The rise of AI is leveling the playing field. Smaller companies with thoughtful content channel strategy are earning citations in AI Overviews alongside, or even instead of, larger competitors who never invested in being genuinely helpful.
Here’s the truth about Adobe’s massive $1.9 billion Semrush acquisition: They’re not buying a keyword research tool. They’re betting that brand visibility in AI ecosystems is the future of marketing: and they paid well above Semrush’s recent stock price to own that space.
The real story? GEO (Generative Engine Optimization) is just great SEO, done with new search interfaces and smarter analytics.
Let’s be honest: the real challenge isn’t “AI killing SEO” – it’s that many teams never had a solid SEO foundation and now feel lost as AI search platforms change the rules. If you’re a leader feeling out of your depth, that’s fixable with a clear plan and the right toolkit. The companies that quickly upskill and align SEO with these new search environments will pull ahead.
What Adobe Is Actually Buying: A Brand Visibility Platform
Adobe didn’t call Semrush an SEO tool in their announcement. They called it a “brand visibility platform.” They talked about helping marketers understand how their brands appear “across owned channels, LLMs, traditional search, and the wider web.”
This isn’t marketing speak: it’s strategic positioning around what Adobe calls GEO (Generative Engine Optimization). They’re responding to the reality that consumers increasingly use AI chatbots and agents for product discovery and purchasing decisions.
Semrush has been building toward this for two years. They’ve introduced products that monitor how brands are referenced in responses from ChatGPT, Gemini, and other large language models. They’ve positioned themselves as more than a tool: as a platform for understanding visibility wherever your audience is looking.
Adobe sees that positioning and paid well above Semrush’s recent stock price to acquire it. That’s not a move you make for basic keyword research. “Your B2B growth strategy can’t rely on Google alone anymore – AI-driven engines are reshaping how buyers discover brands.”
Let’s Be Direct About GEO: It’s SEO Rebranded
I don’t say this dismissively. The surfaces are changing: AI Overviews, ChatGPT citations, Gemini recommendations: and that matters for data-driven brand positioning. But the underlying work? It’s the same work good SEOs have always done.
Creating content that’s genuinely useful. Building authority and trust signals. Structuring information so it can be understood and surfaced by whatever system is doing the surfacing.
The companies struggling with AI visibility right now are the same companies that never had a real senior-led marketing strategy to begin with. They relied on paid media, brand recognition, or simply being big enough that Google had to rank them.
Now that AI systems are synthesizing information differently: pulling from sources that demonstrate expertise, citing content that actually answers questions: the lack of foundational SEO work is showing.
What We’re Seeing With Clients: The Full Picture Matters
Let me give you a concrete example from our work at Tillit Marketing Group. We’ve been working with NParallel, an experiential marketing agency focused on trade show marketing and brand activations.
When we started tracking their visibility through traditional measurable marketing results, we saw a solid 62% return on their SEO investment when measured by trackable traffic and conversions.
Then we looked at the full picture of their omni-channel marketing execution.
While building that trackable return, we were also growing – and reporting – their presence as a cited source in AI Overviews and in ChatGPT and other LLM responses. They were showing up in featured snippets for key industry terms. Their brand was appearing in knowledge panels and rich results.
None of that shows up in traditional ROI calculations, but it represents massive visibility in zero-click environments: exactly the kind of visibility Adobe is paying $1.9 billion to help marketers measure and optimize.
This is where I think a lot of businesses undervalue what B2B marketing strategy delivers. If you’re only measuring traffic and conversions, you’re missing the brand visibility that happens when someone asks ChatGPT for recommendations and your company gets mentioned – and we actively monitor and report those referrals and citations as part of client results.
You’re missing the credibility boost when you’re the source Google cites in an AI Overview. You’re measuring the tip of the iceberg and calling it the whole thing.
What SEOs Should Actually Worry About
Acquisitions like this come with legitimate concerns.
Semrush is a tool that many independent SEOs and small agencies rely on. At Tillit, SEMrush is a core part of our toolkit for driving measurable growth and visibility for clients – alongside Google Search Console, Screaming Frog, and GA4. If Adobe’s integration pushes pricing significantly upward or shifts product development toward enterprise-only features, that’s going to impact practitioners who depend on accessible market analysis for b2b tools.
I’m optimistic that the deal means more investment in the platform and validation that this niche is here to stay. But I’m also realistic that pricing and accessibility could change in ways that aren’t great for everyone.
How This Changes Success Measurement
If Adobe is betting $1.9 billion that brand visibility across AI ecosystems is the future, the rest of us should pay attention to what that means for how we measure success in sales and marketing alignment.
Traditional metrics: rankings, traffic, conversions: still matter. But they’re increasingly incomplete. The question isn’t just “are we ranking?” It’s “are we visible where decisions are being made?”
Increasingly, those decisions are being made in AI interfaces where being cited as a source matters more than holding position three versus position four.
At Tillit, we’ve been having this conversation with clients for months. When traditional metrics look disappointing, we dig into the fuller picture:
- Where are they showing up in AI Overviews and LLM responses (e.g., ChatGPT)?
- Are we seeing brand referrals and citations from those platforms, and are they being cited in featured snippets?
- What does their share of voice look like in the zero-click landscape?
Just look at the pace of change – ChatGPT recently rolled out a new browser called Atlas, underscoring how quickly the digital discovery landscape keeps shifting.
Sometimes what looks like modest returns in traditional terms is actually substantial visibility that just isn’t being captured by conventional measurement.
This acquisition validates that approach. Adobe clearly believes that marketers need unified understanding of how their brands appear across all surfaces: owned channels, traditional search, AI responses, and the broader web.
At Tillit, Semrush is one of our primary tools for SEO and growth strategy – alongside Google Search Console, Screaming Frog, and GA4 – reflecting our data-driven, enterprise-grade toolkit.
The Bottom Line: SEO Isn’t Going Anywhere
Adobe paying $1.9 billion for Semrush signals that SEO: whatever you want to call it: isn’t disappearing. If anything, it’s becoming more central to marketing strategy as AI changes how consumers discover and evaluate brands.
The companies who should be paying attention right now are the ones who haven’t yet invested seriously in SEO. The window to build foundational visibility before AI ecosystems fully mature is closing.
The signals that help you get cited by ChatGPT or appear in Google’s AI Overviews are the same signals that good SEO has always built: authority, expertise, and content that’s genuinely useful.
GEO isn’t a new discipline. It’s what happens when SEO meets new search interfaces.
The practitioners who understand that: and who can help clients reframe what success looks like in this landscape: are the ones who will thrive.
What B2B Leaders Should Do Right Now
If you’re planning your marketing investment for 2026, here’s what matters most to future-proof your visibility in the AI era:
1. Audit Your SEO Foundation
- Review your existing content for authority, expertise, and genuine usefulness
- Ensure your technical SEO can support both traditional search and AI discovery
- Identify gaps where competitors are getting cited but you’re not
2. Expand Your Success Metrics
- Track brand mentions in AI interfaces, not just Google SERPs
- Measure share of voice in zero-click environments
- Monitor featured snippet and AI Overview appearances as leading indicators
3. Invest in Content That Actually Answers Questions
- Focus on creating resources that AI systems want to cite
- Build topical authority in your industry areas
- Structure content for both human readers and AI synthesis
The rest is just rebranding. The fundamentals of great SEO: helpful content, strong technical foundation, and genuine expertise: remain the path to visibility, whether that’s on Google’s page one or in ChatGPT’s next response.
Want to see how your brand performs across traditional and AI-powered search? Let’s talk about building a visibility strategy that works for both.
