What AI assistants read before they recommend software
We kept every page that ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity and Google’s AI Mode cited across 1,931 buyer-question answers: 19,698 citations from 3,536 sites. The four read very different things, and that decides where a software company has to be.
Answers collected 21 September – 3 October 2026 · 23 companies’ questions · Satayu Isariyaphorn
To find out which sources an AI assistant cites when it recommends software in your category, ask it the buyer’s question and open the source list every answer now carries; then do it on three days, because the list changes. Across our 1,931 answers the pattern was stable at the level that matters: Claude and Perplexity lean on software directories (G2, Capterra, SourceForge, GetApp: 1,067 citations between them), Google’s AI Mode leans on Reddit, YouTube and LinkedIn (85, 69 and 41 citations, almost nowhere else did), and ChatGPT cites few pages and prefers official ones: vendors’ own sites, government pages and product documentation. A company that is on the directories, has a LinkedIn presence and a plain page on its own site is readable by all four. One that is only on its own site is readable mainly by ChatGPT.
How the four assistants cite
| Assistant | Answers | Citations per answer | Sites cited | Share going to the 20 most-cited sites |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Claude | 480 | 20.7 | 2,498 | 12% |
| Perplexity | 486 | 10.8 | 1,141 | 18% |
| ChatGPT | 485 | 5.4 | 659 | 24% |
| Google AI Mode | 480 | 3.9 | 675 | 25% |
Claude reads widest: twenty pages an answer, and 1,147 of its sites were cited exactly once. ChatGPT and Google read narrowest, four or five pages, and a quarter of everything they cite comes from twenty sites. Fewer citations means each one carries more of the answer, which is why being one of ChatGPT’s five matters more than being one of Claude’s twenty.
Where the citations went, by platform
Counted across all four assistants. These are the places a company can be listed, post or answer without owning the site.
| Platform | Citations | ChatGPT | Claude | Perplexity | Google AI |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| G2 | 218 | 7 | 126 | 77 | 8 |
| SourceForge | 155 | 0 | 77 | 77 | 1 |
| 155 | 1 | 41 | 70 | 43 | |
| Capterra (all country sites) | 134 | 0 | 97 | 34 | 3 |
| 94 | 0 | 0 | 9 | 85 | |
| Wikipedia | 70 | 0 | 68 | 0 | 2 |
| YouTube | 69 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 69 |
| Software Advice | 66 | 0 | 47 | 16 | 3 |
| GetApp | 52 | 0 | 49 | 3 | 0 |
| Gartner | 34 | 0 | 21 | 3 | 10 |
| TrustRadius | 31 | 0 | 22 | 7 | 2 |
| Medium | 18 | 0 | 12 | 2 | 4 |
| Quora | 9 | 0 | 7 | 0 | 2 |
| Crunchbase | 5 | 0 | 5 | 0 | 0 |
| Product Hunt | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
Three things stand out. Directories are a Claude-and-Perplexity channel: 1,067 citations to G2, Capterra, SourceForge, GetApp, Software Advice and TrustRadius, of which ChatGPT contributed six and Google 52. Reddit and YouTube are a Google channel: 85 of 94 Reddit citations and all 69 YouTube citations came from Google’s AI Mode; none from ChatGPT or Claude. LinkedIn is read by three of the four, which makes it the one social platform that reaches Claude, Perplexity and Google at once. Product Hunt, often recommended for launches, was never cited.
What each assistant prefers
| Assistant | Most-cited sites in our answers | Reads like |
|---|---|---|
| ChatGPT | help.openai.com, developers.google.com, deputy.com, gov.uk, peec.ai, semrush.com, procore.com, drata.com, employmenthero.com, mom.gov.sg | An official-sources reader: vendors’ own pages, government sites (276 citations to .gov domains) and product documentation. Directories almost never. |
| Claude | g2.com, capterra.com, sourceforge.net, en.wikipedia.org, capterra.com.au, vanta.com, rosterelf.com, otterly.ai, getapp.com | A directory-and-reference reader: review sites first, Wikipedia for background, then vendor pages. Reads twenty pages and spreads its citations thin. |
| Perplexity | capterra.com.au, sourceforge.net, linkedin.com, vanta.com, blog.hubspot.com, g2.com, pandadoc.com, softwareadvice.com.au | Directories plus LinkedIn plus vendor blogs. Notices country-specific directory pages (capterra.com.au, softwareadvice.com.au) when the question names the country. |
| Google AI Mode | reddit.com, youtube.com, linkedin.com, tryprofound.com, otterly.ai, capterra.com.au | A people-and-video reader: Reddit threads, YouTube videos and LinkedIn posts ahead of any directory. Four citations an answer, so each one is a large share of the answer. |
The vendor names in these lists (Deputy, Procore, Drata, Vanta, Employment Hero and the rest) are the rivals of the companies we measured: when a buyer asks what to buy, the assistants read the candidates’ own sites. A company’s own pages are cited, as long as they answer the buyer’s question in the words the buyer used.
How to see the sources yourself
- ChatGPT. With search on, citations appear as small chips in the text and in a “Sources” panel at the end of the answer. Through the API, the response carries URL annotations for each cited span.
- Claude. With web search on, the sources it read are listed under the answer; each line is a page it fetched. Through the API, the web search tool returns the pages searched and the citations used.
- Perplexity. Numbered sources sit above the answer, and each number in the text links to one. The API returns the same list in order.
- Google AI Mode. Link cards beside or below the answer are the pages it drew on. There is no public API for AI Mode; a search-data provider’s AI Mode endpoint returns the links.
- Then do it three times. The source list changes between days the same way the answer does. Three days, same wording, gives you a list you can act on rather than one day’s reading. Why.
What to do with it
Match the channel to the assistant you are missing from (the step-by-step version: my competitors show up in ChatGPT but we don’t). Missing from Claude or Perplexity: a free listing on G2, Capterra and SourceForge with the category and country filled in. Missing from Google’s AI Mode: a Reddit thread where someone has asked your buyer’s question and you answer it with your affiliation stated, and a YouTube video with the question in its title. Missing from ChatGPT: a page on your own site that answers the question plainly, indexed by Bing (ChatGPT’s search is built on Bing) and Google. Missing from all four: start with your own page and LinkedIn, the two that every assistant read. We are doing exactly this to ourselves, in public, on client zero.
About the data
1,931 answers: five buyer questions for each of 22 B2B software companies in Australia, the UK, Singapore and New Zealand, plus forty questions about AI visibility services for our own audit, every question asked to all four assistants three times on separate days between 21 September and 3 October 2026. A citation is a URL the assistant returned with its answer; the same page cited twice in one answer counts twice. Rules and scripts are on GitHub. The 40 audit questions skew the top-site list towards AI-visibility vendors (Semrush, Otterly, Profound, Peec); the platform table is less affected because those vendors are not platforms.