Ask ChatGPT which baby shampoo is safest for newborns, which laptop suits a first-year engineering student, or which travel app gives the best Goa deals. Somewhere in that answer, a handful of brands get named. Everyone else is invisible.
For Indian marketers, the uncomfortable truth is that most brands haven't started playing this game. In a recent interview with afaqs, Kirthiga Reddy, co-founder of GEO platform OptimizeGEO and former Managing Director of Meta India, described India as being in the first innings of AI search (afaqs).
That's a warning and an opportunity. Here's what it means and how to take the lead.
Key Takeaways
- GEO in India in 2026 is still in its first innings: most brands have not optimised for AI answers, so early movers can build a lead.
- Media spend buys reach, not a place inside the AI answer. Only organic GEO work influences the answer itself.
- Citation count moves first; AI share of voice and sentiment follow.
- Optimise across ChatGPT, Gemini, Google AI Mode and Perplexity to reduce algorithm risk.
Quick Recap: What Is GEO?
Generative Engine Optimization (GEO) is the work of getting your brand mentioned, cited and recommended inside answers from AI tools like ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, Claude and Google's AI Mode. For the full framework, read our GEO strategy guide for Indian businesses.
Why "First Innings"?
Three signals show how early India is:
- Most brands aren't optimising yet. Reddy described an OptimizeGEO study with the MMA around IPL 2026: two brands with similar media budgets showed very different AI visibility, depending on whether they had optimised for it.
- Visibility gaps hide inside query types. She cited a baby care brand that looked visible overall but was almost absent from safety-related questions. Its own site had no machine-readable content on the topic, and no third-party or influencer content filled the gap.
- Measurement is only now reaching boardrooms. Reddy said AI visibility has become a board-level conversation, yet most Indian teams still report only clicks, impressions and ROAS.
India also matters to the AI platforms themselves: Reddy pointed to India being ChatGPT's second-biggest market, and OpenAI has said India has more than 100 million weekly ChatGPT users.
Media Spend Can't Buy the Answer
The sharpest line from the interview: media spend gets attention and reach, but it "doesn't buy you the answer in the answer engine."
That's even more relevant now that ChatGPT Ads are live in India. Ads sit below the answer and are labelled as sponsored. The answer itself is still generated organically. So Indian brands now face two races at once:
| Paid AI visibility | Organic AI visibility (GEO) | |
|---|---|---|
| Where you appear | Sponsored card below the answer | Inside the answer |
| How you win | Budget, bids, context hints | Content, entity clarity, third-party mentions |
| Category limits in India | Finance, health, legal blocked on ChatGPT Ads | Open to all categories |
| Durability | Stops when spend stops | Compounds over time |
The New Metrics: Citations Move First
Reddy expects AI share of voice, sentiment and citation count to gradually join clicks, impressions and ROAS as core metrics. Her point about order matters: citations move first, and share of voice and sentiment follow.
| Metric | What it tells you | When it moves |
|---|---|---|
| Citation count | How often AI engines link to or name your pages | First, often within weeks of content fixes |
| AI share of voice | Your share of mentions across a fixed prompt set vs competitors | After citations build |
| Sentiment | Whether you're recommended, merely listed, or described negatively | Last, as reputation signals accumulate |
Sentiment has layers: being mentioned isn't the same as being recommended for a specific use case. Our next post covers how to increase AI search citations step by step.
Don't Bet on One AI Platform
According to the interview, a Gemini algorithm change during IPL 2026 caused visibility to dip across brands. Brands optimised for several AI platforms dipped less and recovered faster than those skewed to one.
The lesson for India: track and optimise across ChatGPT, Gemini, Google AI Mode and Perplexity, not just one. See how Google's side is evolving in Google AI Mode in India.
What Should Indian Brands Do in the First Innings?
- Audit visibility by query type, not just overall. Split prompts into category, comparison, safety or trust, price and local questions.
- Fill machine-readable gaps on your own site. Clear FAQs, specs, safety information, pricing and policies in plain HTML.
- Earn third-party conversation. Reviews, press, creators and community threads fill the gaps your site can't.
- Diversify across AI platforms to reduce algorithm risk.
- Add citation count and AI share of voice to your dashboard, next to clicks and ROAS.
- Be honest about fit. Reddy's point: if your product isn't right for a use case, no optimisation will make AI recommend it. Focus on the questions where you genuinely are the best answer.
Why Creative Still Matters
GEO isn't just a technical exercise. Reddy argued the tech side doesn't work without the creative side. Distinctive positioning, original stories and useful content give AI engines something worth citing. This fits the wider shift we covered in why 2026 is the turning point for AI in Indian marketing.
The Bottom Line
India's AI search game has barely started. Brands that measure citations, fill content gaps and earn third-party mentions now will set the score everyone else has to chase. Waiting for the "second innings" means batting against a target someone else already set.
Want to know your AI visibility score? ClicZeo runs GEO audits for Indian brands across ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity and Google AI Mode, broken down by query type. Get your audit.
