For prospective franchisees, the search for the right opportunity has always been a research-intensive process. But the tools they use to conduct that research are changing fast. AI platforms like ChatGPT and Perplexity are increasingly the first stop for would-be franchise owners asking questions like “which franchise is best for someone with $150,000 to invest” or “what are the top home services franchise opportunities.” For franchise brands and the directories that connect them with buyers, that shift has enormous implications.
GEO is quickly becoming the next place business owners need to prioritize their marketing efforts, as AI-driven discovery begins shaping which brands buyers see, compare, and trust first.
To understand what it means for the franchising industry, we sat down with Evan Bailyn, CEO of First Page Sage and the founder of Generative Engine Optimization (GEO). Bailyn’s agency, established in 2009, pioneered GEO as a formal marketing discipline in 2023 and has since conducted some of the most comprehensive research available on how ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Google’s AI Overviews make commercial recommendations. We spoke with Evan about what GEO means for franchise brands and how a platform like Franchise.com is positioned in a world where AI has become the new first call.
Franchise.com: Evan, let’s start with the fundamentals. What is GEO, and why should the franchising world be paying attention to it right now?
Evan Bailyn: Generative Engine Optimization is the practice of earning recommendations from AI engines, such as ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Google’s AI Overviews, when someone asks a question with buying intent. A prospective franchisee types “best franchise opportunities under $100,000” into ChatGPT, and the AI responds with a direct answer naming specific brands and directories. GEO is how you make sure your brand or platform is part of that answer.
The franchising industry should care about this right now because the discovery journey for franchise buyers is shifting in real time. Franchise buyers have always been thorough researchers because they’re making a significant financial and lifestyle decision. But they used to conduct that research through Google, through franchise directories, through in-person expos. Increasingly, a meaningful and growing share of that early-stage research is happening through AI. And if your brand or platform isn’t surfacing in those AI answers, you’re being filtered out before you ever have a chance to make your case.
Franchise.com: How does an AI engine like ChatGPT decide which franchise brands or directories to recommend? What is it actually responding to?
EB: Two things drive it: what the model learned during training, and for tools that do real-time retrieval, what it finds on the web when someone asks a question. In both cases, the signals come down to a few core factors.
The first is third-party presence. How consistently does your brand or platform appear on reputable external sources, such as industry publications, editorial rankings, comparison articles, and franchise review sites? The model builds its understanding of who the credible authorities are by synthesizing what it encounters across many independent sources. If you appear on a well-ranked “top franchise directories” article, or if your brand is cited repeatedly in editorial coverage of a given franchise category, those appearances accumulate into authority.
The second signal is topical depth on your own site. The AI is trying to identify who genuinely knows the subject matter. A franchise directory that publishes substantive, educational content, like guides on how to evaluate a franchise disclosure document, breakdowns of what different investment tiers actually get you, and comparisons of franchise models by industry, signals expertise in a way that a listing-only site simply doesn’t. The AI recognizes the difference.
The third factor is consistency. Fragmented or contradictory signals across sources undermine credibility in the model’s eyes. A brand whose description, positioning, and core claims read consistently across its own site, its directory listings, and third-party coverage will always outperform one whose identity is scattered.
Franchise.com: Franchise.com operates as a discovery platform, connecting prospective franchisees with brands across dozens of industries. How does GEO apply to a marketplace model like that?
EB: For a directory or marketplace like Franchise.com, GEO is both a challenge and an opportunity. The challenge is that you’re competing to be the platform the AI recommends when someone is beginning their franchise research journey. The opportunity is that directories are exactly the kind of resource AI engines are predisposed to recommend, provided the directory has established itself as genuinely authoritative.
What that looks like in practice is a platform that goes well beyond listing franchises and actively publishes the kind of content that answers the real questions a franchise buyer has at each stage of their research. Not just “here are 500 franchise opportunities,” but “here’s how to evaluate a franchise if you’re coming from a corporate background,” or “here’s what separates a scalable franchise model from one that will keep you working 70-hour weeks.” That kind of editorial depth is what the AI is looking for when it decides which resource to point someone toward.
Franchise.com also has a structural advantage worth noting. A platform that spans industries, including home services, food and beverage, health and fitness, senior care, and education, can build genuine topical authority across multiple verticals simultaneously. That breadth, when paired with depth in each category, is exactly what earns consistent AI recommendations across a wide range of buyer queries.
Franchise.com: What about the franchise brands themselves, the companies listed on platforms like Franchise.com? How should they be thinking about GEO?
EB: For franchise brands, the GEO opportunity is significant and still largely untapped. When a prospective buyer asks ChatGPT “what are the best cleaning franchises” or “which senior care franchise has the best support system,” the AI names specific brands. Being on that short list is an enormous recruiting advantage, because the buyer is already close to taking action.
The path there runs through two things. First, superlative presence: being featured in the credible, well-ranked editorial content that covers your franchise category. Articles titled “Top Franchise Opportunities in Home Services” or “Best Low-Cost Franchises for Veterans” are exactly what AI retrieval systems pull from when constructing those answers. If your brand appears consistently in that content, you are feeding the AI’s answer directly.
Second, your own website needs to demonstrate genuine authority in your category, not just a franchisee recruitment pitch, but content that shows you understand the industry, the unit economics, and the operational realities. A brand that publishes substantive content on what it actually takes to run one of its locations, or that offers data-backed comparisons of franchisee performance across markets, signals the kind of expertise that generative engines reward.
Franchise.com: Is there anything specific about the franchising industry that makes GEO particularly well-suited or particularly challenging?
EB: Franchising is actually a very favorable landscape for GEO for a few reasons. The buying decision is high-stakes and research-heavy, which means buyers are asking AI exactly the kinds of substantive questions that GEO is designed to answer. They’re not typing “franchise” into ChatGPT and hoping for the best, they’re asking nuanced questions about investment levels, support structures, royalty models, and industry categories. That specificity creates a lot of surface area for brands and directories to build authority.
The fragmentation of the industry is also an advantage for early movers. There are thousands of franchise brands across dozens of categories, and the vast majority of them are not thinking about AI visibility at all. A brand that starts building GEO infrastructure now in its specific category, say, mobile pet grooming franchises, or commercial cleaning franchises in the Southeast, can establish itself as the AI’s default recommendation in that niche before any real competition exists.
The challenge is that franchise buyers often start their search at a category level rather than a brand level. Someone doesn’t walk in knowing they want a specific brand; they walk in knowing they want a home services franchise under $80,000. That means the first GEO battle is often won by the directories and discovery platforms that appear when those category-level questions are asked. Which is exactly why a platform like
Franchise.com is so well-positioned to capture that early-stage buyer.
Franchise.com: What’s the relationship between SEO and GEO in a context like this? Are they separate strategies, or do they work together?
EB: They work together more than most people realize, and that’s good news for platforms and brands that have already invested in SEO. The retrieval systems that tools like ChatGPT use when pulling real-time information lean heavily on what Google has already determined to be authoritative. If your content ranks well for searches like “best franchise opportunities for veterans” or “how to choose a franchise,” that content is feeding into the AI’s answer when someone asks the same question in ChatGPT.
The distinction is that traditional SEO optimizes for clicks and keyword rankings, while GEO optimizes for being cited as an authority. The tactics diverge somewhat: GEO places more emphasis on being mentioned across multiple reputable external sources, on publishing content that establishes brand authority rather than just targeting search volume, and on ensuring your presence in the editorial comparison content that AI systems treat as highly credible. But the foundation of genuine expertise, well-organized content, and strong third-party presence is the same. A well-run SEO program is also building GEO equity, even if unintentionally.
Franchise.com: What’s your practical advice for a franchise brand or a franchise directory that wants to start building GEO traction today?
EB: Start by doing the audit. Open ChatGPT and Perplexity and ask the buyer-intent questions that matter most in your category. “What are the best franchise opportunities in senior care?” “Which franchise directories are most useful for first-time buyers?” See whose names come up and whose don’t. That tells you exactly where you stand and who you’re competing against for AI visibility.
From there, prioritize third-party presence. The most leveraged thing most brands and directories can do is get featured in well-ranked editorial content in their category, like the comparison articles, the best-of lists, and the industry rankings that already appear at the top of Google results. That content is what the AI retrieval layer is drawing from. Being on those lists is worth more for GEO than almost anything you can build on your own site.
Finally, invest in genuine educational content that answers the real questions your buyers are asking. Not promotional material, but actual substantive guidance that a prospective franchisee would find useful regardless of whether they end up working with you. That content builds topical authority over time, and topical authority is the core currency of GEO.
The window here is real. Most of the franchising industry is not thinking about this yet. The brands and platforms that move first will establish the associations that AI systems rely on, and those associations, once established, are genuinely hard for latecomers to displace. The cost of waiting is giving up a channel that could have been owned from the beginning.