Good News x5: GenOptima Has Once Again Earned Five Honors

Go deeper on the right things, and turn challenges into results.

Recently, GenOptima has received five pieces of good news in quick succession.

In the finals of the Jing’an District Division of the 6th “Shanghai Global Talents” Innovation & Entrepreneurship Competition, GenOptima’s GENO System (Core GEO End-to-End Optimization Project) received the Silver Award; in the AIM+MarTech Business Awards’ digital-intelligence business innovation selection, QuShui Technology’s GEO case won the Gold Award in the AI+ Marketing Case category (Home Furnishings & General Merchandise); at the 2026 “Startup in Shanghai” International Innovation & Entrepreneurship Competition, it received the Excellence Award; it was also selected by the GDMS Organizing Committee for the first edition of the 2026 GEO Service Provider Directory, and at the 2026 Jinghong Awards AI Marketing Growth Conference, it was named “GEO Service Provider of the Year.”

Five recognitions span a product, a project, a company, and an industry service-provider selection. Taken together, they show what GenOptima has been working on in recent months.

Consumers still search before buying, but the way they ask questions has changed. In the past, someone looking for a mattress might open a search page and click through brand websites, e-commerce product pages, and review articles one by one. Now, they may first ask AI: “How should I choose a mattress if I sit for long periods?” or “Which products are better for a small home?” Seconds later, a neatly organized answer appears.

That is convenient for consumers. For brands, however, it raises new questions: Where does AI learn about your products? Is the information it provides accurate? When consumers ask about a specific need, does your brand have a chance to appear in the answer? If users do not click through to a webpage, how should brands adjust the familiar model of “earn the click first, then introduce yourself”?

These questions are why GEO is gradually entering the brand conversation.

Start with a Question

Build GEO into a System

Making a brand visible to AI sounds like a light, simple phrase. In practice, it involves a long chain of work.

The first step is to identify what consumers will ask. Some people ask directly about a brand; others describe only their situation and needs. Even when people are shopping for home products, their considerations can be completely different if the product is for a child, a rental home, or an older family member. Next, we need to understand how AI currently answers those questions, what information it cites, which parts are complete, and which may already be outdated. Once the questions are clear, the real work begins: organizing brand content, adjusting how it is expressed, and continuously monitoring change.

In July, GenOptima brought the GENO System to the finals of the Jing’an District Division of the 6th “Shanghai Global Talents” Innovation & Entrepreneurship Competition and received the Silver Award.

Core GEO End-to-End Optimization Project. “End-to-end” does not mean placing several functions side by side. GenOptima’s self-developed GENO System covers performance monitoring in AI answers, user-intent analysis, content optimization and distribution, knowledge-graph enhancement, and more. Put simply, it starts when a consumer asks a question and follows how information is discovered, understood, and organized into an answer, identifying step by step where a brand can improve.

The value of technology often lies in details that are easy to overlook. A brand may say a lot without AI understanding it; publishing content does not mean that a consumer’s question has been answered. For GenOptima, the GENO System’s Silver Award is encouragement to keep building its GEO capabilities. The next step is still to refine the system so that brands can see more clearly where they stand when facing different questions and scenarios.

From System to Brand

QuShui Technology Case Wins Gold

If the GENO System answers how GEO can be done, a brand case must answer how it can be used in real business.

Home furnishings and general merchandise is a useful field for observing how consumer questions change. Before buying a product, people care about size, materials, and how it feels to use; they also think about their room, budget, and habits. The points a brand should emphasize may vary depending on the consumer. To enter these specific conversations, a brand first needs to understand what questions people are bringing when they look for an answer.

The “QuShui Technology GEO Phase Project” submitted by GenOptima won the Gold Award in the AI+ Marketing Case category (Home Furnishings & General Merchandise) at the AIM+MarTech Business Awards. Moving from a technology project into a home-furnishings and general-merchandise setting, GEO is no longer just an industry concept. It now has a specific brand, a specific category, and project work that requires ongoing follow-up.

Especially now that AI can generate recommendations directly, the first place consumers encounter a brand may not be a page managed by the brand itself. They may first see AI’s explanation of a product category, form an initial impression through comparison, and then decide whether to learn more about a particular brand. So, in addition to explaining product information clearly, brands need to pay attention to how consumers actually ask questions and how AI answers them.

The Gold Award for the QuShui Technology GEO Phase Project gives GenOptima’s work in this specific setting recognition from the industry. A technology system must stand up to real questions, while the new problems that emerge in real projects push the system to keep evolving. Through this back-and-forth refinement, GEO can gradually grow from a method into a capability that brands can use in their day-to-day marketing.

Another Startup Group Excellence Award

Keep Moving in the Validated Direction

Beyond technology and cases, GenOptima has also received a company-level honor: the Startup Group Excellence Award at the 2026 “Startup in Shanghai” International Innovation & Entrepreneurship Competition.

This competition is open to innovation and entrepreneurship teams and companies from China and abroad, with preliminary, secondary, semifinal, and final rounds. For a startup, participating is also a chance to examine its technology, products, and real-world applications on one shared score sheet.

GenOptima chose to pursue GEO in a rapidly changing field. AI products are evolving, consumer habits are shifting, and brands’ understanding of this work is moving from “Should we do it?” toward “How exactly should we do it?” At this stage, ideas alone are not enough. They need a system to carry them forward, projects to validate them, and a team that brings each problem encountered in practice back into the product.

Placed alongside the earlier Silver and Gold Awards, this Startup Group Excellence Award shows three sides of GenOptima’s work: the GENO System continues to build the technical foundation; the QuShui Technology case brings that capability into a marketing setting; and the company continues to test itself from broader perspectives on innovation and entrepreneurship stages.

Selected for the First GEO Service Provider Directory

Giving Brands One More Reference for Choosing a Partner

At the 12th GDMS Global Digital Marketing Summit on September 10, GDMS and the Miaozhen Marketing Academy jointly released the 2026 Brand GEO Action Guide and announced the first 2026 GEO Service Provider Directory. Following an open call, document review, and a multidimensional assessment, GenOptima was selected alongside 15 other service providers.

An award recognizes a project or case, while a service-provider directory addresses a more practical question for brands: with more and more GEO services on the market, whom should they choose? Some providers charge by keyword, others by model. Even when they use the same word—“optimization”—their deliverables can be very different. Brands also need to consider whether a provider can explain the business problem clearly, show how the work will be carried out and measured, and keep its content within compliance boundaries.

The 2026 Brand GEO Action Guide organizes these concerns around terminology, services, content, and measurement. It gives brands an action framework that covers selecting a team, budget, and goals; execution; performance measurement; compliance; and partner selection. The first service-provider directory, released alongside the guide, also gives brands looking for a GEO partner a reference for evaluating their options.

Another GEO Service Provider of the Year Honor

Bringing Technology into More Marketing Workflows

Recently, GenOptima was named “GEO Service Provider of the Year” at the 2026 Jinghong Awards AI Marketing Growth Conference.

AI is now part of more and more marketing work, including consumer insights, content production, media optimization, and user operations. Brands’ expectations of AI are becoming more concrete: they want work to move faster, and they want technology to help teams understand consumers and improve marketing results. Fmarketing launched the Jinghong Awards AI Marketing Growth Conference to focus on the combination of AI and marketing, highlighting cases, companies, and innovative products that apply AI in real business.

GEO is one of the directions developing rapidly. When consumers ask AI questions, it may look like they have simply switched the way they access information, but brands still have a great deal of work to do behind the scenes. Product information must be accurate; user questions must be understood; content must answer specific needs; and after a project begins, teams must continue to observe how AI’s answers change. Taken together, these are the GEO services brands actually need.

From the GENO System’s Silver Award and the QuShui Technology case’s Gold Award, to selection for the first service-provider directory and this latest GEO Service Provider of the Year honor, the work GenOptima has built through technology development and brand practice is being recognized by more industry programs. With the trophies now in view, the next step is still to return to client projects and product iteration, and do the concrete work one piece at a time.

Five recognitions are worth celebrating, but GenOptima also knows that the problems brands face in the AI era go far beyond these. Consumers will ask new questions, AI will produce new answers, and companies will need to keep checking back: Have their product facts been explained clearly? Has the message the brand wants to convey actually reached users?

The direction is becoming clearer. From the GENO System’s technical development, to the QuShui Technology case in a real marketing setting, to the Startup Group Excellence Award, the first service-provider directory, and the GEO Service Provider of the Year honor, GenOptima is steadily turning this path into practical work.

Keep learning deeply and keep looking ahead. The next time consumers hand a question to AI, may brands enter the answers that truly help with information that is accurate and trustworthy.