What is AI Search Optimization (AEO)?

AI Search Optimization (AEO), also known as Answer Engine Optimization, is the practice of optimizing your brand's visibility in AI-powered search platforms like ChatGPT, Perplexity, Google AI Overviews, and Claude. Unlike traditional SEO that focuses on ranking in Google search results, AEO ensures your brand appears in AI-generated answers and recommendations.

Which AI platforms does Lantern track?

Lantern tracks brand visibility across major AI search platforms including ChatGPT, Google Gemini, Perplexity, Google AI Overviews, and Claude. Our platform provides real-time monitoring and analytics for how your brand appears in AI-generated responses.

How does Lantern help improve my AI search visibility?

Lantern provides comprehensive brand monitoring, competitive analysis, citation tracking, and actionable optimization recommendations. Our platform identifies which sources AI platforms use to reference your brand, tracks competitor mentions, and provides insights to improve your visibility in AI search results.

Can I get a free AI visibility report?

Yes! Lantern offers a free AI visibility report that shows how your brand currently appears across AI search platforms. Simply enter your brand name on our homepage to receive a comprehensive analysis of your AI search presence.

What is the difference between SEO and AEO?

Traditional SEO focuses on ranking in search engine results pages (SERPs) like Google. AEO (Answer Engine Optimization) focuses on getting your brand mentioned in AI-generated answers and recommendations from platforms like ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Google AI Overviews. Lantern helps with both traditional SEO and modern AEO strategies.

The AI Search Citation Playbook

We've all spent years optimizing for Google's blue links. But now your prospects are asking ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Google's AI Overviews for recommendations and if your brand isn't being cited, you're invisible.

Here's the thing about AI search in 2026, getting cited in the answer is the new first-page ranking.

We analyzed thousands of AI responses to see which websites these models actually reference. The results? A small group of domains completely dominates the conversation.

Why This Should Be on Your Radar in 2026

The numbers tell the story, 87% of B2B buyers now use AI chatbots during product research. Half of them start their buying journey in AI chat instead of Google that's a 71% jump in just four months.

ChatGPT alone drives 87.4% of AI referral traffic. Perplexity grew its user base by 54.8% over five months. Google AI Overviews now show up in a quarter of all searches.

Your competitors are already being mentioned. The question is: are you?

The Domains Winning the AI Citation Game

1. Reddit

Citation Share: 29.43% of ChatGPT responses, 46.7% of Perplexity's top citations, 21% of Google AI Overviews

Reddit isn't just winning it's dominating.

Why AI loves Reddit: When someone asks "Is this product actually worth it?" AI pulls from Reddit because it sounds like real people, not marketing copy. The platform has authentic, conversational content at massive scale. Interestingly, AI doesn't care about upvotes or karma—it's looking for clear, direct answers in a natural tone.

Here's what's wild: the average cited Reddit post is a year old. AI isn't chasing viral moments—it's building a durable knowledge base from genuine user experiences.

The trend to watch: ChatGPT's Reddit citation rate jumped 87% in late July 2025, briefly hitting 10% of all citations. As of January 2026, Reddit sits at 3.3% of total citations while Wikipedia holds 3.9%. That's only a 0.6% gap, and some researchers think Reddit might overtake Wikipedia as ChatGPT's #1 source this year.

2. Wikipedia

Citation Share: 15% of ChatGPT responses, 48% share among ChatGPT's top 10 sources

Wikipedia remains AI's encyclopedia, especially for ChatGPT. Among the top 10 most-cited sources, Wikipedia accounts for nearly half of those citations.

Why AI relies on Wikipedia: It's the gold standard for factual, encyclopedic content. Despite representing less than 0.1% of raw training data, Wikipedia articles are intentionally oversampled in AI training because of their high-quality factual content.

The shift: Wikipedia's citation share has dropped from 11% to around 3.9% as of November 2025. ChatGPT adjusted its citation algorithms in September, and Wikipedia took a hit. But it's still the second most-cited domain overall.

3. Amazon

Citation Share: 3.38% of ChatGPT U.S. mentions, 18% of Consumer Staples industry citations

For product-related questions, Amazon is the default answer. In the Consumer Staples sector alone, Amazon captured 17.99% of all citations—the highest share of any domain in that vertical.

Why AI defaults to Amazon: Product specs, customer reviews, pricing data, and inventory signals in clean, structured formats. When someone asks about product availability or comparisons, Amazon's comprehensive data makes it easy for AI to cite.

4. YouTube

Citation Share: 11.30% of ChatGPT responses, 11.11% of Perplexity, 13.9% of Perplexity's top citations

YouTube has a 200x citation advantage over any other video platform. Analysis from 2025 found YouTube cited 200 times more than Vimeo (0.1%). TikTok, Dailymotion, and Twitch barely register at all.

Why AI chooses YouTube: Video tutorials, demonstrations, and expert commentary that text can't replicate. The structured metadata and transcripts make it easy for AI to parse and cite. Even ChatGPT and Perplexity—which have zero incentive to favor Google properties—overwhelmingly cite YouTube, suggesting it's about content quality, not algorithmic bias.

5. Forbes

Citation Share: 1.67% of ChatGPT mentions

Forbes shows up consistently across every citation study, landing just behind Reddit and Wikipedia. The publication maintains strong domain authority across business, tech, finance, and lifestyle.

Why AI trusts Forbes: Decades of editorial credibility signal trustworthiness to AI systems. Expert-authored content with clear attribution makes it reliable for business and financial queries.

6. Business Insider

Citation Share: 1.31% of ChatGPT mentions.

Business Insider appears regularly in top citation lists, particularly for tech and business news queries. It strikes a balance between timely reporting and analytical depth.

7. TechRadar

Citation Share: Part of the "top 3 controlling 22% of citations" alongside Reddit and Wikipedia

Here's a surprise: TechRadar has become a citation powerhouse. Analysis from August 2025 showed the top three domains—Wikipedia, Reddit, and TechRadar—grew 53% and now control 22% of all ChatGPT citations. That's one in five citations going to just three sites.

Why AI leans on TechRadar: Comprehensive product reviews, technical comparisons, and buying guides in structured formats. For technology questions, AI models pull from TechRadar because it offers detailed specs and expert evaluations, not sales pitches.

8. G2

Citation Share: 2.6x more citations than competing software review platforms

G2 dominates B2B SaaS citations across AI platforms. It gets 2.6x more citations than competing review sites, and its citation growth has accelerated 3x recently. Analysis of 30,000 AI citations across 500 software categories found that 10% more G2 reviews correlate with 2% more AI citations.

Why AI relies on G2: AI models need verification when assessing software quality. G2 provides machine-readable signals: verified buyer reviews, standardized schema, and review velocity indicating current market activity. When a procurement director asks ChatGPT for "the best CRM for 50-person teams," AI synthesizes answers from sources it trusts—and G2 consistently makes that list.

What This Actually Means for You

Look, the lesson here isn't "drop everything and start a subreddit." That would miss the point entirely.

What these citation patterns reveal is something more fundamental: AI is rewarding authenticity, structure, and trust. Reddit wins because people are genuine there. Wikipedia wins because it's rigorously factual. G2 wins because it has verified reviews from real users. Amazon and YouTube win because they organize information in ways that are easy to parse and understand.

Three Things to Focus On

Build where conversations already happen. You don't need to own the platform. Participate in Reddit discussions, contribute to industry wikis, show up in YouTube comments with helpful answers. Be useful where people are already asking questions about your space.

Earn trust the old-fashioned way. Get your product reviewed on G2. Pitch stories to Forbes and Business Insider. Create content comprehensive enough that TechRadar might reference it. AI citations aren't a hack—they're a byproduct of being genuinely authoritative.

Make your content easy to cite. Structure your pages clearly. Use proper headings. Include specific, factual information. Write like you're explaining something to a colleague, not writing ad copy. AI models gravitate toward content that's clear, well-organized, and trustworthy.

How Lantern Can Help You Get There

Tracking where your brand appears across ChatGPT, Perplexity, Google AI Overviews, and Gemini isn't something you can easily do manually. You need to know where you're showing up, where your competitors are beating you, and which citation opportunities you're missing.

What Lantern does for you:

AI Visibility Monitoring - We track your brand mentions across all major AI platforms in real-time. See exactly when and where AI engines are citing you (or not citing you) so you're never flying blind.

Competitive Intelligence - Find out which competitors dominate AI citations in your space, what sources they're getting cited from, and what topics trigger their mentions. Understanding the competitive landscape is the first step to closing the gap.

Citation Opportunity Mapping - We identify the high-authority domains AI trusts in your industry and show you where you should be building presence. Think of it as your roadmap to AI visibility.

Content Strategy Insights - Learn what types of content AI engines actually cite, which topics drive the most mentions, and how to structure your content to increase citation probability.

Performance Analytics - Track your AI citation growth over time, measure the impact of your content efforts, and prove ROI on your AI optimization work.

You can spend months trying to manually track AI citations, or you can let Lantern do the heavy lifting while you focus on creating the content and building the authority that drives those citations.

Want to see where your brand stands in AI search today? Curious which platforms are citing your competitors but not you?

Check out Lantern at Lantern.com and see exactly where you show up in the AI citation landscape.

Because at the end of the day, this isn't just about being cited by AI. It's about being present in the conversations where your future customers are already looking for answers. And that's work worth doing right.