Jobs-to-be-Done for GEO: 5 steps to find hidden competitors

What is Jobs-to-be-Done (JTBD)?

Jobs-to-be-Done is a framework proposed by Professor Clayton Christensen of Harvard Business School. At its core is the idea that "customers do not buy products; they hire products to get their 'job' done (something they need to take care of)".

There is a well-known analogy:

"When it is cold, one person puts on a down jacket. Another buys a hot coffee. Someone else turns on a heater. These are all solutions to the job of 'getting warm.' The jacket, the coffee, and the heater belong to different industries and categories, yet they compete for the same job."

This idea has very important implications for marketing in the AI search era.

Why JTBD is essential for generative engine optimization (GEO)

AI answers by "job," not by "industry"

With traditional search engines, a search for "mattress recommendations" brought up mattress makers' sites, and your only competitors were other companies in the mattress industry.

But if you ask an AI "What products or services do you recommend for sleeping well?" (asked in Japanese), its answer goes beyond industry boundaries:

Bedding industry: high-resilience mattress brands
Technology industry: sleep-tracking apps
Beauty and wellness industry: aromatherapy oils, pillow mists
Health food industry: sleep supplements, herbal teas
Medical device industry: white noise machines

For the user's job (sleeping well), AI presents the most suitable solutions from across industries.

AI answers include competitors you do not know about

Without a JTBD perspective, you will not notice the "invisible competitors" taking your share in AI search. A mattress maker that sees only other mattress brands as competitors may, in fact, be losing its place in AI recommendations to sleep apps and supplements.

How to apply JTBD to GEO

Step 1: Define the job your product gets done

First, define the core job that your product or service gets done. The key is to define it as a customer problem, not as a product category.

Bad example: "Provide high-quality mattresses" (product-centric)
Good example: "Improve daily sleep quality" (job-centric)

Bad example: "Provide project management tools" (product-centric)
Good example: "Maximize the team's efficiency" (job-centric)

Step 2: Design keywords based on the job

Once the job is defined, design your GEO keywords around it. Note how they differ from SEO keywords:

Traditional SEO keywords (centered on product categories):

"mattress recommendations"
"high-resilience mattress comparison"
"popular mattress rankings"

JTBD-based GEO keywords:

"good sleep," "how to improve sleep quality"
"how to wake up feeling refreshed"
"better sleep," "how to fall asleep more easily"

Running GEO on the second set of keywords shows you how often your brand is recommended among the wide range of solutions to the user's job.

Step 3: Create a cross-industry competitor map

Ask AI the questions built from those keywords and see which brands are mentioned. Map the results, and you have a job-based competitor map.

Example: a competitor map for the job "stress relief"

Fitness: RIZAP (a Japanese personal training gym chain), Anytime Fitness, Nike Training Club
Meditation and mindfulness: Headspace, Calm, Meisoon (a Japanese meditation app)
Bathing: Bathclin (bath salts), BARTH (neutral bicarbonate bath tablets)
Food and beverages: Yakult 1000 (a probiotic drink), Yomeishu (a herbal tonic)
Travel: Hoshino Resorts, Jalan (a Japanese travel booking site)

Knowing which of these brands you are competing with for a "recommendation slot" in AI answers is the starting point for GEO.

Step 4: Measure mention share by job

Measure mention share for each keyword (that is, each job) and track it over time. This lets you:

See clearly which jobs your brand is strong or weak in
See where you stand relative to competitors from other industries
Decide which initiatives to prioritize

JTBD × GEO: two illustrative cases

Case 1: A health food manufacturer (illustrative example)

A health food maker had long focused its SEO on the "supplements" category. When it analyzed its GEO through a JTBD lens, however, it found the following:

For the job "boosting immunity," it was competing not only with supplements but also with yogurt, exercise programs, and sleep products
Its mention share was high within the supplements category, but only about 15% across the job as a whole
Surprisingly, the brand with the highest mention share was a yogurt brand

In response, the company shifted its content strategy from "supplements vs. other supplements" to "the advantages of our supplement for boosting immunity." Within six months, its mention share rose from 15% to 28%.

Case 2: A SaaS tool (illustrative example)

When a task management tool ran a GEO analysis for the job "improving team productivity," it found a wide range of competitors:

Other task management tools (Asana, Trello, etc.)
Communication tools (Slack, Teams, etc.)
Document tools (Notion, Google Docs, etc.)
RPA and automation tools (Zapier, etc.)
Consulting services

Because AI compares many kinds of solutions side by side in terms of "productivity," the company realized it needed to communicate the strengths unique to its own tool clearly.

How AIOPulse puts JTBD into practice

AIOPulse builds this JTBD thinking into the core of its product design. Tracking mention share by keyword is a direct expression of the idea of understanding the competitive landscape job by job.

If you register the Japanese keyword for "good sleep" instead of the one for "mattress," you will see the real competitive landscape across industries.

Summary: Make your GEO more precise with JTBD

Bringing JTBD into GEO gives you these benefits:

Find invisible competitors: see competitors beyond the boundaries of your industry
Design more meaningful keywords: choose keywords rooted in users' problems
Sharpen your content strategy: optimize content around getting the user's job done
Clarify what sets you apart: see your strengths compared with competitors from other industries

Before you start GEO in earnest, try redefining your company's "job." Five basics to know before you start GEO is also a useful read.

To see where your brand stands when ChatGPT, Gemini, and Claude answer questions asked in Japanese, contact us.