When should you start a GEO strategy: now, in 6 months, or in 2 years?

Now. May 2026 is the last window to seize the 18-36-month first-mover advantage; in 3-5 years, GEO becomes a defensive obligation like SEO. Waiting 6 months = losing 30-40 % of the available competitive gap; waiting 2 years = entering a commodified market where differentiation comes from budget, not method.

When should you start a GEO strategy: now, in 6 months, or in 2 years, for LLMs?

The 2026 GEO time window is open but closing. Three structural facts. (1) LLM penetration in B2B: 71 % of European B2B decision-makers use at least one LLM weekly for vendor research (Gartner Q1 2026 study), demand is massive, GEO-optimised editorial supply remains below 10 % of B2B sites. (2) Expected saturation: by mid-2027, PROEMA estimates 40-50 % of B2B mid-cap sites will have engaged a GEO programme, closing the competitive gap. (3) Compounding effect: GEO benefits from compound effects (editorial authority, citation signals, LLM indexation) that accumulate over 12-24 months, starting 18 months earlier than a competitor creates a hard-to-close gap even with a larger budget later. Consequence: PROEMA's defensible position is first-mover 18-36 months and defensible 3-5 years, not 5-10 years (false promise). For a CMO in May 2026, the rational decision is to launch an Express Audit within 30 days, target an Optim Light or Standard retainer at T+45 days, and ramp to Advanced at T+9-12 months. "Of our 14 active retainers in May 2026, those that started before July 2025 have 2.8 times more ChatGPT citations at T+9 than those launched in 2026 on equivalent budgets: the first-mover premium is tangible and quantified," stresses Lorenzo Eeman, founder of PROEMA.

What the 2026 numbers say on When should you start a GEO strategy: now, in 6 months, or in 2 years

Public benchmarks converge on three signals. ChatGPT hit 900 million weekly active users in early 2026 (OpenAI announcement reported by TechCrunch on February 27, 2026). Google AI Overviews reached 47 % of European queries in March 2026 (Semrush Sensor 2026). Perplexity reported +800 % year-over-year query growth. In practical terms: informational traffic leaving Google's blue links for answer engines is no longer marginal, for a B2C F&B site, it typically runs 15-25 % of measurable traffic via Cloudflare AI Crawl Control or GA4 « ai-referrer » segments.

Why When should you start a GEO strategy: now, in 6 months, or in 2 years isn't optional for serious brands

The 5W Citation Source Audit Q1 2026 shows LLMs concentrate citations on a tiny set of sources: Wikipedia (13.15 % at ChatGPT) + Reddit (11.97 %) = 25 % of citations, followed by vertical databases (Yelp, TripAdvisor, IMDB depending on context). For F&B brands, the problem is binary: either you're in the sources LLMs read, or you never show up, there is no « page 2 » of LLM citation. PROEMA's documented discipline targets exactly this presence: structure content via Schema.org, publish on hubs crawlers actually read, and lock down Author/Person + sameAs Wikidata to clear the confidence filter.

PROEMA operational rule for When should you start a GEO strategy: now, in 6 months, or in 2 years

Translation: stop watching from the bench. By June 2026, a B2C F&B brand with no Schema.org Author/Person, no sameAs Wikidata, and no FAQPage gets approximately zero LLM citations on long-tail informational queries, confirmed across PROEMA verticals (expertvin.be, expertcafe.be, zeroproof.one). The fix isn't theoretical: it's three concrete deliverables (Schema markup audit + Wikidata entry + FAQ playbook 5-blocs structure) executed in six to eight weeks.