AI answers mostly cite other sites, not yours. Find the pages each engine trusts for your questions.

When an AI tool answers “who should I hire?”, it often shows the pages it used. A new study counted those pages. Most of them were not the brand’s own website. And each AI engine leaned on a different kind of source.

What the study found

On October 5, The AI Journal reported a study by Mencoro. It is a vendor study, and every number below is Mencoro-reported.

Mencoro tracked 42 brands in Spain across eight commercial sectors, including health, finance, retail, automotive and technology. From July 1 to September 30, 2026, it collected 23,466 AI answers from four engines: ChatGPT, Google AI Overviews, Google AI Mode and Perplexity. Those answers held 176,332 citations, pointing to 22,193 different domains.

Where the citations went:

72.6% went to company websites. The study counts direct competitors, specialized service providers, merchants and manufacturers here.
11.6% went to directories, review hubs and marketplaces.
4.8% went to the tracked brand’s own domain.
4.3% went to news sites and magazines.

And 57.4% of citations pointed to domains that showed up for only one brand. The article puts it plainly: “There is no golden list of 100 universal websites that guarantee visibility across every industry.”

Each engine had its own habits

The four engines did not share one source list.

Instagram was cited for 40 of the 42 brands. Google’s AI Overviews and AI Mode produced 97.6% of all Instagram citations in the study.
ChatGPT produced 84.1% of the citations to El País, a Spanish newspaper, and 94.4% of the citations to Spain’s official state gazette. Public bodies made up 11.7% of ChatGPT’s citations. It cited TikTok zero times.
Perplexity produced 191 of the 246 YouTube citations.

What this means if AI names your rival

Keep the limits in view. This is one country, 42 brands and three months. It counts citations, the pages an engine points to. It does not say which business the answer named or recommended.

Still, the pattern is useful. If an engine builds its answer mostly from other people’s pages, then your own website is only part of the ground. The rest is mostly other companies’ websites, plus the directories, trade sites, press and social pages the engine cites for your kind of business. Your rival may already be on those pages. You may not be.

The study also says that list changes by sector. So a generic “top sites” list will not tell you much. You have to look at your own questions.

A test you can run this week: the cited-source sheet

You need a spreadsheet and your three best customer questions.

Write three questions your customers ask before they buy, in their own words.
Ask each question in ChatGPT, Google (look for the AI Overview or AI Mode), and Perplexity. Use the same wording each time.
For each answer, write the date and mark who it names: you, your rival, or nobody.
Open the sources each answer cites. Write down every domain.
Put each domain in one bucket: your site, a rival’s site, a directory or review site, press, social or video, public body, or other.
For each domain, check one thing: are you on it, with correct and current facts?

Now apply this decision rule:

A domain is cited for two or more of your questions, and you are not on it: that is your first move. Get listed, or fix the listing, using honest, public business information.
A domain is cited once: note it and check again next month.
You are on it but your facts are wrong or out of date: fix those facts before you add anything new.
The only pages cited are your rival’s own site: look at what that page answers that yours does not. Then write your own honest answer on your site.

Your sheet will show where each engine looks for your kind of business. In the study, almost all Instagram citations came from Google’s AI features, ChatGPT produced most of the citations to a major newspaper and the official gazette, and Perplexity gave most of the YouTube citations. Your results may differ. Your own sheet counts for more than the study’s averages.

One caution. Get onto these pages the way any customer would see them: a real listing, a real profile, real coverage. Do not post fake reviews or try tricks aimed at AI systems.

What to do this week

Write your three customer questions.
Run them in ChatGPT, Google and Perplexity, and save each answer with the date.
Mark each answer: you, your rival, or nobody.
List every cited domain and sort it into a bucket.
Pick the domain cited most often where you are missing, and get listed there first.
Put the same check on your calendar for next month.

If AI names a rival instead of you, the Rival Map shows where AI names you, your rival, or nobody, for the questions your customers ask. Tell us who AI names instead of you. Book a war briefing with New Reward, and bring their name.