22/08/2026
ChatGPT citation rate: 0.7%. Perplexity citation rate: 13.8%.
Same query. Completely different platforms. Different winners.
Most brands don't know this gap even exists.
Here's why it happens.
ChatGPT often answers straight from what it already knows — no citation, no source, no link back to anyone. Perplexity was built the opposite way. It's a retrieval engine first. Almost every answer comes with a source attached.
So the exact same question gets handled completely differently depending on where it's asked.
That changes the entire game.
Most businesses that "do AI SEO" are really doing ChatGPT SEO. One platform, one strategy, one assumption that if it works there, it works everywhere.
It doesn't.
A brand optimized for ChatGPT can be invisible on Perplexity. A brand built for Perplexity's citation-heavy answers might barely register in a ChatGPT conversation. Two platforms, two completely different sets of rules — and most companies are only playing one of them.
So the real question isn't "are we visible in AI search?"
It's "which AI is our customer actually using — and are we even in the running there?"
Most brands have never checked.
Have you?