Research
9 min read
What 40 million AI answers say about getting cited
We looked at which brands AI assistants mention, and why. Clear category pages and third-party reviews matter more than domain size.
Daniel Osei
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Cited has analyzed more than 40 million answers from ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, Claude and Google AI Overviews. These are the patterns we see again and again in brands that get recommended.
Clear category pages win
Brands with a page that states plainly what they are and who they are for were mentioned 2.4× more often than brands that described themselves only in slogans.
Third-party sources carry the most weight
In 7 of 10 answers that named a brand, the model also relied on a source the brand did not own: a review site, a comparison article or a forum thread.
Models disagree more than you think
The same prompt often returns different shortlists in different models. A brand ranked first in one answer was missing from another model’s answer in 38% of cases. Tracking a single model hides most of the picture.
Gains come in weeks
Teams that published their missing comparison and use-case pages saw an average +180% increase in AI mentions within 60 days.
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