Broadway has spent years competing for attention across Google’s discovery ecosystem. Now, there may be a new gatekeeper in town, one that doesn’t even require audiences to know a show's name in order to find it.
Someone can ask, “What’s the funniest Broadway show?” “What should I see for a date night?” or “I want something high-energy, what should I see?” Instead of scrolling through search results, they can get an answer from an AI platform.
That change in platform affects how discovery works. The audience isn't necessarily searching for a Broadway show anymore. They're describing what they generally want and letting AI connect the dots.
For an industry already having a complicated conversation about AI, there is an interesting tension here: While Broadway marketers and advertisers continue to figure out what role AI should play in marketing and audience engagement, audiences are already starting to use AI to find information and make decisions.
That is where GEO, or generative engine optimization, comes in. The easiest way to think about GEO is: the AI version of SEO. SEO, or search engine optimization, is about following practices that a search engine, like Google, favors in order for your website to appear higher in search results. SEO helps people find a show when they search for it. GEO is about helping AI systems understand what a show is, what makes it different and when it might be a good answer to someone's question so that your show is more likely to surface in an AI agent’s answer.
