How AI assistants pick their sources
When you ask ChatGPT, Perplexity or Google's AI Mode a question that needs current information, the assistant runs a search in the background, reads a handful of pages and writes an answer, often with links. Three things decide whether your business is in that answer:
- Retrieval: is your page in the index the assistant searches, and does it rank for the hidden query?
- Extraction: can the model lift a clear, self-contained fact from your page?
- Trust: do other sources confirm what you say about yourself?
What the research shows
| Finding | Source |
|---|---|
| Adding statistics, quotations and cited sources increased visibility in generative engine answers by up to 30–40% in controlled tests. | Aggarwal et al., GEO (KDD 2024) |
| Brand mentions across the web correlated with AI Overview visibility at 0.664, backlinks only at 0.218 (75,000 brands). | Ahrefs |
| 87% of ChatGPT search citations matched Bing's top 10 results, versus 56% for Google. | Seer Interactive via SER |
| Perplexity cited 16.35 sources per answer on average, ChatGPT 6.88. | arXiv 2604.25707 |
| No measurable use of llms.txt by major AI crawlers was found in server logs. | Optimizely |
Industry studies change quickly and some are run by tool vendors. Treat them as direction, not law, and test with your own prompts.
GEO vs SEO
| SEO | GEO | |
|---|---|---|
| Goal | Rank a page in search results | Be named or cited inside an AI answer |
| Main index | Bing, Google and each assistant's own crawler | |
| Content unit | Page | Self-contained fact, answer or table |
| Off-site signal | Backlinks | Brand mentions, reviews, listings |
| Measurement | Rankings, clicks | Share of answers for a fixed prompt set |
A 12-point GEO checklist
- Write one sentence that describes your business, and use it everywhere: website, Google Business Profile, LinkedIn, directories.
- Start key pages with a two-to-three-sentence answer that stands on its own.
- Publish prices or price ranges. AI tools love concrete numbers, and most competitors hide them.
- Add schema.org markup: Organization, Service with offers, FAQPage, areaServed, knowsLanguage.
- Verify the site in Bing Webmaster Tools and submit changes via IndexNow.
- Allow AI crawlers (GPTBot, OAI-SearchBot, ClaudeBot, PerplexityBot) in robots.txt.
- Put dates on content and update it. "Updated November 2026" beats undated pages.
- Publish original data: a survey, a benchmark, an audit of your market.
- Get listed on the directories the AI cites for your category.
- Earn mentions in "best of" lists and comparison articles.
- Collect reviews on Google and industry platforms, with specific wording.
- Track 20–30 fixed prompts per month across assistants and record who is named.
What is different in the UAE
- Multilingual prompts. Buyers ask in English, Arabic, Russian, Hindi and German. Each language has its own, often thin, set of sources, which is an opportunity.
- Regulated industries. Real estate (Trakheesi, ADREC) and healthcare (DHA, DoH) have advertising rules. Content that explains them clearly is cited often because few businesses write it.
- Google Business Profile needs a trade licence, so many new companies are invisible on Maps, and AI tools that lean on Maps data skip them.
How to measure GEO
Pick 20–30 questions a buyer would ask, such as "best real estate website designer in Dubai" or "Webdesign Agentur Dubai deutsch". Each month, run them in a fresh session in ChatGPT, Perplexity and Gemini and record whether you are named, which competitors are named, and which sources are cited. The trend in that table is your GEO score.
Want to know what ChatGPT says about you?
Our free AI visibility check runs 20 prompts for your industry and emirate and shows who gets named.
Get the free checkFAQ
Does llms.txt help with ChatGPT visibility?
There is no public evidence yet that major AI assistants use llms.txt for ranking or citation. It is cheap to add and harmless, but it is not a substitute for indexable content, structured data and brand mentions.
Which AI assistant matters most in the UAE?
ChatGPT has the widest consumer use, Google AI Overviews appear directly in Google results, and Perplexity cites the most sources per answer. A business should test all three, since each draws on different sources.
Can I pay to appear in ChatGPT answers?
Organic AI answers cannot be bought directly. What you can influence is the content and the third-party sources AI tools retrieve when they build an answer.