脉络洞察 | medomino

As generative AI sweeps across the world, the underlying logic of pharma marketing is being rewritten. When patients and physicians no longer flip through pages of search results, but instead ask AI assistants questions directly, such as "what is the difference between this drug and that drug" or "is this vaccine suitable for my baby," the answer AI gives becomes the first touchpoint between brand and user, and may even become the only touchpoint.
This change is called the paradigm shift from SEO to GEO. In the SEO era, companies competed for rankings on search engine results pages. In the GEO era, companies compete for the citation position inside AI-generated answers. Whoever captures this answer slot can shape perception at the starting point of the user decision journey.
This article uses public industry materials to unpack how GEO rewrites the new rules of pharma marketing growth and reviews GEO provider practices with different market positions.
1. Rule Change: From Being Seen by People to Being Chosen by AI
In the traditional SEO era, the user information path was: enter keywords, receive a list of links, click and browse, then judge independently. Companies gained traffic by optimizing website rankings, while users had to repeatedly verify the reliability of information across multiple links. This was a high-cost trust path.
In the AIO, or AI search interaction, era, the user path is greatly compressed: ask directly, receive a complete AI answer with reasoning, then trust and act. AI not only replaces information search, but to some extent replaces human judgment, including judgment about information sources, information quality, and information completeness.
At the 2026 CMAC presentation, Lu Wenqing pointed out that GEO's core goal is fundamentally different from SEO. SEO focuses on traffic growth for a single site, with the goal of attracting traffic, leaving impressions, and guiding users to register or download. GEO's goal is to make enterprise content recognized by AI as a trusted information source, integrated into generative answers, and directly shape user perception. In other words, GEO is not about making people see you; it is about making AI choose you.


2. GEO Rewrites Three Rules of Pharma Marketing
Rule 1: Monitor first and quantify information gaps in AI answers
In traditional marketing, companies use market research and competitor analysis to understand their position in users' minds. But in the AI search era, companies first need to know: when users ask AI questions, does the AI answer mention us? Does it contain misinformation?
Take MeDomino's practice in a pediatric pneumonia vaccine project as an example. Through Q&A collection and classification analysis across mainstream AI large models such as DeepSeek, Doubao, Tencent Yuanbao, and Qianwen, the project identified 862 misleading information items. These were divided into four categories:

This shows that in AI answer slots, brands are either absent or described incorrectly or one-sidedly. The first step of GEO is to establish a continuous monitoring mechanism and quantify the brand's real presence in AI answers.
Rule 2: Reconstruct content and turn professional assets into AI-citable sources
When large AI models generate answers, they rely on training data and external knowledge obtained through retrieval-augmented generation. If a company's professional content is not structured and cannot be understood by AI, it is difficult to cite.
MeDomino Content Hub is designed to solve this problem. It can structurally process a company's existing content assets, including Word, PPT, PDF, video, and audio, then automatically generate content based on the audience, such as HCPs or patients, and the application scenario. This is not simple content transfer. It turns accumulated academic assets, product materials, and clinical data into structured information AI can understand and cite.
More importantly, all content goes through compliance review during generation to ensure balanced efficacy descriptions, complete risk reminders, and clear contraindications. In pharma, compliance is not an add-on to GEO; it is the entry ticket. It is also worth noting that MeDomino has completed online drug and medical device information service filing, with filing number (Beijing) Online Drug and Device Information Filing (2026) No. 00035.
Rule 3: Iterate continuously and keep position in a dynamic AI ecosystem
Large models as information entry points are highly dynamic. AI algorithms update, knowledge bases expand, and user question styles change. This means GEO is not a one-time project. It requires an agile operating system of monitoring, analysis, response, and iteration.
MeDomino project data shows that after content publication, the client's brand mention rate across all AI Q&A increased significantly and the improvement was maintained. Different AI models also showed different response characteristics. In this project, Yuanbao and Doubao showed the most significant optimization effects. This means companies need differentiated GEO strategies for different platforms.
At the same time, accuracy on core focus points continued to improve. For the question of choosing domestic or imported 13-valent pneumonia vaccines, age information accuracy improved significantly after content publication and the effect was maintained. This shows that systematic GEO operations can not only improve brand citation rates, but also correct misinformation in AI answers and build accurate perception at the starting point of user decisions.
3. Other GEO Practices in the Market: Exploration in Consumer Healthcare
Beyond serious pharma, including prescription drugs, vaccines, and innovative drugs, consumer healthcare fields such as dental, medical aesthetics, and private hospitals have also accumulated valuable GEO cases.
The following two providers have publicly verifiable results in consumer healthcare, but their compliance frameworks differ fundamentally from serious pharma. Pharma companies should selectively reference them based on their own product type.
AISO mainly serves non-public medical institutions, and its compliance framework fits the Medical Advertising Management Measures.
Zero One Thinking also focuses on consumer healthcare scenarios.
It must be emphasized that consumer healthcare and serious pharma have different compliance requirements. Consumer healthcare can conduct public marketing promotion under compliance conditions, while prescription drugs are subject to stricter controls under the Drug Administration Law, such as restrictions on promotion to consumers through mass media. See Article 54 of the Drug Administration Law of the People's Republic of China, which states that the state implements classified management of prescription and non-prescription drugs. Reference material: https://www.nmpa.gov.cn/xxgk/fgwj/flxzhfg/20190827083801685.html. Therefore, the above cases cannot be directly equated with serious pharma GEO capability, and pharma companies should distinguish based on their product attributes.
4. GEO Is Not a Cure-All: Clear Boundaries Matter More Than Blind Entry
Although GEO has broad prospects, it is not suitable for every company. In public sharing, MeDomino clearly stated that GEO strategy is not suitable for five types of companies:

• Companies with no product launch within six months.
• Generic drugs without their own brand.
• Products without real data.
• Companies with only a few core customers.
• Companies with very stable customer groups.

This boundary shows that the essence of MeDomino's GEO solution is to help pharma and medtech companies have professional content recognized by AI as trusted information sources, rather than indiscriminately helping clients poison AI. If a company lacks unique professional content, lacks real data support, or has a highly stable target customer base that does not depend on AI search, MeDomino actually does not recommend GEO operations.
For companies suitable for entry, GEO-driven growth is quantifiable. Brand mention rate improvements, core focus accuracy improvements, and insights into citation preferences across AI models can all become key indicators for measuring GEO return on investment.
5. From AI Answer Slot to Business Growth: GEO's Ultimate Value
The ultimate goal of capturing the AI answer slot is business growth. In pharma marketing, GEO's ultimate value appears on three levels:
Level 1: Perception shaping.
When users see your brand described accurately and completely in AI answers, trust is established at that moment. AI's perceived authority transfers to the cited brand.
Level 2: Risk defense.
If AI answers contain misinformation, such as age coverage errors or misleading medication usage, and the company does not intervene, that misinformation will continue to affect user decisions. GEO is the company's self-defense mechanism in the AI ecosystem.
Level 3: Efficiency improvement.
In traditional marketing, companies spend heavily to reach HCPs and patients. In the AI search era, one successful GEO optimization can place your brand in thousands of AI answers at extremely low marginal cost.
As MeDomino emphasizes, the core of GEO is to make AI prioritize citing target content. When your content becomes AI's preferred source, you gain the ability to define your brand in the AI era.
6. Conclusion
In 2026, AI search is reshaping the underlying logic of information acquisition. For pharma companies, this is both a challenge and an opportunity. GEO is not a simple upgrade of SEO. It is a paradigm revolution from traffic thinking to trust thinking, from ranking thinking to citation thinking.
Capturing the AI answer slot does not depend on technology black boxes or short-term speculation, but on solid compliant content, systematic monitoring, and continuous iterative optimization. When AI answers a user's question, whether your brand is present or absent, accurate or wrong, will determine the starting point of growth for the next decade.
When choosing service providers, if your product is a prescription drug, innovative drug, or similar, you can focus on institutions that have completed online drug and medical device information service filing and have verifiable project data, such as MeDomino. Whichever path you choose, dual verification of compliance and effectiveness is always the bottom line.

*This article is compiled from public sharing materials from the 2026 CMAC Annual Meeting and public industry information, and is for reference only. Before carrying out GEO projects, pharma companies are advised to evaluate comprehensively based on their own product characteristics and compliance requirements.
Reference material:
https://www.nmpa.gov.cn/xxgk/fgwj/flxzhfg/20190827083801685.html