By Asif Ikbal Bhuiya – Global Marketing & Sales Tech Leader | Director @ RINGFEDER | B2B AI Explorer

I’ve been in digital marketing long enough to see trends come and go. But the shift we’re living through right now — from search engines to answer engines — isn’t a trend. It’s a complete change in how information works.

Search used to be a list of links. Now it’s just one answer.

And if your content isn’t that answer, you’re simply… out.

Let me show you why this matters, how I discovered the issue firsthand, and what every industrial marketer in Germany (and beyond) needs to start doing now.

🚦 I Used to Google. Now I Ask ChatGPT.

Like most marketers, I started testing generative AI tools early. I used ChatGPT, Bing Copilot, even Perplexity to see how they respond to marketing or product questions.

But what I found shocked me: Answers were partially wrong, sometimes completely off.

Why? Because our brand, RINGFEDER, serves a global audience — and different customer segments use our name in very different ways.

Our industrial couplings and trailer couplings (from a sister company) share the same brand name. Even the AI was confused — just like some of our customers. And that’s a problem.

It was the moment I realized: We need to train the AI ourselves.

That was the spark that led me to start our GEO project.

🧪 How I Found the Problem

I tested how AI answered questions about our product.

At first, it showed our distributor as the manufacturer. After several prompt variations, it finally gave the correct answer — RINGFEDER as the original source.

That inconsistency triggered a mindset shift:

“If AI can’t identify us right now, how can customers trust what it says next?”

I didn’t want our future customers, engineers, or partners to learn wrong things from a machine trained on low-quality content.

So I began optimizing for AI engines — not just Google. That’s GEO.

🧭 Search Engine vs. Answer Engine: The Core Difference

📉 The Risk of One-Answer Systems

With Google, even if you were position 5, you got traffic.

With ChatGPT or Bing? There’s only one answer. If it’s wrong — or not yours — you’re done.

And yet, AI-generated content is flooding the internet. CVs, product reviews, guides — tons of them created in seconds.

But they lack:

• Accuracy
• Context
• Real brand input

That’s the gap I’m determined to fill — with correct, clear, and trusted content.

If someone asks ChatGPT about my products or company, they should get the right answer from the very beginning.

🏭 What German Industrial Brands Must Understand

Many companies are still deeply focused on SEO.

But here’s my message to German marketers:

“SEO won’t die. But it will get more complex for us — and simpler for our audience. Because SEO will become GEO.”

Your content must still rank — but now it must also be understood by machines, structured for retrieval, and wrapped in trust signals that LLMs recognize.

🛠 How You Can Start (GEO in Action)

You don’t need a big budget. Just start here:

• Test yourself: Ask AI questions about your brand. See what it gets right or wrong.
• Structure your content: Use Q&A formats, bullet points, and tables. Clarify ambiguous terms.
• Be present across AI-visible platforms: Blog, LinkedIn, YouTube, Medium — LLMs pull from them all.
• Lead with truth: AI amplifies what’s already published. Make sure your version is the one it learns from.

🚨 Final Thought: GEO Won’t Retire You — But Ignoring It Might

Here’s the wake-up call:

“GEO won’t give you early retirement. But it will decide whether your digital identity survives.”

If you’re a digital leader, start now. Even with small steps. Learn by doing. Test, adapt, structure, correct.

Because the robots are already talking. It’s your job to make sure they say the right things about you.