Generative engine
A system that composes an answer from a model’s own representation of a subject — what sources across the web agree about it — rather than from a single retrieved page. What it will state about a brand is bounded by what it has seen corroborated elsewhere.
Also written Generative engines or Generative search. Atlas writes British English; the definition is the same.
Why it matters
The consequence, not the conceptIt moves the work off the site. A generative system cannot be persuaded by a page it is not reading; it repeats what enough independent sources already agree on. That is why GEO is an evidence problem rather than a content one, and why it is the discipline you cannot finish alone.
Where Atlas works on this
2 routesBuild visibility
Seven questionsA definition is only worth publishing if it is true of your site too. Atlas reads the site before the first conversation.