We asked AI search 1,048 buyer questions about 365 companies. Most of the time, it cited someone else.
By The Venoh team · Published September 29, 2026 · Last updated September 29, 2026
In September 2026 we put 1,048 buyer-style questions to two AI search engines, each question about what one of 365 companies sells. The company was among the cited sources in 14.6% of the answers. For the rest, the engines leaned on review sites, big-vendor blogs, publishers and Wikipedia.
The headline numbers
| Engine | Companies | Questions | Answers citing the company | Companies cited at least once |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Perplexity (with web search) | 109 | 277 | 54 (19.5%) | 33 (30.3%) |
| Claude with web search | 256 | 771 | 99 (12.8%) | 70 (27.3%) |
| Both | 365 | 1,048 | 153 (14.6%) | 103 (28.2%) |
Put simply: for about seven in ten companies, not one of the questions we asked brought them up as a source, even though every question was about the kind of thing they sell.
Who got cited instead on Perplexity
Across all 277 Perplexity answers the engine cited 1,372 different domains, 2,174 times in total. The table lists the sites cited most often in the answers where the company itself was not cited.
| Site | Times cited | What it is |
|---|---|---|
| learn.g2.com | 21 | Software review site (guides) |
| zapier.com | 19 | Software vendor (blog and roundups) |
| f6s.com | 18 | Startup and vendor directory |
| forbes.com | 15 | Publisher |
| monday.com | 13 | Software vendor |
| blog.hubspot.com | 12 | Software vendor (blog) |
| designrush.com | 11 | Agency and vendor directory |
| clutch.co | 11 | Agency and vendor reviews |
| linkedin.com | 11 | Professional network |
| shopify.com | 11 | Commerce platform |
| zendesk.com | 10 | Software vendor |
| g2.com | 9 | Software review site |
Who got cited instead on Claude with web search
| Site | Times cited | What it is |
|---|---|---|
| en.wikipedia.org | 68 | Encyclopedia |
| gartner.com | 25 | Analyst firm |
| arxiv.org | 24 | Research papers |
| monday.com | 17 | Software vendor |
| salesforce.com | 13 | Software vendor |
| medium.com | 13 | Blogging platform |
| yelp.com | 13 | Local reviews |
| guideflow.com | 12 | Software vendor |
| g2.com | 10 | Software review site |
| ycombinator.com | 10 | Startup directory |
What the pattern says
Roundups and reviews win the buying questions
Questions like "best X for Y" were most often answered from pages that compare many vendors: review sites (G2, Clutch), directories (F6S, DesignRush) and large vendors' own "top tools" posts (Zapier, HubSpot, monday.com). If your company isn't on those lists, an engine that builds its answer from them has little reason to name you.
The two engines lean on different sources
Perplexity cited review sites and vendor blogs most; Claude with web search leaned on Wikipedia, analyst firms and research papers. Being visible in one engine says little about the other, which is why we test each engine separately rather than assume one stands for all.
Your own site still matters
In a companion analysis of the same sites, companies with FAQ markup or an llms.txt file were cited about twice as often, though that is a correlation, not proof of cause; see how AI-ready B2B websites are for the numbers and their limits.
How we did it
- Companies: 365 companies we researched between 20 and 29 September 2026, mostly US (about 88%) and UK B2B technology and SaaS firms, plus some consumer brands. It is not a random sample of all businesses.
- Questions: for each company, between one and five questions a buyer might ask (about three on average), written from what the company's own site says it sells. The questions were written not to name the company or any brand.
- Engines: Perplexity with web search (109 companies) or Claude with web search (256 companies). Each question was asked once.
- What counts as cited: the company's own domain appeared among the sources the engine cited for that answer. A mention without a citation was not counted.
- Limits: AI answers change between runs, days and locations, so treat these as a dated snapshot, not a fixed ranking.
Frequently asked questions
How often does AI search cite the company a question is about?
In our September 2026 sample of 1,048 buyer questions about 365 companies, the company was among the cited sources in 14.6% of answers: 19.5% on Perplexity and 12.8% on Claude with web search. About 28% of companies were cited at least once.
Which sites does Perplexity cite most for buying questions?
In answers that did not cite the company, the most-cited sites were learn.g2.com, zapier.com, f6s.com, forbes.com, monday.com and blog.hubspot.com: review sites, directories, publishers and large software vendors' roundups.
Does being cited on Perplexity mean being cited on other AI engines?
Not necessarily. In our data Perplexity leaned on review sites and vendor blogs, while Claude with web search leaned on Wikipedia, Gartner and research papers, so each engine needs to be checked on its own.
Sources and further reading
Links were checked when this page was written (September 29, 2026). Vendors update their documentation, so verify details at the source.
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