Marketers are flying blind. They know GEO matters but have zero visibility into why certain brands appear in AI answers. We analysed 10,000 brand prompts across 10 AI engines to reverse-engineer the recommendation logic. The results will change how you think about marketing.
Google has PageRank. AI has something far messier — and far less understood. When your potential customer opens ChatGPT and asks “best [your category] in Hong Kong,” a recommendation appears within seconds. That recommendation is worth more than a full page of Google ads. And most brands have absolutely no idea why it goes to their competitor.
Geoneo analysed 10,000 brand-category prompts across 10 AI engines over 90 days. What we found confirms what we suspected: each engine uses fundamentally different logic , and none of it looks like SEO.
10,000 Brand prompts analysed across ChatGPT, Gemini, Grok, Claude, Perplexity, DeepSeek, Qwen, Hunyuan, Kimi, and Copilot — Q1 2026
Six Engines, Six Algorithms
The first rule of GEO: “AI search” is not one thing. Each engine has a distinct recommendation architecture. Optimising for ChatGPT does not automatically optimise for Perplexity. Winning on Qwen requires a completely different strategy than winning on Claude.
| Engine | Primary Signal | Key Strength for Brands | Asia Weight |
|---|---|---|---|
| ChatGPT | Training data entity weight | Authority publications, newswires | Medium |
| Perplexity | Live web RAG retrieval | Recency, active PR, fresh content | Low |
| Claude | Structured entity consistency | JSON-LD schema, Wikidata | Low |
| Gemini | Google Knowledge Graph | Google Business Profile, Maps | Medium |
| Grok | X/Twitter engagement + recency | Active social presence | Low |
| DeepSeek | Chinese-language training data | Baidu Baike, Chinese press, WeChat | Very High |
| Qwen (Alibaba) | Alibaba ecosystem signals | Chinese platforms, directories | Very High |
ChatGPT: The Authority Machine
ChatGPT’s recommendation logic is anchored in training data frequency and entity weight. Brands that appear repeatedly in authoritative publications — Bloomberg, Reuters, South China Morning Post, Business Wire, PR Newswire — have a stronger “entity model” inside GPT-4o. The model has, in effect, formed a confident opinion about which brands are authoritative in their category.
This is a long game. Building ChatGPT authority requires sustained PR through recognised newswires, consistent coverage in industry publications, and structured presence in high-authority directories (Crunchbase, LinkedIn, Clutch). Brands that started this in 2024 are now reaping recommendations in 2026. Brands starting today will see results in 6–12 months.
“ChatGPT doesn’t rank pages. It recognises entities. The question isn’t ‘does my website rank?’ — it’s ‘does ChatGPT know who I am?’” — Geoneo Research Team, March 2026
Perplexity: The Recency Engine
Perplexity operates as a RAG (Retrieval-Augmented Generation) system that prompts the live web at the time of each search. This makes it the most dynamic — and the most responsive — engine for GEO. Brands publishing consistently see Perplexity citations rise measurably within 30–60 days.
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