Optimizely has introduced a CMS solution designed to help businesses adapt their digital content for the new era of AI-driven search.
The company presented the new features of its content management system, positioning it to address the shift towards Generative Engine Optimisation (GEO) amid changes in how users interact with online content. With AI tools such as ChatGPT, Gemini and Perplexity becoming primary search points for consumers, recent projections estimate a 25% decline in traditional website traffic by 2026. This has prompted many organisations to re-evaluate their approach to content discovery and visibility.
Adapting to the AI era
As generative AI platforms increasingly determine what content surfaces in search results, the structure and accessibility of web content have become critical. GEO represents a framework for ensuring that content is formatted in a way that is not only understandable to human readers but also machine-readable and appealing to AI algorithms.
Shafqat Islam, President of Optimizely, said:
"Your website isn't broken - it's just invisible. The entire business model of the web is being upended, and how marketers generate demand or sell products is being transformed. Marketers need to make sure their websites serves two audiences – humans who demand speed and clarity, and machines that extract and summarise the content. If your CMS isn't structured for AI discoverability, your content won't be found. With the combination of our new CMS features and power of Optimizely Opal, we help brands move faster, create content smarter, and scale for a world where machines, not just people, are consuming your content."
The latest iteration of Optimizely's CMS targets three areas for improving visibility: page-level optimisation, site-wide optimisation, and dedicated GEO analytics.
Page-level optimisation
Key features introduced for optimising individual web pages include the auto-generation of question-and-answer fields based on existing content, as well as the insertion of specific metadata for generative engines. This metadata covers aspects such as titles, descriptions, and signals for Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness (EEAT).
Pages can also benefit from newly-added markdown summary generation, which creates brief overviews intended for improved scanning and indexing by AI agents. The company asserts these refinements make each page more likely to be seen and summarised by AI-powered tools.
Site-wide optimisation measures
Optimizely's updated platform also simplifies the application of GEO best practices at a broader site level. The CMS can now generate a 'llms.txt' file automatically, indicating which pages are accessible to large language models and bots. Additionally, topic-specific templates assist marketers in generating content designed to be featured by generative engines in search summaries.
Marketers are able to apply these changes to new and existing content alike, with bulk metadata population tools that maintain consistency across large volumes of web pages.
Analytics for the AI landscape
With the prevalence of AI agents that reference content without direct user clicks, Optimizely's new CMS offers analytics to track this often-hidden interaction. The GEO health index provides a score for each page, measuring its adherence to GEO and Answer Engine Optimisation (AEO) best practices.
The platform's analytics features also allow brands to monitor the 'crawl-to-refer' ratio, shedding light on how often different AI models visit and reference their sites. The system further details which language models are most frequently accessing the content, giving marketers insight into their performance in the AI search environment.
Supporting visibility
With these updates, Optimizely aims to provide brands with the tools required to ensure their content remains accessible and discoverable, even as AI platforms increasingly mediate user discovery.
The announcement highlights the ongoing changes in digital marketing and the importance for businesses to adapt their online assets. The focus on GEO is expected to influence how organisations structure their digital presence, shifting the priority from human-only audiences to a dual approach addressing both people and machines.
