# Geosnap and the University of Bergamo > Geosnap funds research on Generative Engine Optimization at the University of Bergamo's Marketing Lab through a donation to its Department of Management. URL: https://geosnap.ai/en/blog/geosnap-e-l-universit%C3%A0-di-bergamo Language: English Version IT: https://geosnap.ai/blog/geosnap-e-l-universit%C3%A0-di-bergamo Author: Rinald Sefa, CMO Geosnap ยท Category: Research and data Publisher: Geosnap (Maind Group S.r.l.), https://geosnap.ai ## In short Geosnap has signed an agreement with the Department of Management of the University of Bergamo that provides a donation to fund studies and research on GEO (Generative Engine Optimization), led by the university's Marketing Lab and Giuseppe Pedeliento. The research examines how people interact with AI models when researching and evaluating, and how the models respond to different interactions; the results will be shared with the entire community. - Agreement with the University of Bergamo: a donation for GEO research, not a commercial partnership. - Two questions: how people use AI models to research and evaluate, and how the models respond. - The goal is to give GEO solid scientific foundations; results will be shared with the entire community. Translated from the Italian original. [Read the original](https://geosnap.ai/blog/geosnap-e-l-universit%C3%A0-di-bergamo) ## A choice that goes against the grain In the startup world, people almost always talk about the same things. Revenue, traction, funding rounds. These are important metrics, no doubt. But there is something that often gets forgotten in this race for numbers, and that is research. Without research there is no innovation. You optimize, you scale, you improve what already exists. But new questions, the ones that open up unexplored territory, require a different approach, slower and more rigorous than the pace of a startup normally allows. It is from this conviction that the collaboration we announced with the Department of Management (Dipartimento di Scienze Aziendali) of the University of Bergamo was born. ## The collaboration We signed an agreement with the Department of Management of the University of Bergamo that provides a donation to fund studies and research on GEO, Generative Engine Optimization. The university's Marketing Lab is at the forefront of the project, in particular Giuseppe Pedeliento, with whom we share the conviction that this topic deserves serious academic attention, not just immediate practical applications. It is not a commercial partnership. It is an investment in knowledge, in building a solid foundation on which the AI visibility sector can grow more consciously. ## The questions we want to answer GEO is still a young field. Practical tools are developing rapidly, companies are starting to understand that visibility on AI models has become relevant, and the market is moving. But some fundamental questions still lack a scientifically grounded answer. Two in particular are at the heart of this research. The first concerns how people interact with AI models during the research and evaluation phase. Not how they behave in theory, but how they actually behave: what questions they ask, how they interpret the answers, how much they trust what the models say and in which contexts. It is a question with direct implications for how companies should think about their presence in the AI ecosystem. The second concerns how AI models respond to different interactions, that is, whether and how answers change depending on the way questions are asked, which variables influence brand citations, and which patterns emerge when model behavior is analyzed at scale and systematically. It is the question underlying any serious approach to GEO, and today it is addressed mainly empirically, without a solid research base behind it. ## Why this matters for the whole ecosystem The results of this research will not be useful only to Geosnap. They will be useful to anyone working on AI visibility: to agencies starting to offer GEO services to their clients, to companies that want to understand how models talk about them, and to marketing professionals trying to build skills in this field. GEO needs solid foundations to grow as a discipline. It cannot just be a set of empirical best practices that change every time the models are updated. It needs a deeper understanding of the mechanisms that govern it, and that understanding can only come from research. That is why we chose to invest in this direction, at a time when it would have been easier to focus all our resources on commercial growth. We are convinced that building knowledge today is one of the most strategic investments a startup in an emerging sector can make. ## A thank-you Special thanks to Giuseppe Pedeliento and the University of Bergamo's Marketing Lab for their trust and for believing that this topic deserved academic attention. It is the kind of collaboration that is good for the sector, not just for the parties involved. We will follow the progress of the research on this channel. The results, when they come, will be shared with the entire community. ## Frequently asked questions ### What does the research between Geosnap and the University of Bergamo study? The research focuses on two questions: how people interact with AI models during research and evaluation, and how AI models respond to different interactions, including which variables influence brand citations. The goal is to give a scientific basis to a field that today is approached mainly empirically. ### Who is leading the GEO research at the University of Bergamo? The project is led by the Marketing Lab of the University of Bergamo's Department of Management (Dipartimento di Scienze Aziendali), and in particular by Giuseppe Pedeliento. ### Is the collaboration between Geosnap and the University of Bergamo a commercial partnership? No. The agreement provides a donation to fund studies and research on GEO, which Geosnap describes as an investment in knowledge. The results will be shared with the entire community.