GEO & AI Search
Timeline: How Search Changed from 2020 to 2025
Quick Answer
From 2020 to 2025, search transformed from a link-based discovery system to an AI-powered answer engine. Key milestones: Google's passage indexing (2020), ChatGPT's launch (2022), AI Overviews rollout (2024), and the emergence of GEO as a discipline (2024-2025). Understanding this timeline helps you see where search is heading next.
Five years doesn't sound like a long time.
But search in 2025 is almost unrecognizable from search in 2020.
Here's exactly how we got here, year by year.
Search Evolution at a Glance
Peak Traditional SEO
Passage indexing • Core Web Vitals • GPT-3 released (research only)
AI Foundations
MUM announced • Entity optimization grows • Zero-click hits 65%
ChatGPT Launches
100M users in 60 days • Fastest consumer adoption ever • Industry dismisses it
The AI Race Begins
Bing + AI • Google SGE • GPT-4 • Perplexity gains traction
Mass Adoption
AI Overviews rollout • Gartner predicts 25% drop • GEO emerges as discipline
The New Normal
AI search is mainstream • Multi-platform optimization required • GEO is essential
- 2020
Peak Traditional SEO
Passage indexing • Core Web Vitals • GPT-3 released (research only)
- 2021
AI Foundations
MUM announced • Entity optimization grows • Zero-click hits 65%
- 2022
ChatGPT Launches
100M users in 60 days • Fastest consumer adoption ever • Industry dismisses it
- 2023
The AI Race Begins
Bing + AI • Google SGE • GPT-4 • Perplexity gains traction
- 2024
Mass Adoption
AI Overviews rollout • Gartner predicts 25% drop • GEO emerges as discipline
- 2025
The New Normal
AI search is mainstream • Multi-platform optimization required • GEO is essential
2020
The Before
The Peak of Traditional SEO
The world: COVID-19 drives massive online adoption. Businesses rush to digital.
Key Developments:
- • Google Passage Indexing - Google starts ranking specific passages, not just pages
- • Core Web Vitals announced - Page experience becomes official ranking factor
- • Featured snippets mature - Position #0 becomes highly coveted
- • GPT-3 released - OpenAI's model shows language AI potential (but no consumer product yet)
SEO focus: Content quality, backlinks, technical optimization. The 10-blue-links era is strong but showing cracks.
2021
Foundations
Google Strengthens AI Foundations
The world: Pandemic continues. Digital becomes permanent, not temporary.
Key Developments:
- • MUM (Multitask Unified Model) - Google announces 1000x more powerful than BERT
- • Core Web Vitals go live - Page experience officially affects rankings
- • Google Knowledge Panels expand - Entity-based search grows
- • Zero-click searches hit 65% - Most searches don't result in website clicks
SEO focus: Entity optimization gains attention. Some forward-thinking SEOs start discussing "entity-first" strategies.
2022
The Shift
ChatGPT Changes Everything
The world: OpenAI releases ChatGPT on November 30, 2022. Everything changes.
Key Developments:
- • ChatGPT launches (Nov 30) - Reaches 1 million users in 5 days, 100 million in 2 months
- • Google Helpful Content Update - Targets AI-generated spam (ironic timing)
- • E-E-A-T emphasis - Google adds "Experience" to E-A-T framework
- • First "AI search" conversations - Industry starts discussing AI impact on SEO
The turning point: For the first time, users could ask natural questions and get coherent, helpful answers without clicking through to websites.
SEO focus: Most SEOs dismiss ChatGPT as novelty. "It makes things up." "Users want real sources." This dismissal costs 12+ months of preparation time.
2023
The Race
The AI Search Arms Race Begins
The world: Google declares "Code Red" internally. The search industry realizes AI is not a fad.
Key Developments:
- • Microsoft Bing + ChatGPT (Feb) - First major search engine with AI chat integration
- • Google Bard launches (March) - Google's rushed AI response
- • SGE (Search Generative Experience) announced (May) - Google's AI-powered search results in testing
- • GPT-4 released (March) - Major accuracy improvement over GPT-3.5
- • Perplexity gains traction - AI-first search engine starts attracting users
- • Claude released - Anthropic enters the chat
SEO focus: "Answer Engine Optimization" (AEO) term gains traction. Some SEOs start optimizing for featured snippets more aggressively.
2024
Mass Adoption
AI Search Goes Mainstream
The world: AI search stops being experimental. It becomes the default experience.
Key Developments:
- • Google AI Overviews (May) - SGE rebranded and rolled out to all US users
- • Gartner predicts 25% search decline by 2026 (Feb) - Major analyst firm validates the shift
- • ChatGPT hits 200M weekly users - Larger than many countries' populations
- • Perplexity valued at $9B - AI-first search is a real category
- • "GEO" term emerges - Generative Engine Optimization becomes distinct from AEO (see our complete comparison)
- • Organic traffic declines measured - 15-25% drops documented across industries
The wake-up call: SEO professionals finally see traffic declines in their own data. Denial becomes impossible.
SEO focus: Panic gives way to adaptation. First GEO frameworks emerge. Entity optimization becomes urgent.
2025
The Present
The New Normal
The world: AI search is no longer "the future." It's the present reality.
Current State:
- • AI Overviews in 47%+ of Google searches - Nearly half of all searches show AI answers
- • LLM referral traffic up 527% YoY - New traffic source is significant
- • GEO established as discipline - Distinct from SEO and AEO
- • Multi-platform optimization required - Google, ChatGPT, Perplexity, Claude all matter
- • Entity establishment is critical - Wikidata, Knowledge Graph, schema essential
SEO focus: Integration of traditional SEO with GEO. Focus on being cited, not just ranked. Quality over quantity becomes essential, not optional.
What This Timeline Teaches Us
Five Key Lessons
- 1. The shift happened faster than expected. From ChatGPT launch to mainstream AI search was just 18 months.
- 2. Google adopted AI search, not fought it. The biggest search engine is now the biggest AI search provider.
- 3. Early adapters had advantages. Those who started GEO in 2023 are now established. Late starters are playing catch-up.
- 4. The trajectory is clear. AI search share is growing, traditional search is declining. This trend won't reverse.
- 5. Adaptation is still possible. We're still early. There's time to learn GEO, but the window is closing.
AI Search Adoption Trajectory
| Category | % of Searches with AI Answers |
|---|---|
| 2020 | 0 |
| 2021 | 0 |
| 2022 | 5 |
| 2023 | 25 |
| 2024 | 47 |
| 2025 | 65 |
Source: Industry estimates based on Gartner, SEJ, and Semrush data
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