ChatGPT vs Gemini vs Perplexity: what differences for brands?

Do ChatGPT, Gemini and Perplexity cite the same sources?

No. Each platform has its own crawler, its own index and its own selection criteria: a brand can be well cited on Perplexity and absent from ChatGPT, or the reverse.

It is the most frequent observation in our audits: readiness scores vary sharply between platforms for the same site. In the Figma audit, Google AI Overviews reaches 72/100 while ChatGPT sits at 42/100, purely because of robots.txt rules that differ per crawler.

How does each platform select its sources?

ChatGPT relies on its OAI-SearchBot search crawler, Perplexity on PerplexityBot, Gemini and AI Overviews on Google infrastructure: three distinct access chains that must each be opened.

• ChatGPT: web search via OAI-SearchBot and ChatGPT-User; sensitive to question-and-answer format and meta descriptions.
• Perplexity: PerplexityBot, strong weighting of quotable sources with dated, attributed facts; always displays its sources.
• Google AI Overviews and Gemini: Googlebot and Google-Extended; inherit the power of the Google index and Knowledge Graph (schema.org is decisive).
• Bing Copilot: Bingbot; benefits from IndexNow for fast indexing.

Should you optimize differently for each platform?

The foundation is shared (crawler access, quotable structure, entity authority); only the final layer is tuned platform by platform.

Roughly eighty percent of the work serves all platforms at once: that is the core of GEO. The remaining twenty percent are targeted adjustments: opening a specific crawler, enabling IndexNow for Bing, strengthening schema for the Google Knowledge Graph.

Which platform should you focus on first?

The one where your customers ask their questions: the audit tests your real queries on all five platforms and reveals where the gap between your position and your competitors is the most profitable to close.

Frequently asked questions

Can the same content be cited everywhere?

Yes. If the technical foundation is open to all crawlers and the content is quotable, nothing prevents one page from being picked up by ChatGPT, Perplexity and AI Overviews. Audits simply show this is rarely the case at the start, for lack of uniform access.

Are Gemini and Google AI Overviews the same thing?

No. AI Overviews is the answer block embedded in Google search results; Gemini is the standalone conversational assistant. They share Google infrastructure but do not always select the same sources.

What about Claude?

Claude (Anthropic) browses via ClaudeBot and Claude-SearchBot. Less used for consumer search, it matters in professional workflows; our audits check its access too.