking: 91% of meeting professionals now say they already use AI in some part of their event planning process, and generative AI tools are increasingly woven into everyday workflows: helping planners draft event agendas, handle speaker outreach, build marketing campaigns, summarize meeting notes, and generate post-event reports. The appeal is straightforward: these tools handle the repetitive grunt work (think: research, first drafts, brainstorming) freeing up planners to focus on the parts of the job that actually require human judgment.
That shift matters because event planning is genuinely demanding work. Reporting and data analysis in particular tend to be the least enjoyable part of the job: necessary, but not why anyone got into events in the first place. AI tools that can handle a first pass at that work don't just save hours; they free up mental bandwidth for the parts of the job people actually signed up for: building a great guest experience, thinking creatively about programming, being present on event day instead of buried in spreadsheets afterward.
We built two AI-powered tools directly into the Passage platform for exactly this reason: both free for event organizers to use.
Optimize Your Event with AI tackles one of the most universally dreaded parts of listing an event: writing the title and description. Enter your basic event details, hit "optimize," and the tool suggests a sharper, more compelling version designed to catch a potential ticket buyer's attention…with the option to keep your original if you don't love the suggestion. It's a small task individually, but multiply it across every event you run in a year and it adds up to real time saved.
AI Reporting Assistant goes after the other end of the process: everything that happens after your event ends. Instead of digging through spreadsheets to answer a simple question, you can ask it directly: How many tickets did I sell this weekend? What was my best-performing ticket type last year? What should I do to sell more tickets next time? It can build custom reports, generate guest lists on the fly, compare performance across events, and even suggest marketing ideas based on your own data: all through a plain-English conversation, no spreadsheet wrangling required.
Together, these tools cover the two bookends of event planning that eat the most time and offer the least creative payoff: writing the listing and analyzing the results. That's time you get back for the parts of organizing an event that you actually enjoy.
The connection between these two halves of this post isn't a coincidence. The same AI systems reshaping how people find your events are also reshaping how you can run them. Ignoring either side of that shift means falling behind, but leaning into both means your content gets discovered by the right people, and your own workflow gets lighter in the process.
If you haven't tried Passage's AI tools yet, they're built right into your dashboard and free to use…no separate sign-up required.
Curious what else is changing in how people search for and book events? Check out our companion post: What to Ask ChatGPT Before Booking a Venue.