For years, SEO has been about Google. But that’s changing fast.

When a decision-maker asks ChatGPT, Claude, or Google’s AI Overview:
“What’s the best tool for managing cross-border payments?”
-AI now decides who shows up.

This is the rise of AI-native search. And it’s reshaping how buyers discover, trust, and choose fintech platforms.

In this post, we’ll break down:

• Why AI search is fundamentally different from Google SEO

• How it decides what brands to mention

• What you can do now to start showing up in the answers

🧠 AI Search ≠ Traditional SEO

Traditional SEO is built on:

• Matching keywords

• Link-building

• Technical optimization for crawling and indexing

But AI search works differently:

• It answers questions using natural language synthesis

• It pulls from trusted sources it was trained or fine-tuned on

• It cites selectively (or not at all) based on semantic relevance

This means:
You can rank #1 in Google... and still be invisible in ChatGPT or Claude.

🕵️‍♂️ What AI Models Actually Look For

To show up in an AI answer, your brand must:

1. Be mentioned in the right contextual language

2. Appear in trusted sources (like blog posts, Q&A forums, press, etc.)

3. Be structured clearly - not just pretty, but answerable

Unlike Google, there’s no rank - just extracted facts and synthesized insights. And if you're not part of the training or retrieval data, you're not in the conversation.

🔥 Examples of AI Search Prompts Your Buyers Use

If you're a fintech company, your buyers are already asking:

• “Best embedded finance platforms for SaaS”

• “Top alternatives to Stripe Treasury”

• “Is [your company] a good choice for B2B payments?”

If your brand doesn’t appear - your competitor will.

💡 What You Can Do Right Now

1. Run an AI Visibility Check

Ask ChatGPT and Claude:

• “What are the best [your category] tools?”

• “What is [your product]?”

• “Who are the leaders in [your vertical]?”

Are you showing up? If not - you’ve got a GEO opportunity.

2. Optimize Your Content for AI Retrieval

• Start with question-first formats (H2: “What is XYZ?” → one-line answer → then details)

• Add trusted citations, client quotes, and numbers

• Use semantic consistency (call your product what your buyer would)

3. Seed Your Brand in Trusted Sources

LLMs are trained on a blend of docs, forums, and editorial sites. That means you need:

• Blog content on your site

• Mentions in community platforms (Reddit, Stack Overflow, fintech roundups)

• Citations in long-form third-party content

4. Track Mentions and Prompt Win-Rates

Instead of just Google ranking, track:

• How many prompts you appear in

• Where AI models surface your name

• What prompts lead to inbound demo requests

We do this using internal tracking workflows and prompt audits. You can too.

📈 Why GEO > SEO for Fintech Growth in 2025

• Your buyers trust ChatGPT more than ads

• AI search is where discovery and decision-making happens

• LLMs are now part of every buyer's toolkit - and if you're not in their answers, you're not in the game

Want to Win in AI Search?

We help fintech companies become the trusted answer in AI-powered search - not just Google.

Book your free GEO audit and we’ll:

• Identify prompts you're missing

• Score your current visibility

• Build a roadmap to make you the AI answer your buyers see

→ Let’s make your brand unmissable inside ChatGPT.