Do AI Answer Engines Know Your Brand?
I asked the same 10 marketing questions across ChatGPT, Perplexity, Google AI Overviews, and regular Google Search. The results were eye-opening.
The Question
I just wrote a blog post about how search is shifting from SEO to AEO (Answer Engine Optimization). While researching it, I kept wondering: if AI answer engines are becoming the new front door to the internet, which brands are actually showing up?
So I decided to test it.
I wanted to know: do the brands that dominate Google search results also dominate AI-generated answers? Or is there a gap?
The Setup
I picked 10 common marketing-related questions. The kind of things a marketer, business owner, or student might realistically ask. Things like:
What is the best email marketing platform for small businesses?
What tools can I use for social media scheduling?
What's the best CRM for startups?
How do I track website analytics?
What are the best SEO tools?
What's the best project management tool for small teams?
How do I create a landing page without coding?
What are the best AI marketing tools in 2026?
What's the best platform for building an online course?
How do I automate my email sequences?
Then I asked each question across four platforms:
ChatGPT (GPT-4)
Perplexity
Google AI Overviews (the AI summary at the top of Google search)
Google Search (traditional organic results, top 5 links)
For each answer, I recorded which brands were mentioned or linked. I ran this over two days in late February 2026.
What I Tracked
For each question across each platform, I noted:
Which brands were mentioned by name
Whether the brand was the primary recommendation or just listed among options
Whether the AI provided a direct answer or pointed to external sources
How much overlap there was between the AI answers and the Google search results
I put everything in a spreadsheet and compared.
The Results
Here's what I found. And some of it surprised me.
1. Google Search and AI answers don't always agree.
Out of 10 questions, the brand that ranked #1 on Google was only mentioned in the AI answer about 60% of the time. That's a big gap. Some brands that dominated Google's organic results were completely absent from ChatGPT and Perplexity's answers.
2. ChatGPT and Perplexity favored different brands than Google.
AI answer engines seemed to lean toward brands that are widely discussed across the web, not just brands that are good at SEO. For example, on the CRM question, Google's top result was a well-known comparison blog. But ChatGPT recommended HubSpot directly, citing its free tier. Perplexity pulled from a different set of sources entirely.
3. Perplexity cited its sources. ChatGPT mostly didn't.
Perplexity linked to specific articles and reviews. ChatGPT gave confident recommendations but rarely told me where the information came from. This matters because for brands, getting cited by Perplexity is closer to getting a backlink. Getting recommended by ChatGPT is more like word-of-mouth from a trusted friend. Both valuable, but very different.
4. Google AI Overviews pulled heavily from Google's own top results.
This wasn't surprising, but it's worth noting. Google's AI summary at the top of the page mostly drew from the same sources that already ranked well organically. So for now, traditional SEO still feeds into Google's AI answers. But ChatGPT and Perplexity are a different story.
5. Brand reputation seemed to matter more than content optimization.
The brands that showed up most consistently across all AI platforms weren't necessarily the ones with the best SEO. They were brands that had strong reputations, lots of reviews, and were frequently mentioned in multiple contexts across the web. It felt like AI was making a judgment call based on overall brand presence, not just on-page optimization.
The Takeaway
This was a small test. Ten questions, four platforms, two days. It's not rigorous academic research. But even at this scale, the pattern was clear.
If your brand relies on Google rankings alone, you might be invisible in AI-generated answers. And as more people shift from "let me Google that" to "let me ask AI that," that invisibility is going to cost you.
The brands winning in this new environment aren't just optimizing for keywords. They're building broad credibility across the web. They're getting mentioned in publications, reviewed by real users, discussed on social media, and referenced by other creators.
That's the new game. And it's already being played.
What I'd Do Differently Next Time
A few things I want to improve if I run this experiment again:
Test more questions. Ten is a decent start but I'd want 25-30 for more reliable patterns.
Run it over a longer period. AI answers can change. I'd want to test the same questions a month apart and see if the recommended brands shift.
Include Claude and Gemini. I only tested ChatGPT and Perplexity this round. Adding more AI platforms would give a fuller picture.
Track brand sentiment, not just mentions. Some brands were mentioned but in a negative context. That's different from a positive recommendation.
Try It Yourself
Honestly, you don't need a fancy tool to start doing this. Just pick 5-10 questions relevant to your industry, ask them on ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Google, and write down which brands show up. You might be surprised by what you find.
If you run your own version of this experiment, I'd love to hear about it. Drop me a message on the contact page.
