ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Gemini now answer the questions your customers used to Google. We put the same 39 buyer questions to all three — 117 answers — and measured exactly who gets recommended, and why.
Three names shared by all three engines, out of fifteen named. Everything else — different on every engine.
39 buyer questions × 3 engines = 117 answers · agencies, B2B SaaS, ecommerce · July 2026 · US / English
Ask any of the three engines a commercial question and it names specific companies almost every time. The era of "ten blue links to choose from" is over — buyers get a short list of names. The only question that matters is whether one of them is yours.
Run the same question through all three and they largely recommend different companies. All three shared at least one common pick in only 56% of questions. At least two agreed 90% of the time — but their full lists overlapped just ~7%.
"Rank on AI" is really "rank on each AI." You can be ChatGPT's #2 and invisible on Gemini.
Across every category, Perplexity's most-cited source was Reddit — on 87% of questions — followed by YouTube (38%). Brand-owned blogs and even professional review sites trailed far behind. For at least one major engine, getting cited is less about your blog and more about showing up in the conversations and videos AI already trusts.
No handful of sites owns AI's citations. The top three domains earned only about a fifth of citations in each category — which means a newcomer can get cited without dethroning an incumbent.
The pages AI cites share a shape — long "best-of" listicles, median ~3,200 words. But only about a third contain original data. That last number is the opening: two in three cited pages have no original research. It's the emptiest lane in GEO.
Median cited-page length: ~3,200 words · AI's cross-category favorites: Toptal, Finsweet, HubSpot, ActiveCampaign, Flow Ninja.
Track your citation share on ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Gemini as three different scoreboards — because they are.
For Perplexity, that means Reddit threads and YouTube, not just your blog.
Long, genuinely useful comparison and "best-of" pages with clear structure — not thin marketing copy.
Put original data — your own tests, benchmarks, results — into your content. Two-thirds of cited pages don't, so it's how you get quoted.
A report is only as good as its worst number. Before publishing we stress-tested our own analysis and fixed four things. We're listing them because a study about trustworthy content that hides its own corrections wouldn't deserve to be one.
| Metric | Scope | Value |
|---|---|---|
| Answers named a specific brand | 3 engines | 98% |
| All 3 engines shared ≥1 pick | 3 engines | 56% |
| ≥2 engines shared ≥1 pick | 3 engines | 90% |
| Full-list overlap (avg Jaccard) | 3 engines | ~7% |
| Answers citing Reddit | Perplexity | 87% |
| Answers citing YouTube | Perplexity | ~38% |
| Top-3 domain citation share | Perplexity | 18–21% |
| Cited pages that are listicles | Perplexity | 77% |
| Cited pages with original data | Perplexity | 31% |
| Median cited-page length | Perplexity | ~3,200 words |
| Mean cited-page length (for contrast) | Perplexity | ~4,300 words |
| Questions × engines | total | 39 × 3 = 117 |
This report is versioned. When a number changes, it gets listed here rather than quietly edited.
verify-numbers.py, which recomputes all 48 figures in this series from the CSVs and fails if any drifts.On 39 identical buyer questions in July 2026, all three engines shared at least one pick 56% of the time, at least two agreed 90% of the time, and their full lists overlapped just ~7%.
Yes. 98% of “best X” answers named at least one specific brand — buyers get a short list of names, not links.
Reddit, in 87% of answers, followed by YouTube at 38% (Perplexity only, n=39 — ChatGPT and Gemini don’t expose their citations).
Long “best-of” listicles — median ~3,200 words, 77% listicles — and only 31% carried original data. Original research is the emptiest lane.
Run your brand through the free AI-visibility audit and see exactly what ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Gemini say about you — and whether they name you or your competitor.