How long does GEO take to show results?

"It depends" is the true answer here, annoyingly - but it depends on one thing you can check in about five minutes, so you don't have to settle for a shrug.

AI answers come from two places: what the model retrieves from the web right now, and what it memorized during training. Each moves on a completely different clock, and your timeline depends on which one is answering your buyers' questions.

The fast clock: retrieval (weeks)

When ChatGPT or Perplexity searches the web mid-answer, it reads pages that exist today. Ship a clear, crawlable page that answers the question and you can show up as soon as it gets indexed and picked - often within two to six weeks. This is why comparison pages and quotable pricing pages are the first thing to ship: they target the fast clock.

The slow clock: training data (months to a year)

When the model answers from memory - no search, just "what's a good CRM?" - it speaks from a snapshot taken months ago. Anything you build now, a wave of reviews or fresh threads, only reaches that memory at the next training cut, and nobody outside the lab controls when that lands. Budget two quarters to a year for memory-based answers to reflect today's work.

How to tell which clock you're on

• Ask the question and watch whether the engine searches - you'll see it browsing, or citations will appear. If it does, you're on the fast clock and can compete this month.
• If the answer comes back instantly with no search, you're up against memory. Your near-term lever is the engines that do search, while the presence-building compounds toward the next snapshot.
• Most categories are a mix - some phrasings trigger search, some don't. That's normal; work both.

One more variable: how often you look

Progress on this channel arrives unevenly - an answer flips, then nothing for two weeks, then two more flip. If you only check quarterly, you can't attribute anything or catch regressions. Daily tracking turns the timeline from a guess into a chart.

Every timeline starts from a baseline you don't have yet. Run a free audit to see where you stand before the clock starts.