By Lara Fayad, Founder of Solvo Creations
| The one-engine era of AI search is over. A year ago, being visible in AI answers meant, in practice, showing up in ChatGPT. That is no longer true. Google’s Gemini has surged, Claude and Perplexity hold meaningful ground, and buyers now spread their questions across several engines that each pick sources differently. Optimising for one of them leaves most of your AI visibility on the table. |
This is the shift behind generative engine optimisation, or GEO: the work of getting your brand cited across the AI engines your buyers actually use. Here is where the market stands now, why a single-engine approach fails, and a practical playbook for covering all of them.
Where does AI search actually stand now?
Recent web-visit data shows how quickly the field has spread out. ChatGPT still leads, but it is now one engine among several rather than the whole category.
| AI engine | Share of AI chatbot web visits (May 2026) |
|---|---|
| ChatGPT | 53.9% |
| Google Gemini | 27.9% |
| Claude | 9.2% |
| Perplexity | 1.3% |
Figures are worldwide web-visit share from Similarweb, and they exclude native app usage, which lifts the real numbers further. Microsoft Copilot sits alongside Perplexity at around 1.3 percent. The exact splits move month to month, but the direction is settled: Gemini has climbed into a strong second place, and no single engine owns AI search the way ChatGPT once did.
Why does a single-engine approach fail?
Because each engine chooses its sources differently. Analysis of citation patterns across the major engines shows every one has its own editorial identity: ChatGPT leans toward reference-grade content, Gemini and Perplexity favour fresh and well-structured pages, and Claude tends toward institutional sources. Content tuned only for one engine’s preferences can be invisible on another. Being cited everywhere takes deliberate, cross-engine work, which is exactly what a generative engine optimisation agency is built to run.
The multi-platform GEO playbook
Know where your buyers actually ask
Do not assume everyone uses ChatGPT. Check which engines your audience and market lean on, including Gemini’s growing share through Google’s ecosystem, and prioritise accordingly. In some regions and roles, the mix looks very different from the global average.
Structure content so any engine can cite it
The habits that win citations are consistent across engines: a direct answer near the top, clean headings and lists, schema markup, and clear named entities. Write once to be quotable, and you improve your odds everywhere at the same time.
Build presence on the sources each engine trusts
Engines cite brands the wider web already references. Earn mentions and links on the reputable industry sources they draw from, keep your brand information consistent, and build the entity signals that make you recognisable. Our analysis of Perplexity and B2B brand visibility goes deeper on how these engines surface brands.
Track citations across all four engines, not one
Measure your visibility on ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude, and Perplexity separately, because a strong showing on one tells you little about the others. This wider view is part of the same shift we covered when ChatGPT reached a billion users, and it only matters more as the field fragments.
What should B2B brands do this quarter?
Start by checking where you already appear across the four engines, then fix the basics that help everywhere: answer-first structure, schema, and consistent brand information. From there, prioritise the one or two engines your buyers use most and build presence on the sources they trust. You do not need to win every engine at once. You need to stop being invisible on the ones that matter to your market.
Where Solvo Creations fits in
At Solvo Creations, we run multi-platform GEO programmes that get B2B brands cited across every engine their buyers use, not just the one everybody talks about. You can see how we work or get in touch to talk it through.
Frequently asked questions
GEO is the practice of getting your brand cited inside AI-generated answers across engines like ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude, and Perplexity. It focuses on structure, clear answers, and authority so AI tools recognise and quote you as a trusted source.
ChatGPT still leads, at roughly 54 percent of AI chatbot web visits in mid-2026, but Google’s Gemini has surged to around 28 percent, with Claude near 9 percent and Perplexity and Copilot lower. The field is far less concentrated than a year ago.
Not equally. Each engine picks sources differently, so start with the ones your buyers actually use, then improve the shared basics, answer-first structure and authority that help across all of them. Prioritise by your market rather than trying to win everything at once.
They overlap but differ in goal. SEO competes for clicks on a results page; GEO competes to be the source cited inside an AI answer. Strong SEO helps, since many answers draw from top-ranking pages, but GEO adds structure and entity signals on top.
Ask each engine the questions your buyers would ask and note whether you appear, use AI visibility tools that monitor citations at scale, and watch referral traffic from AI platforms in your analytics. Track each engine separately, since results vary widely between them.
| About the author: Lara Fayad is the founder of Solvo Creations, a Dubai-based B2B growth partner that helps companies, founders, and B2B brands build visibility across search, social, and AI platforms. She writes about the practical side of SEO, GEO, and B2B growth for the people who have to make it work. |