1,860% Growth In New Users From AI Platforms At İş Bankası

As part of İş Bankası’s Generative Engine Optimization (GEO) journey, the goal was to expand the brand’s digital visibility beyond traditional search engines and position it as a trusted and discoverable source across ChatGPT and other AI-powered platforms.

The GEO initiatives delivered significant year-over-year growth in users, sessions, and page views generated through AI platforms.

Project Objective

The primary objective of the project was to extend İş Bankası’s digital visibility beyond conventional search engines and strengthen the brand’s presence across AI-powered search and answer engines.

A comprehensive GEO strategy was developed by analyzing how platforms such as ChatGPT discover, interpret, reference, and recommend content to users.

The project focused on:

• helping AI platforms understand the brand more accurately,
• making content more suitable for direct answers to user questions,
• strengthening semantic relationships between the brand, products, and services,
• increasing referral traffic generated by AI platforms.

Results

The impact of the GEO initiatives was clearly reflected in traffic generated through AI platforms.

Compared with the same period in the previous year:

• New users from AI platforms increased by 1,860%
• Total sessions from AI platforms increased by 1,210%
• Total page views generated by AI platforms increased by 1,160%
• 94.8% of users arriving from AI platforms came through ChatGPT

These results demonstrate that AI platforms are no longer only an emerging visibility channel, but are increasingly becoming a measurable acquisition channel capable of driving users directly to websites.

1,860% Increase in New Users from AI Platforms

Following the GEO initiatives, the number of new users arriving at the website through AI platforms increased by 1,860% year over year.

This growth indicates that the brand became significantly more discoverable within generative AI ecosystems and that users were increasingly being directed from AI-generated answers to İş Bankası’s digital properties.

1,210% Increase in AI-Driven Sessions

Total sessions generated through AI platforms increased by 1,210% compared with the previous year.

This result shows that GEO efforts did not simply improve brand visibility within AI-generated responses, but also successfully translated that visibility into measurable website visits.

1,160% Increase in AI-Driven Page Views

The total number of page views generated by users arriving through AI platforms increased by 1,160%.

The fact that users continued interacting with additional content after arriving from AI platforms indicates that GEO contributed not only to traffic acquisition, but also to the broader on-site user journey.

94.8% The Leading Source of AI Traffic: ChatGPT

Among the AI platforms analyzed, ChatGPT became the leading source of traffic, accounting for 94.8% of users arriving through AI platforms.

This data highlights ChatGPT’s growing role as an important touchpoint for brand discovery, information search, and website referral.

As user behavior evolves, visibility within traditional search engines is no longer the only priority. Being recognized and referenced as a reliable source within generative AI answers is becoming an increasingly important component of digital visibility.

GEO Initiatives

The GEO strategy was approached as an integrated process covering technical infrastructure, content, semantic relationships, and AI visibility rather than as a standalone optimization activity.

Key initiatives included:

• Conducting AI accessibility and technical infrastructure analyses to make content easier for AI systems to discover and understand
• Identifying the questions users may ask across ChatGPT and other generative AI platforms
• Developing content around questions, topics, entities, and user intent clusters, rather than focusing solely on keywords
• Structuring content so that AI systems could extract clear, contextual, and direct answers
• Strengthening semantic relationships between the brand, sub-brands, products, and services
• Improving structured data and entity relationships
• Analyzing queries in which the brand appeared or did not appear within AI-generated answers
• Identifying visibility gaps and converting them into new GEO content opportunities
• Continuously monitoring referral traffic from ChatGPT and other AI platforms
• Measuring GEO performance through user, session, and page-view metrics

From Search Engines to Answer Engines

The way users discover information is changing.

In the traditional search journey, users entered a query, reviewed a list of search results, and then selected a website.

With generative AI platforms, users increasingly ask their questions directly to systems such as ChatGPT and receive synthesized answers within a single interface.

This shift creates a new visibility opportunity for brands:

Beyond ranking in search results, brands now need to become part of the answer itself.

The GEO strategy developed for İş Bankası focused on strengthening the brand’s position within this emerging search and discovery behavior.

Collaboration Approach

GEO was not treated as a one-time technical optimization project, but as an ongoing process designed to adapt to the rapidly evolving AI search ecosystem.

The collaboration between Webtures and İş Bankası focused on:

• continuously analyzing AI search behavior,
• identifying new user question clusters,
• discovering new content opportunities,
• implementing technical and semantic improvements,
• and continuously measuring performance.

Through this approach, GEO evolved from a visibility-focused initiative into a measurable digital growth channel capable of generating real traffic.

Conclusion

Through the GEO initiatives, İş Bankası significantly strengthened its visibility across AI-powered search and discovery platforms.

Compared with the previous year, the project delivered:

1,860% growth in new users,

1,210% growth in sessions,

1,160% growth in page views.

The fact that 94.8% of AI-driven users came through ChatGPT also demonstrates the growing importance of generative AI platforms in brand discovery and financial information searches.

These results show that GEO is no longer merely an investment in future visibility.

It is already becoming a measurable digital growth channel capable of generating users, traffic, and new brand touchpoints today.