TL;DR
- Digiday reported on 26 October 2026 that the Daily Mail has 12 to 15 GEO tests underway for brands in the US, UK and Australia.
- The Daily Mail's Carly Steven said an unnamed personal finance brand rose from about 50% to nearly 75% visibility across target prompts; the figure is self-reported.
- One unnamed brand cited by Steven saw Claude at 0.1% of referrals but about 11% of conversions in 'how did you hear about us' responses.
- Steven said publisher content has less room where government or medical sites dominate AI citations.
- Digiday also reports Future's GEO product has more than 30 clients; Ziff Davis says it has multiple GEO clients.
The Daily Mail is running between 12 and 15 generative engine optimization (GEO) tests for brands across the US, the UK and Australia, and plans to turn AI visibility into an official product early next year, according to a Digiday report by Jessica Davies published on 26 October 2026. Carly Steven, the Daily Mail's director of SEO and editorial ecommerce, said at Digiday's Media Strategies London event the week before that in one early test for an unnamed personal finance brand, the brand's visibility across its target prompts rose from about 50% to nearly 75%. Every result in this article is self-reported by the publishers or brands involved, as relayed by Digiday, and Digiday reports no independent measurement.
What the Daily Mail is testing
Steven presented the tests as a response to demand from brands. Digiday quotes her saying that brands are already coming to the publisher, telling it that their customers are in AI answers and asking how the Daily Mail can help them appear there. She described the work as a potential new revenue opportunity for the business, and said it was not just a defensive play.
The tests are spread across three markets: the US, the UK and Australia. According to Digiday, the point of running a dozen or so of them now is to work out what works before the offer becomes a formal product early next year. The report does not give a price, a package structure, a contract length or the names of any participating brands.
How the Daily Mail's GEO method works
Broken into steps, the process Digiday describes looks like this:
- Identify the prompts consumers might use when researching a brand's product or service.
- Track those prompts across AI platforms over time.
- Look at which sources the AI answers cite.
- Where there is an opportunity, create bespoke branded content designed to improve the brand's visibility, then keep tracking to see whether it changes.
Why the tracking runs for a long time
Steven told the London audience that LLMs are probabilistic: the same search run today and again a few hours later can return different results. For that reason the team tracked prompts over what she called a very long period, to get a solid benchmark of where a brand sits within a topic and, in her words, what types of sources are being cited. Digiday does not say how long that period was, how many prompts each brand's set contained, or which AI platforms were monitored.
How visibility is counted
The one result figure is described only as visibility across the target prompts. For the personal finance brand it went from about 50% to nearly 75%, and Digiday reports that the Daily Mail's content was cited for most of the prompts the team tracked. The article does not define what counts as "visible" (a mention, a recommendation or a cited link), how many runs per prompt were averaged, or how long after the content went live the higher figure was recorded. Those details matter when comparing this figure with any other GEO claim.
The table below lists the figures in Digiday's report and who supplied each one.
| Claim | Figure | Who said it |
|---|---|---|
| GEO tests underway for brands | 12 to 15, across the US, UK and Australia | Daily Mail (Carly Steven), via Digiday |
| Prompt visibility, personal finance brand | About 50% rising to nearly 75% | Daily Mail, unnamed client |
| Claude's share for one brand | 0.1% of referrals; about 11% of conversions by customer response | One unnamed brand, cited by Steven |
| Future's GEO product | More than 30 clients, with renewals | Digiday report |
| Product timing | Official AI visibility product early next year | Daily Mail, via Digiday |
Where publisher GEO content helps and where it does not
Steven stressed that the opportunity is not universal. Before creating anything, the team assesses which sources AI platforms cite for a topic. Where government or medical sites dominate those citations, there may be less room for publisher-led branded content to change the answer. The opening is strongest, she said, where publishers already make up a significant share of citations and the brand itself has little visibility. In those cases the team creates tailored content and tracks whether the brand's presence in AI answers improves.
That filter is useful for any brand weighing GEO work, whether or not a publisher is involved. Before paying for content anywhere, it helps to know what kind of sources the AI answers in your category already lean on. If they are official bodies, a sponsored article is unlikely to displace them. If they are news publishers and review sites, a placement on one of those sites has a plausible route into the answer. The citation check comes first; the content decision follows from it.
The measurement gap: 0.1% of referrals, about 11% of conversions
Digiday notes that AI recommendations do not always lead to a direct click. Someone may see a brand named in an AI answer and search for it later, so the AI tool may not get credit for the visit. Steven said the team is working with brands to look beyond referral analytics and build a fuller picture of how AI visibility affects conversions. She compared the attribution gap to the old problem of measuring a billboard or a print newspaper ad.
She named visibility and citations as metrics to track, and said some brands are going back to a simple measure: a form on their site that asks customers how they heard about the brand. She cited one brand whose analytics showed Claude as just 0.1% of referrals, while customer responses collected through that kind of form put Claude at around 11% of conversions. The brand was not named. The figure is that brand's own data, passed on by Steven, and Digiday gives no sample size, time frame or category for it.
So the example illustrates the gap; it is not a benchmark. The method behind it, though, is cheap to copy. A "how did you hear about us" field that lists AI assistants by name next to search, social and word of mouth gives a second view to set beside referral reports. If the two disagree as sharply as in Steven's example, referral data alone is understating AI's part in sales.
Inside the publisher: selling GEO without giving away the journalism
Steven said the idea of selling GEO packages to brands took time to gain traction inside the Daily Mail, partly because the team was still working out how to explain the proposition. Interest grew as brands began approaching the commercial team directly. Building the offer has meant closer collaboration between commercial, commerce, native advertising, product and editorial teams.
She also said any new commercial work has to stay aligned with the publisher's priority of protecting its intellectual property and the value of its journalism. Digiday reports that, in practice, this means judging when to make specific campaign content available, which involves unblocking access to that content where doing so supports a brand's visibility. The article does not say which AI crawlers the Daily Mail blocks or admits, or how the unblocking is done.
Other publishers selling AI visibility
Digiday places the Daily Mail among several publishers for whom productising AI visibility has become a much-discussed topic over the past six months:
- Future's GEO product has more than 30 clients and has secured renewals.
- Ziff Davis says it has multiple GEO clients.
- Rob Bradley, group SVP of digital advertising and operations at CNNIC and Warner Brothers Discovery, recently told Digiday there is no official product to roll out yet, but the topic now comes up in most commercial meetings with clients.
- Forbes chief innovation officer Nina Gould said brands asked Forbes for help appearing in AI search. Forbes began with its Vetted product reviews, tracking citations, optimising content and sharing the results with partners, and Gould said this helped it secure better affiliate commissions, sponsorships and native-ad deals.
Forbes is also exploring standalone or bundled branded-content products, including ways to assess a brand's visibility before and after an optimisation effort or campaign. Gould described this as work in development rather than an established product.
What Digiday's report does not establish
The report rests mainly on remarks made at a conference. Digiday cites no Daily Mail announcement, methodology document or third-party audit of the 50% to 75% result. The client is unnamed, the prompt set and the AI platforms are not disclosed, and there is nothing on whether the visibility gain held after the campaign or how it turned into sales. None of the publisher offers come with reported prices. Brands should read the numbers as a publisher describing early tests to an industry audience, which is a reason for interest and for caution in equal measure.
What this means for Thai marketers
Digiday's report covers activity in the UK, US and Australia. It does not mention Thailand or any Thai publisher offering GEO packages, and nothing in it suggests the Daily Mail's tests include Thai brands. The method, though, is one a Thai brand can run without a publisher partner. List the prompts Thai customers would type, in Thai and in English. Track them across the AI assistants your customers use for several weeks, because single checks are unreliable. Record which sources are cited, and judge whether those are sources you can realistically earn a place in. Adding AI assistants as options in a "how did you hear about us" field is a low-cost way to test whether your referral data undercounts AI's influence. Relevant Audience's GEO services cover this kind of prompt tracking and citation analysis.
FAQ
What is the Daily Mail's GEO offer?
It is a set of 12 to 15 tests in which the Daily Mail tracks AI answers to brand-relevant prompts and creates branded content where it sees an opening, according to Digiday's 26 October 2026 report. The publisher plans to make AI visibility an official product early next year. No pricing has been reported.
How much did visibility improve in the tests?
In one early test for an unnamed personal finance brand, visibility across target prompts rose from about 50% to nearly 75%, according to the Daily Mail's Carly Steven. This is the publisher's own figure, and Digiday did not report any independent verification.
Why do referral reports undercount AI assistants?
People often see a brand in an AI answer and search for it later instead of clicking, so the visit is not credited to the AI tool. One brand cited by Steven saw Claude at 0.1% of referrals but about 11% of conversions when it asked customers how they heard about it.
Are Thai publishers offering GEO packages like this?
Digiday's report does not mention any Thai publisher or Thai market activity. It covers the Daily Mail's tests in the US, UK and Australia, along with the positions of Future, Ziff Davis, CNNIC and Forbes.
Does publisher GEO content work in every category?
No, according to Steven. Where government or medical sites dominate AI citations, publisher-led branded content has less room to influence answers; the best openings are topics where publishers already hold a large share of citations and the brand has little visibility.
The takeaway for brands
The Daily Mail's tests show a large publisher treating citation share in AI answers as something it can sell, with one self-reported result so far. For brands, the most useful parts of Digiday's report are the method and the measurement warning, and both can be applied without buying a package. Teams that want to know where they stand in AI answers can start with a prompt and citation audit; Relevant Audience's AI SEO services are one place to begin.
