the seven ais you need to know (and why they're all different)

when people talk about "ai search," they often treat it as one thing. it's not. there are currently seven major ai platforms that people use to find services, get recommendations, and make purchasing decisions. and they all work differently.

this matters because optimizing for one platform doesn't automatically optimize you for the others. what impresses chatgpt might not impress perplexity. what gemini values might be different from what claude values. chen et al. (2025) documented significant differences in how engines evaluate domain diversity, content freshness, and cross-language stability.

here's the landscape.

chatgpt (openai)

the biggest player and the one most people think of when they hear "ai search." chatgpt has over 200 million weekly active users as of 2025. that's a lot of potential customers asking for recommendations.

from my testing, chatgpt shows a strong preference for community content. it values authentic human discussion over polished marketing. reddit threads, forum posts, user reviews. it wants to see what real people say about you, not just what you say about yourself.

chatgpt also responds well to concrete specifics. statistics, case studies, verifiable claims. it's skeptical of vague quality assertions.

gemini (google)

google's ai is deeply integrated with the google ecosystem, which means it has access to google search data, google maps information, and google business profiles. if your google presence is weak, your gemini presence will be too.

gemini tends to weight traditional authority signals more heavily than some other platforms. domain authority, backlink profiles, established brand recognition. the traditional seo factors still matter here more than elsewhere.

it also has strong integration with location data, making it particularly important for local businesses.

claude (anthropic)

anthropic's claude is known for nuanced, detailed responses. from my testing, it seems to prefer depth over breadth. it wants comprehensive information, well-organized content, clear explanations.

claude appears to be particularly sensitive to content structure. clear headers, logical organization, explicit connections between ideas. it's parsing your content for understanding, not just keyword matching.

for businesses, this means your content needs to actually explain what you do and why you're good at it, not just assert it.

perplexity

perplexity is explicitly research-oriented. it shows its sources, provides citations, and emphasizes verifiability. it treats .edu and .gov domains like gold. academic credentials, research backing, institutional affiliations all carry weight here.

if you want to show up in perplexity results, you need to be cited by credible sources. press mentions, academic references, industry publications. perplexity is essentially asking "who else says this business is good?" and if the answer is "no one reputable," you're invisible.

metaai (meta)

meta's ai is integrated with facebook and instagram, giving it access to social graph data that other platforms don't have. it can see engagement patterns, social proof, community sentiment.

in my testing, metaai rankings can change very quickly. i saw a business go from not appearing to #1 within 24 hours of specific optimizations. the feedback loop is faster than most other platforms.

social presence matters here more than elsewhere. reviews, engagement, community building. metaai is looking at whether real people actually interact with your business.

bing ai / copilot (microsoft)

microsoft's ai is powered by the bing index and handles billions of queries monthly through copilot integration across microsoft products. if you're invisible to bing, you're invisible to a significant chunk of ai search traffic.

bing ai seems to weight freshness more than some competitors. recent content, current information, up-to-date data. if your website hasn't been updated in years, that's a problem.

microsoft's own research (october 2025) emphasized the importance of structured data, semantic clarity, and modular content organization for inclusion in ai search answers.

you.com and emerging platforms

you.com and other emerging platforms represent the long tail of ai search. individually smaller, but collectively significant. each has its own approach, its own preferences, its own biases.

the smart play is to build a foundation that works broadly across platforms while developing specific strategies for the platforms that matter most to your particular business and audience.

the mistake everyone makes

the biggest mistake i see is treating all ai search as one thing. businesses say "we need to optimize for ai" like it's a single checkbox. it's not. it's seven different checkboxes (at minimum), each with different requirements.

this is why generic "ai optimization" advice is often useless. what works on perplexity might not work on metaai. what chatgpt values might not be what gemini values. engine-specific strategies are necessary.

the research on geo confirms this. there's no universal approach. domain-specific, engine-specific optimization is what actually moves the needle.

where this leaves you

if you're trying to be found by ai, you need to understand which platforms matter for your specific business. a local restaurant might prioritize gemini and metaai. a b2b software company might prioritize chatgpt and perplexity. a professional services firm might need to be everywhere.

one size fits no one. time to get strategic.

want to figure out which platforms matter for your business?