Josh Blyskal - We Analyzed 250,000,000 AI Search Responses: Here’s What We Found

Transcript

2. My name is Josh Blyskal I lead AI Strategy at Profound. ​ Profound empowers marketers with the data and insights to understand, take action on, and control how they show up in AI Search.
3. We analyzed over 250M responses + 3B citations From real frontend monitoring
4. Across 8 answer engines
5. We tested queries with both commercial & informational intents in mind
6. These findings will change the way you think about search
7. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_most-visited_websites https://digiday.com/media/googles-ai-overviews-reach-over-2-billion-monthly-users/ 5th visited website in the world 2 billion monthly users - AI Overviews First things first, over the last 12 months, AI has legitimized its position in search
8. Search is undergoing fundamental change
11. AI owns the relationship Al now acts as both connector and arbitrator, owning the direct relationship with users Past Paradigm Current Reality
12. So what drives this relationship?
13. Experiment: I analyzed 1,311 pages last week to try to answer a question on everyone’s mind.
14. How much weight do key SEO metrics carry for AEO?
15. SEO metrics matter, but these explain only 4-7% of citations Across 1,311 pages, doubling SEO metrics yields only 25-40% more citations, there are diminishing returns The relationship is real (p<0.001) but weak: other factors like content quality drive ~93% of citation variance.
16. The other 93-96%: what SEO doesn't explain Residual plots reveal massive unexplained variance. and other factors drive the majority of AI citation decisions Content, expertise, freshness
17. Traditional SEO metrics are essential, but won’t solely drive your AI visibility gains.
18. Answer Engines only see a few crucial pieces of information when they’re deciding if you’re worth the citation ChatGPT’s view of a search result URL hubspot.com/best-crm-real-estate TITLE Best CRM for Real Estate - HubSpot DESCRIPTION Top-rated CRM for real estate agents. Manage listings, track leads, automate follow-ups SNIPPET HubSpot has several features for real estate including... No Page Content. ChatGPT cannot read the full article before citing, only a snippet. Title, Description, URL and Snippet are your only pitch to get cited. URL stucture signals topical relevance before the click.
19. goodonyou.eco/a8d7f-ethical-92j3k-brands ecothes.com/blog/72hf3-sus-bra earthday.org/kit-92hd2-shop-clo-3jf8/ goodonyou.eco/most-ethical-and-sustainable-clothing-brands ecothes.com/blog/sustainable-brands earthday.org/toolkit-how-to-shop-for-your-clothes/ URLs market the page to the AI Answer Engines go to the open internet and want to find the content that they are most confident will solve the specific query When ChatGPT compares URLs, it selects the one it’s most confident contains the answer
20. Natural Language URLs get 11.4% more citations We analyzed the URLs for 50,000 top-cited pages and compared them to the URLs for 50,000 bottom-cited pages Natural-language slugs of 4-7 words were far more common among highly cited pages
21. URLs that are semantically similar to the query get up to 5% more citations
22. Answer Engines only read an ~100 character snip from each page Title: Content: Title: Content: Title: Content: "Average Rent in San Francisco, CA (Q1 2025)" "Studio (0) $2,297 · 1 Bedroom $2,904 · 2 Bedroom $4,175" "Average Rent in San Francisco – Zumper" "As of July 2025, median rent is $3,461... decreased 1% last month" "Is San Francisco Affordable? (2025)" "Median rent in San Francisco is $3,019. Studio $2,177; One Bedroom $3,150” “Average rent prices in San Francisco”
23. Titles add tremendous contextual signal The 2025 Guide to Startup Business Credit Cards The 2025 Guide to Startup Business Credit Cards The 2025 Guide to Startup Business Credit Cards
24. content=" " The best business credit cards include Ink Business Unlimited, Venture X Business and U.S. Bank Business Triple Cash Rewards, among other options. Spoil your content in your meta-description
25. Javascript in AI search today 9:41
26. ChatGPT Executes JS during retrieval JS-heavy content in answers Perplexity Claude Google Gemini Microsoft Copilot No Not included Not included Not included Included Included No No Yes Yes (partial)
27. Answer Engines have a recency bias
28. #brightonseo ChatGPT best hot yoga studio San Diego 2025 San Diego
29. 50% of top cited content is less than 13 weeks old 75% 50% 25% 0% 0 5 10 15 20 25 50% 50%
30. Content is king
31. AI Search is lazy
32. Blogs are now the most cited content category, overtaking listicles. Across 8,500 citations Blogs/Opinion 34.2% Comparative/Listicles 27 .3% Documentation/Wiki 15.8% Commercial/Store 14.8% Community/Forum 5.0% Homepage 2.2%
33. best men's running shoe? Thinking...
35. What do these sources have in common? “For enterprise CRM, here are the top options based on user feedback and industry analysis: 1. Salesforce - Industry leader with unmatched customization for large orgs 2. HubSpot - More user-friendly, better for mid-market 3. Zoho - Cost-effective alternative” r/salesforce YouTube “Salesforce vs HubSpot vs Zoho - Honest Review 2025” 18:42 SaaS Weekly Wikipedia
36. 17.4% ChatGPT 15.8% Perplexity 12.3% Google AI Overviews 4.6% Microsoft Copilot % UGC by Platform Answer Engines index heavily on UGC as an information class
37. Reddit is the most cited source in AI search Perplexity 5.90% 1st Google AI Overviews 2.52% 2nd ChatGPT 2.87% 2nd Google AI Mode 2.08% 1st Microsoft Copilot 0.25% 17th Over the last 90 days
38. I think these cloud GPU providers are probably the best bets for your startup: RunPod.io - Affordable, scalable, and flexible GPU cloud with serverless, dedicated, and community-run instances for Al/ML Paperspace - User-friendly platform, good for development and research CoreWeave - High-performance cloud GPUs with enterprise-grade reliability Vast Al - Decentralized GPU marketplace for deep learning and HPC FluidStack - Low-cost cloud GPUs leveraging underutilized hardware, optimized for training and compute-heavy tasks Your brand’s visibility is impacted by what consumers say about you in this thread
39. Y ouTube is the 2nd most cited source in AI search Google AI Overviews 6.35% 1st Perplexity 3.49% 2nd Google AI Mode 1.71% 3rd Google Gemini 0.75% 2nd Microsoft Copilot 0.12% 64th ChatGPT 0.04% 138th Over the last 90 days
40. Perplexity, GAIO, AI Mode, and Gemini can read the transcripts It’s no surprise their citation share is so high 2 0 4 6 8 Perplexity 5.27% Transcript Access Google AI Overviews 4.08% Transcript Access Google AI Mode 1.01% Transcript Access Google Gemini 0.75% Transcript Access ChatGPT 0.02% Transcript Access
41. Perplexity is the only answer engine that significantly underindexes on views or engagement for YT citations
42. Answers Engines overwhelmingly prefer recent Youtube videos. Note: General YouTube = Random sample of 1,000 YouTube videos generated via unbiased API queries % of citations from 2023-2025 content
43. The content that wins in AEO is content that answers directly and takes a position Social + UGC Blogs + listicles make up 61% of cited sources across owned and earned sources Semantic URLs lead to 11.4% more citations Semantic chunks, or self-contained content, ensure an LLM can understand your content as well as a human can. LLMs are eager to consume structured, opinionated content that delivers them value upfront. Owned + Affiliate #1 #1 #2 #2
44. The infrastructure of AI search is changing
45. Prompt --> Query Fanout A single prompt spawns multiple searches behind the scenes.
46. ChatGPT best hot yoga studio San Diego 2025 San Diego
47. 6 months ago I said... “ChatGPT Citations and SEO Overlap 19% at the Domain Level” I used prompts for this analysis
48. How has our understanding of overlap changed now that we have millions of query fanouts?
49. ChatGPT QFOs overlap 39% with the Google SERP Analyzed commercial and informational queries across 1000 SERP analyses of 1000 individual ChatGPT executions 39% ChatGPT Google SERP
50. ChatGPT Claude Meta AI Even at 39%, this is a far cry from total alignment 39% 38% 36% 27% 26% 34% 9% 5% 6% Domain overlap rates across all platform and SERP combinations
51. LLM attention is spread much more equitably down the SERP 30 25 20 15 10 5 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Google Position #1-10: Human Clicks vs. ChatGPT Citations CTR/Citation rate (%) Human CTR ChatGPT Citations Google SERP Position
52. User Bing Index ChatGPT Index ChatGPT Crawler Citation Answer Google Index ChatGPT Index ChatGPT Crawler Citation Answer Not indexed by Google? You will struggle to show up on ChatGPT
53. OpenAI is indexing the web at retrieval-time
54. What else can we use QFO for?
55. QFO is the single best tool for taking control of the Company → Answer Engine relationship
56. 89% of prompts generate 2-3 search queries 60 50 40 30 20 10 0 1 Query 2 Queries 3 Queries 4 Queries 5 Queries 36.4% 52.9% Number of Queries per Prompt Percentage of Prompts 89% of sample
58. Align your content to query fanouts query What ChatGPT searches for “best CRM real estate” URL hubspot.com/products/crm TITLE HubSpot CRM - Customer Management DESCRIPTION Powerful CRM platform for businesses. Manage customer relationships. query What ChatGPT searches for “best CRM real estate” URL hubspot.com/best-crm-real-estate TITLE Best CRM for Real Estate - HubSpot DESCRIPTION Top-rated CRM for real estate agents. Manage listings, track leads, automate follow-ups
59. Commerce
60. Scraping --> Product Feeds Answer engines query your data connector, not your website.
61. The feed will be at the center of commerce Required fields for AI commerce: enable_search: true enable_checkout: true inventory_quantity: Real-time stock product_review_count: Review aggregation q_and_a: Q: Is this waterproof? A: Yes
62. Unstructured scraping will look like a relic of the past https://www.macys.com/ https://www.macys.com/
63. * id: string, * product: string, * eta: number, * priceRange: string, * note: string * }} RideOption */ export const UBER_ANSWER_DATA /** @type {RideOption[]} */ = [ { id: "x1", product: "UberX", eta: 3, priceRange: "$12–$15", note: "Most commonly booked option" }, { id: "x2", product: "UberXL", eta: 5, priceRange: "$20–$24", note: "Fits up to 6 people" }, { id: "x3", product: "Comfort", eta: 4, priceRange: "$18–$22", note: "Newer cars + extra legroom" } ];
64. Unstructured product scraping --> Structured product feeds
65. Field completeness is essential to win long tail searches { : "$99.00", : "In stock online, Free delivery between Oct 15–21", : null, : null, : false, : true, : null, : null, : null, : "$99.00", : "$99.00", : null } "price" "details" "checkout_image_urls" "original_price" "checkoutable" "available" "checkout_payload" "is_digital" "tag" "price_base" "price_total" "merchant_subtitle"
66. enable_search = true enable_checkout = true inventory_quantity = 86 product_review_count = 1,265 dimensions = null I'm traveling for a conference in Europe. What's a good compact suitcase I can use?
67. Each AI uses a different commerce protocol and partners ChatGPT Product Feed + ACP Stripe Payments Etsy & Shopify Partners Google AI Interfaces Google Merchant Center Merchant API and AP2 + A2A + MCP Paypal Payments Shopify Integration Perplexity Perplexity Index API Calls, Shop Pay Vertical partnerships (i.e. OpenTable) Shopify Partner Claude
68. Top most frequently shown products (Compared to least most frequently shown products) Based on 16k PDPs queried over October 2, 2025 to November 2, 2025. FAQs: +848% more Videos: +103% more Product Rating: +36% higher ratings Specification Entries: +23% more Product Title Length: +18% longer Price: +11% higher Natural Language URLs: +7.7% more pages Discounts Shown: +5.3% more pages FAQs
69. The Response is the new SERP When you search, a 1 of 1 ‘page’ will be generated to answer your question; this is the new SERP
71. What does all of this mean for you?
72. Brand Customer
73. Track queries Create AI conducive content Monitor and mimic citations Optimize your site Build your muscle now
74. What’s hot right now Build on Reddit with your brand community Align Content to Query Fanouts Semantic Chunks are the vehicle for citable content Think: “Product as JSON” FAQs win in PDPs
75. Track your AI Visibility Profound arms marketers globally to understand and control what AI says about their brand We run millions of searches on Answer Engines like ChatGPT, Perplexity and Google AI Overviews to build a picture of how AI responds to questions about brands, products, and industries Brand visibility Percentage of AI answers about Accounting Software that mention FreshBooks Jan 29 Feb 04 Feb 03 Feb 02 Jan 31 0 25% 50% 75% 100% 45% vs last week Visibility score 89.8%
76. Find out which pages matter most Track which of your pages command authority in AI Search responses and understand exactly how your content - and your competitors' - shape the narrative across channels Earned 30,445 (95.1%) Operated 518 (1.6%) Owned 1,056 (3.3%) Domain Number of mentions 1 forbes.com 1885 2 builtin.com 1276 3 rho.co Owned 1086 4 fitsmallbusiness.com 1056 5 fintechlabs.com 750 6 Bill 72.3% Citation Domain Count Percentage of open-ended AI answers
77. Explore prompt and topic volume Find which models surface your brand and understand how many people are searching for any topic in AI Search Platform Count Last indexed Change Pages OpenAI 18 minutes ago 243 33 875 Google 12 5 days ago 7 26 Microsoft 297 1 hour ago 24 23 Perplexity 98 2 hours ago 20 20 Apple 875 18 minutes ago 1 9 Bytedance 875 18 minutes ago 1 7 Amazon 875 18 minutes ago 24 23 Meta 875 18 minutes ago 2 2 DeepSeek 875 18 minutes ago 1 23 Region Track as topic Real Estate Volume Estimates Total volume Estimated total prompts using this keyword 2.7m Frequency This keyword ranks in the top 28% by usage frequency Frequent Platform Volume Estimates 2.7m SearchGPT 2.1m Perplexity 90k Copilot 60k Other 480k Global Volume US 201.0k IN 110.0k UK 60.5k CA 27.1k AU 27.1k Rest 148.6k Keywords variations Real estate market 9 Real property 4 Real estate business 8 Real estate investment 16 Keywords variations real estate agency real estate business real estate sales real estate broker real estate company real estate agent real estate agent real estate industry
78. Content that is architected to be cited Profound analyzes citations, conducts deep research, and builds AI-ready content All in real time Platform Count Last indexed Change Pages OpenAI 18 minutes ago 243 33 875 Google 12 5 days ago 7 26 Microsoft 297 1 hour ago 24 23 Perplexity 98 2 hours ago 20 20 Apple 875 18 minutes ago 1 9 Bytedance 875 18 minutes ago 1 7 Amazon 875 18 minutes ago 24 23 Meta 875 18 minutes ago 2 2 DeepSeek 875 18 minutes ago 1 23 Prompt LLM gpt-5 Chat AI Prompt LLM Generate Image Knowledge Base Retrieval Transcribe Audio Logic If & Else Iteration Loop Human Review Code Run Code Call API Run SQL Query Variable Aggregator Web Research Google Search Blocks Prompt LLM Add description... Settings Last Run Error Handling None Add Message Write your prompt here or enter ‘/’ to insert a variable… User Prompt Write your prompt here or enter ‘/’ to insert a variable… System Prompt Context Start / sys.user_id String AI Model gpt-5 Chat Generate Image Generate Image Generate Image
79. #brightonseo Profound As a former SEO, I know we’re sometimes not given the attention we deserve AI Search is becoming the sexiest area of digital marketing... and everyone in this room has a prime opportunity