Guide · 12 min · Updated 20/05/2026
AI search optimisation: ChatGPT, Perplexity, Google AI Overviews
How each AI surface picks its citations, and the three content patterns that get cited most.
Google AI Overviews
Pulls from indexed pages with high E-E-A-T signals. Citation correlates with: existing top-10 organic rank, structured data, named-author bylines, citation-friendly passages.
ChatGPT browsing + SearchGPT
Pulls from indexed pages with high Bing rank. Optimise for Bing too — don't ignore it. Citation correlates with passage clarity and source quality.
Perplexity
Pulls from indexed pages with high topical authority. Citation correlates with named-statistic density and recency.
Common questions
Do I need a separate AI-SEO strategy?
No, but AEO content patterns (citable passages, structured data, llms.txt) compound on top of classical SEO.