GEO
ChatGPT draws on four sources: the static data it was trained on, live web browsing through Bing's search index, third-party plugins it can query mid-conversation, and whatever context you type into the prompt. Ahrefs has mapped this breakdown in detail. For a business, the browsing layer is the
GEO
AI engines such as ChatGPT, Perplexity and Google AI Overviews cite businesses based on consistent mentions across trusted sources, not only backlinks. Reviews, directory listings, local press and forum discussions all count as mentions, and Ahrefs' analysis of 260 million AI prompts found that review and directory mentions correlate
GEO
Businesses get cited by ChatGPT without a licensing deal by making their information easy for AI models to find, verify and trust. ChatGPT draws on web search and training data, and for most queries it favours sources with clear, consistent structured data such as schema markup, Google Business Profile details
AI search visibility
Measuring AI search visibility means checking whether AI assistants such as ChatGPT, Perplexity and Google AI Overviews mention and recommend your business, not just whether your website ranks in Google. Standard analytics tools were not built for this. GA4 and Search Console rarely show AI-driven enquiries because most AI platforms
GEO
Claude Code is Anthropic's command line AI coding tool, not a dedicated SEO platform. SEO teams have adopted it to automate tasks that used to need custom scripts or developer time, such as analysing server logs, generating schema markup, and auditing thousands of pages at once. For a
AI search visibility
Finding AI search visibility opportunities at scale means systematically checking how a business appears in AI Overviews, AI Mode and chatbot answers across every relevant keyword combination it should own, not just a handful of head terms. For a multi-branch business like an estate agency, that means every branch, suburb
GEO
Microsoft's Copilot super app means AI assistants are set to become a default front door for finding local services, not just a chatbot for drafting emails. Satya Nadella confirmed on Microsoft's January 2026 earnings call that Copilot will combine chat, coding and agentic AI into one
GEO
Reddit dominates Google's Discussions and Forums results because Google now deliberately surfaces forum-style, first-person content alongside traditional organic listings, and Reddit has the largest volume of that content indexed and trusted by Google. Ahrefs analysed this SERP feature and found Reddit appears in 83.9 percent of Discussions
AI search visibility
Hampshire firms get cited by AI answer engines by giving those engines clear, consistent, structured information about who they are, what they do and where they operate, spread across their website, Google Business Profile and third-party mentions. AI Overviews, ChatGPT and Perplexity pull from indexed content that answers questions directly,
