Why does ChatGPT recommend my competitor and not us? Five checks for B2B brands
Assistants name the vendors they find described clearly in sources they trust, and your competitor is probably easier to find there than you are. Run five checks: whether you are named at all on a fixed set of category prompts, which sources the answers cite, whether third parties and review sites describe you, whether your own site states who you serve and what you do, and whether the list and comparison pages that answers draw from include you. G2’s 2026 study found 69% of buyers chose a different vendor than planned based on chatbot guidance, so the gap has a cost.
Key takeaways
Why this matters now
G2’s 2026 study of 1,076 B2B software buyers found that 51% start research with an AI chatbot more often than with Google, up from 29% in April 2025, and that 69% chose a different vendor than they planned based on what a chatbot told them. Another 33% bought from a vendor they had never heard of, and 85% think more highly of a vendor an assistant recommends.
That makes the shortlist an inference the assistant makes from sources, and the sources are not always yours. Our guide on how AI assistants choose vendors to recommend explains the selection signals.
What we see in our own tracking
We track ten prompts across the major assistants for planconversion.com. Over the 30 days to 14 November 2026 (600 responses), our average visibility was 5.8%. One prompt, on CRM attribution and pipeline analytics, showed us in 43% of responses. Nine prompts of the form “which demand generation agency should…” sat between 0% and 5%.
The pattern is useful. Where our own page was the clearest, most specific answer, assistants named us. Where the answer drew on third-party roundups and lists, we were missing. This is one company’s sample, so treat it as an illustration of the method, not as a benchmark.
The five checks
| Check | What to do | What it tells you |
|---|---|---|
| 1. Fixed prompt set | Write 10 to 20 category, comparison and use-case prompts as a buyer would type them. Run them monthly in the assistants your buyers use | Whether you are named, and in which prompts the competitor is |
| 2. Cited sources | List every page and domain cited in answers that name the competitor | Which sources assistants trust in your category |
| 3. Third-party mentions | Check review sites, trade press, analyst lists and community discussions for you versus the competitor | Whether others describe you at all |
| 4. Entity clarity | Read your own site as a stranger: who you serve, what you do, for which problem, with what proof | Whether an assistant can summarize you correctly |
| 5. List and comparison pages | Find the “best X” and “X vs Y” pages that answers cite, and see whether you are included and accurately described | Where a gap in category lists costs you |
Get an AI visibility read across ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, Claude and Google AI Overviews.
Check 1 and 2: the prompt set and the citations
Use the wording a buyer uses. G2 found that comparing vendor strengths and weaknesses is the top use of chatbots in software research, at 41%, so include comparison prompts and “which should we shortlist for…” prompts, not only category ones.
For each answer that names your competitor, write down the cited pages. They are a list of where to be. Our guide on measuring share of answer in ChatGPT, Perplexity and Google AI Overviews gives a template for the monthly read.
Check 3: third-party mentions
G2’s study found 45% of buyers say citations from software review sites are the most confidence-inspiring signal in an AI-generated response. If your competitor has dozens of recent reviews and detailed profiles and you have a few, that is a plausible explanation for the gap.
The fix is slow and unglamorous: reviews from real customers, accurate listings, contributions to trade press and communities your buyers read. Our article on review sites and AI search for B2B software covers the order.
Check 4: entity clarity on your own site
Assistants summarize what they can read. State plainly who you serve, what you do, in which markets and with what proof, on the pages that describe you. Use the same name and description everywhere. Our guide to entity SEO for B2B brands lists what to align.
Also check accuracy. G2 found 64% of buyers often meet inaccurate chatbot recommendations. If an assistant describes you wrongly, find the source it cites and correct that page first.
Check 5: the list and comparison pages
Answers to “which vendor” prompts often draw on “best X” lists and comparisons. If you are not on them, publish your own honest comparison with named alternatives, dated and sourced, and seek inclusion on credible third-party lists. We did this for our own category on 8 November 2026 and will report what moves.
Our 30 day plan to get a B2B company recommended by ChatGPT sets out the sequence for the first month.
How PlanConversion handles this
We run the five checks as a baseline for GEO engagements: a fixed prompt set, a citation map, a third-party gap list and a page plan, with a monthly read on the same prompts.
Our generative engine optimization service covers the work.
Our AI visibility pilot sets a go or no-go point at 90 days.
Frequently asked questions
Why does ChatGPT recommend my competitor and not us?
Usually because the competitor is described more clearly and more often in sources the assistant trusts: review sites, trade press, comparison lists and its own site. Run the five checks, starting with the sources cited in answers that name the competitor.
How long does it take to show up in AI answers?
No one can promise a date. Changes to pages that are retrieved live can show sooner than changes that depend on model updates. Read the same prompt set monthly and judge direction over a quarter. Our 90 day AI visibility pilot uses that structure.
Can I pay to be recommended by ChatGPT?
Not for organic answers. Visibility comes from being clearly described in sources the assistant uses. Paid placements, where they exist, are labelled separately.
What if an assistant says something wrong about us?
Find the page it cites and correct or publish a better source. Report the error to the assistant’s feedback channel as well, but fixing the source is what changes later answers.
Is this the same as SEO?
It overlaps. Crawlable, clear, well-linked pages matter for both. AI answers also weigh third-party mentions and review sites heavily, which classic keyword SEO often skips.
Related service: Generative engine optimization. See also pricing and client results.
We run enterprise B2B demand generation for teams in Montreal, Toronto, Ottawa and the United States.
