How AI Is Changing Search Engines (And Why Your Club Needs GEO)

The Rise of Generative Engine Optimisation (GEO)

Understanding Generative Engine Optimisation (GEO) is the most crucial update to your club marketing strategy in 2026. With the rise of Google AI Overviews, we are witnessing a significant increase in zero-click searches in 2026, meaning users get their answers directly from the search engine without ever visiting a website. To address this, committees must understand the shift from SEO to GEO. Instead of just keyword stuffing, you need to structure your site so that AI search engines can easily read and cite your content. By implementing conversational FAQs, scannable formatting, and genuinely human stories, you can effectively get AI to recommend your club to prospective members, ensuring your association stays ahead in the GEO for clubs revolution.

All empires fall eventually. Some, like the Roman and Ottoman empires, slowly crumbled over the centuries, while others, like the Russian Empire (the third-largest in history) and the Carthaginian Empire, collapsed almost overnight. Or there were the dinosaurs, the dominant lifeforms on Earth for around 170 million years (566 times longer than humans have existed), which were wiped out by a single moment of fiery chaos. 

The reason I am banging on about the fall of empires is that we may be seeing the start of an empire's collapse right now. Okay, so that might be a tad dramatic, but this does feel like uncharted territory. 

Back in 2022, only 25% of Google searches resulted in no clicks. Today, in 2026, a massive 60% of all Google searches end in zero clicks. People are asking a question, getting an AI-generated answer right at the top of the page, and leaving without ever clicking on a website.

As a result, Google’s market share has fallen to its lowest point since 2014. Yes, they still account for 89% of all search engine traffic, but these may well be the first cracks in Google’s empire.

So today, let’s talk about exactly how AI is changing search engines, what this means for your organisation's website, and why you urgently need to pivot your marketing strategy from traditional SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) to GEO (Generative Engine Optimisation).

Quick Answer: How Do I Get AI To Recommend My Membership Organisation?

If you are just looking for the short version, surviving the shift to AI doesn't require a computer science degree. To get an AI chatbot to recommend your association to new members, you just need to do a few simple things:

• Answer exact questions: Create an FAQ page that uses natural, conversational language (e.g., "How much does it cost to join?").
• Be fiercely human: Share genuine, boots-on-the-ground stories of your members that an AI cannot replicate.
• Format for scannability: Break your website text up with clear headings and bullet points so it is easy for an AI to scrape.
• Ditch the humility: Leave the Tall Poppy Syndrome at the door and be unapologetically clear about why your club is the best.

What Happened? Part 1: AI Overview

In 2025, Google officially slapped an AI-generated answer right at the top of its search results. Now, when you search for almost anything, you will most likely get an “AI Overview” before you even see a single website link.

As you can see from this very normal Google search (which definitely doesn’t need to be looked into), the search engine has returned an AI Overview answering my question. These overviews contain easy-to-read dot points, links to sources, and videos; all without you asking for it.

This means that a massive number of people are reading the AI Overview, getting their answers right there, and never scrolling down to see other results or click any links. This is exactly why Google’s click-through rate has nearly halved in the last few years. Today, someone can search for a tennis club to join, get all their answers from the AI Overview, and never actually visit your club's website. 

The Environmental Cost of AI 

It’s estimated that these AI overviews use 10x more energy than a traditional search. Google estimates that “the median Gemini Apps text prompt uses 0.24 watt-hours (Wh) of energy, emits 0.03 grams of carbon dioxide equivalent (gCO2e), and consumes 0.26 millilitres (or about five drops) of water.”

Google sees about 8.5 billion searches a day. If every search triggers an AI response, the daily cost of those searches equates to:

• 2.04 Gigawatt-hours of energy: Enough to power a single home for over 180 years.
• 255 metric tonnes of CO2: It would take a car about 55 years of driving to produce the same emissions.
• 2.2 million litres of water: Enough to provide an entire lifetime's supply of drinking water for roughly 40 people.

Side Note

Adding "-AI" before or after a Google search usually stops the engine from running its little AI overview, giving you a normal search result instead.

What Happened? Part 2: AI Searching 

The second reason this is all happening is that some people are turning away from search engines wholesale. Instead, they are going to ChatGPT, Gemini, Copilot, and other AI chatbots and asking them their questions.

I'm sure we have all asked an AI a question or two since it first crawled into existence, but I am talking about people asking ChatGPT for pancake recipes, how to build a four-day beginner gym routine, which running shoes are best for flat feet, or how to fix a leaking tap.

This means that people are using AI as their primary source of information, or at least the primary medium of their information. Which to me feels a bit like hiring Anakin Skywalker as your babysitter, but what do I know?

Why Should You Care About AI Searches? 

Since the Yellow Pages went the way of the dodo, the only way for people to find your club or association was to make sure it was findable on Google.

The idea was that you would do some level of SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) to make Google like your website, increasing the chances it would show up near the top of the search results. Basically, you would add common search terms to your headings, write clear page descriptions, and ensure your website worked on mobile devices and loaded quickly. These were all things that Google liked. That is a gross oversimplification; there are people whose entire full-time job is SEO, but that is all we need to know for now.

The thing is, as people use AI instead of traditional search engines more and more, and as AI Overviews increasingly become the first and last stop of a Google search, appealing to the AI is going to become critical. You need to make your website a source that AIs actually want to cite and recommend to people.

Right now, in the year of our robot overlords 2026, the overall percentage of people getting their information from AI might not be too high, but odds are that we are only going to see that number rise in the years to come. Google’s click-through rate has already dropped by 35% in the last four years, and it may well continue to do so.

Let’s say you run a car club in Sydney. If someone asked an AI, “I live in Sydney, I want to join a classic car club, what are my best options?” Would your club come up?

Chances are, no. I actually asked an AI that exact question, and it gave me five good options. Statistically speaking, your car club is far more likely to have missed that list than to have ended up on it.

That is exactly why this matters to you. Getting AI to use you as a source and recommend you to people is only going to become more important over time. Pretty soon, not being recommended by AI will be the modern equivalent of not being searchable on Google or being left out of the Yellow Pages.

 

How To Pivot From SEO To GEO

Generative Engine Optimisation (GEO) might sound like what the world's dullest man might tell you he does for work when you get stuck talking to him at a party, but it thankfully isn’t that complicated. At least at the basic level, that we need to talk about today. 

So, let’s have a look at three easy ways to make your website more appealing to AI. 

1. Answer Specific Questions Directly (The FAQ Strategy)

AI chatbots are essentially massive answer machines. When someone asks an AI a question, it scours the internet looking for a website that has the exact, direct answer.

• What You Need To Do: Create a dedicated Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) page on your website. Instead of just having a paragraph about "Membership," write a heading that says, "How much does it cost to join a [Your Organisation Name]?" and answer it immediately underneath in plain English. If you ask the exact question the user is asking, the AI will be much more likely to use your answer. 
• Embrace "Long-Tail" Keywords: Previously, Google liked short, choppy keywords: membership, pricing, how to join, online renewals. Now, because people use much more natural, conversational language when talking to an AI, you need to use "long-tail" keywords that match how humans actually speak. 

Here is what that shift looks like in practice:

 

By writing website content that most closely fits the questions people will be asking AI, you are more likely to be the one AI goes to for a source. 

2. Format Your Pages for Scannability

AI bots do not want to read massive, unbroken walls of text. They are lazy readers. They want to grab the most important information as quickly as possible.

• What You Need To Do: Break your website's text up. Use clear Heading 2 and Heading 3 tags. Use bullet points for lists (like the rules for joining, or what to bring to an event). Bold your most important sentences. The easier your site is for a human to scan, the easier it is for an AI to scrape.

3. Write Like a Real Human Being

Here is the great irony of AI, because the internet is suddenly flooded with boring, robotic, AI-generated slop, AI models are actually being trained to look for real human writing. They are designed not to cannibalise other AI content, so they look for genuine human content, which means that writing content in a way that is funny, offbeat and human is actually good and will make your website more effective. 

To my uni professor who marked me down because I made her laugh in an essay I wrote, and I quote, “essays are not supposed to be funny”, I claim victory. Being funny doesn’t mean that you’re not serious or informative. 

• What You Need To Do: Tell real stories on your organisation’s blog. Use first-person language "we," "our committee". An AI doesn't know what it feels like to paddle a kayak down a river at dawn, or how to rebuild a carburettor on a 1965 Mustang. You do. Share that specific, boots-on-the-ground knowledge, and the AI will view your site as a highly authoritative source.
• Beware The Tall Poppy Syndrome: For those not in Australia or New Zealand, Tall Poppy Syndrome is a cultural phenomenon where it is generally seen as uncouth or immodest to loudly proclaim how good you are at something. The idea is that if an organisation bangs on about how incredible they are, it will turn people off, resulting in the "tallest poppy" being cut down. The issue is that AI is not as good at spotting nuance as people are. If you write something like, "We think we have a pretty good sailing club," a human reader understands that you are just being friendly and humble. An AI, however, takes it entirely literally. It reads that and thinks, "Oh, they only believe they are 'pretty good.' My user asked for the BEST sailing club. I will not recommend them." The trick is balancing your language so that it doesn’t turn away people, while also not confusing the AI. 

Those are the only tips we have for now, but this is a rapidly developing space, and we will definitely be taking a deeper dive into Generative Engine Optimisation in the near future. So keep an eye out for that. 

How Do I Get An AI To Recommend My Club To New Members?

The good news is that surviving this shift to AI doesn't require a computer science degree. To get an AI chatbot to recommend your association, you just need to do a few simple things:

• Answer exact questions: Create an FAQ page that uses natural, conversational language (e.g., "How much does it cost to join?").
• Be fiercely human: Share genuine, boots-on-the-ground stories of your members that an AI cannot replicate.
• Ditch the humility: Leave the Tall Poppy Syndrome at the door and be unapologetically clear about why your club is the best.

If your website is currently looking a bit like a historical relic itself, and you want a platform that makes updating FAQs, publishing a blog, and managing your members an absolute breeze, that is exactly what we do here at Member Jungle.

Surviving The Meteor

Look, I think I’ve made it clear throughout this article that I don’t like AI. I wish it had never happened, but it has happened. It will change the way we do so many things, so it’s time to adapt or die. 

If you want a deep dive into how human content is a lifesaver in the age of AI-generated nonsense, check out Being Human: Authentic Connections Are Key To Success in 2026 & Beyond.  

If you want to see how Member Jungle plans to use AI to make your life easier in the years to come, have a peep at The Future Of AI In Membership Management.