By Rev. Dennis Gyamfi Bediako
There’s a growing myth being pushed by marketing agencies that small businesses need to “optimise for AI.”
These agencies are pushing new service offerings centred on “AI visibility” and “Generative Engine Optimisation” (GEO), promising exposure inside tools like ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Google’s AI Overviews.
But I assure you that the numbers tell a different story. We’ve noticed that despite all the noise, these chatbots barely send web traffic anywhere.
So in a sense, SMEs are being pressured to spend money fixing a problem that doesn’t actually exist, and it’s costing them focus, time, and real marketing results.
In this short article, I will expose these lies and set you free from the endless waste of marketing budget and resources.
AI Visibility Mirage
If you’ve been told your business needs to appear in ChatGPT or Perplexity answers, you’ve been sold a fantasy. I run a web agency in Accra, and trust me, I know the lure in convincing our enterprise clients that they need some kind of special addon service to optimise their services for AI, but would this be true?
The truth is, these chatbots don’t generate measurable traffic. For most sites, referrals from AI chatbots make up less than 2% of visits – often less than what comes from even Microsoft Bing.
Perplexity, one of the more talked-about AI search startups, has under 50 million monthly users. That sounds large until you realise that this compares to many large publisher sites, The New York Times has a similar scale, and it’s still considered small in the wider web ecosystem. ChatGPT’s web browsing feature is interesting, but it doesn’t send users to websites in any meaningful way.
So what’s my point here? I’m just saying that optimising for chatbot visibility today is a waste of resources.
This might shock you, but the AI visibility hype is being driven by marketing consultants and agencies looking for something new to sell, not by actual marketing performance.
The GEO Myth
You might also hear about “Generative Engine Optimisation”, a supposed new discipline for ranking in AI-generated summaries.
In reality, GEO is just SEO with a new coat of paint. The tactics being promoted, like structured content, credible sources, comparison tables, quotes, and statistics, have all been standard SEO best practices for years.
At EnspireFX, we’ve been implementing these tactics for our SME client sites for over 6 years now. It worked years ago, and they still work even more now, maybe because many of our clients’ competitors are falling for these new GEO lies.
So the core truth remains unchanged: Google and other AI systems reward clear, accurate, and well-structured content that answers real user questions. Now you know there’s no secret formula, no hidden “AI ranking trick.”
Google’s AI Overviews
Google’s AI Overviews (AIOs), which are those summaries that appear at the top of some search results, I admit, are a legitimate change. They now appear in about 12.4% of all queries, mostly informational searches.
For SMEs and brands, the queries you should care about are hardly the informational queries, unless you aren’t really selling any products or services.
I must also add that Google’s AI Overviews don’t represent a total rewrite of SEO. Sites with strong fundamentals of good site structure, domain authority, and credible content already tend to appear in these snippets naturally.
The problem is volatility. AI Overviews change frequently and are unpredictable. Trying to “optimise” specifically for them is what experts now call a false economy – it will burn your effort for minimal or short-lived results.
Why This Hurts SMEs
For small and medium-sized businesses, these AI myths create two major problems: distraction and misinvestment.
Distraction:
Many small teams are being told to chase chatbot mentions instead of focusing on strategies that actually bring sales and clients.
They end up neglecting proven tactics of local SEO, consistent blogging, YouTube content, and Google Business optimisation – all of which still matter more.
Misinvestment:
Some agencies are charging for “AI visibility audits” or “GEO strategies” that do little beyond rebranding traditional SEO. SMEs pay for fancy dashboards and AI reports that don’t improve rankings, traffic, or leads.
And I can understand, it’s a clever marketing ploy built on executive anxiety — the fear of being left behind.
What Still Works
Here’s the reality that data supports:
• Transactional SEO
Bottom-of-funnel keywords like “hire a plumber in Accra,” “best web design company in Ghana”, “roofing company in Ghana”, “Dentist in Spintex”, “Best Hair Salon in Tema” continue to convert the most.
Tell your marketing agency or web designer to focus more on these. AI can’t replace a service provider, so these searches will always need human businesses behind them.
• Authoritative content
Google still rewards original expertise and consistent publication. “E-E-A-T” which stands for experience, expertise, authority, and trust, separates human-created content from AI spam.
• YouTube as a traffic driver
YouTube already feeds into Google’s AI Overviews and is becoming one of the most trusted platforms for discovery. For SMEs, video offers visibility, personality, and long-term SEO value.
• Build your own audience
As AI summaries and zero-click results grow, we advise that SMEs own their customer relationships through newsletters, memberships, or communities. These will be more important than ever.
I am positive that AI will shape the web, but not in the way many marketing consultants are selling it. The real challenge is how to stay trustworthy, discoverable, and directly connected to your audience as all these platforms are quickly evolving.
