Brands logged-out ChatGPT rarely named without search also showed up less when it searched, even with cited-page coverage, in new comparison-prompt data.

Brands that ChatGPT rarely named when answering without using search results were generally the brands ChatGPT rarely named when it did a search (even when those brands were included in many of the web pages ChatGPT referenced). This is the primary result from an Oct. 16 analysis by Graphite comparing logged-out ChatGPT responses for comparison prompts with search versus without it.

Among brands substantially mentioned on at least 15% of cited pages, median visibility with search was 11% when ChatGPT named them in under a quarter of its no-search answers. Graphite, a growth agency that sells AEO services, argues brands should work on what AI models learn in training as well as on citations, and calls that parametric knowledge optimization (PKO).

Graphite’s comparison uses entity-comparison prompts, which ask ChatGPT to compare brands or products, from its Aug. 20 paper on prompt tracking. It covers 3,115 entity-question pairs across 57 questions, collected in August from logged-out ChatGPT. Visibility is the share of responses that mention a brand or product.

For answers that used search, Graphite also measured the share of cited pages that substantially mentioned each brand and split brands into three groups by that share. In all three groups, brands ChatGPT named more often without search were named more often with search.

There was an increase in visibility via search along with an increase in the share of cited pages mentioning the brand.

Source link