agouyet

M Posted 9 months 1 week ago

t 9 min read

The AI search landscape is evolving at breakneck speed, and our latest data from BrightEdge's Generative Parser™ and AI Catalyst reveals patterns that every SEO and marketing professional needs to understand as Generative Engine Optimization becomes the norm. As users shift from traditional searches to AI-powered experiences, we're witnessing fundamental changes in how information is discovered and presented.

Here at BrightEdge, we’ve continued to analyze tens of thousands of queries and prompts across ChatGPT and Google's AI Overviews. There are four critical themes that are reshaping digital marketing strategies right now.

1. The 76% Convergence: Same Brands, Different Stories

One of our most striking observations is the overlap between ChatGPT and AI Overviews when it comes to brand recommendations. Our AI Catalyst analysis of shopping prompts revealed that these platforms recommend the same brands 76% of the time—but how they present these brands couldn't be more different.

A Tale of Two AI Approaches

While both platforms lead with selection and variety (51-54% of mentions), their storytelling diverges dramatically:

• ChatGPT: The Comprehensive Catalog
  • Emphasizes selection/variety in 54% of responses
  • Mentions deals/pricing in 50% of recommendations
  • Uses functional language ("offers," "provides") three times more frequently
  • Adopts a "this platform offers..." mindset
• AI Overviews: The Selective Curator
  • Emphasizes selection/variety in 51% of responses
  • Mentions deals/pricing in only 41% of recommendations
  • Focuses on competitive positioning
  • Takes a "better than competitors..." approach

Real-World Example: Textbook Shopping (As seen in AI Catalyst)

Notice how both platforms recommend similar textbook sites like Chegg, CampusBooks, and VitalSource, but ChatGPT highlights their services ("significant discounts and additional services like homework help") while AI Overviews emphasizes market position ("vast marketplace offering competitive prices").

The Language Divide

One of the things BrightEdge AI Catalyst allows users to do is analyze the way each of the AI Search engine talks about brands. This is significant because this isn’t language from a page snippet or a meta description. This is how the generative AI is describing your brand. What’s particularly interesting is that ChatGPT is far more likely to use words like “offers”, “provides” or “enables” implying they are describing what products or shopping locations can do for the user. This 3x difference in functional language usage reveals fundamental differences in how these platforms conceptualize brand recommendations.

Strategic Opportunity

This convergence proves you don't need separate websites or radically different content strategies for each platform. The winning approach? Create comprehensive content that showcases your selection while explaining your unique value. Quality content that covers the right bases wins everywhere.

2. The Volume Divide: ChatGPT's Marketplace vs. Google's Curation

Perhaps nothing illustrates the fundamental difference between these platforms better than how they handle brand recommendations in shopping queries. When we compare shopping queries, even though there is a rank overlap with 76% of the brands mentioned, ChatGPT is likely to recommend more brands. In fact we see that 43% of the time they recommend brands, there’s more than 10. AI Overviews? Only 4.7% of the time.

The Numbers Tell the Story

• ChatGPT operates like a digital marketplace:
  • Includes 10+ brands in 43.9% of responses
  • Maintains consistent brand inclusion across all query types
• AI Overviews function as selective curators:
  • Include 10+ brands in just 4.7% of responses
  • Show dramatic variation based on query intent

Query Intent Drives Visibility

Percentage of Prompt Types where Brands are Recommended

The data reveals fascinating patterns in how user prompts influence brand visibility:

• "Where to buy" prompts: AI Overviews include brand recommendations 39.3% of the time
• "Deals/coupons" prompts: AI Overviews include brand recommendations only 12.2% of the time
• Adding "buy online" to any query: Increases the likelihood of AI Overviews including brands by 33.9 percentage points

This suggests that Google may be relying on other SERP features (shopping carousels, product grids, sponsored listings) for commercial queries, while ChatGPT creates comprehensive brand marketplaces within its responses.

3. Device Divergence: Mobile and Desktop Serve Different Masters

Our analysis reveals that mobile and desktop AI Overviews aren't just different sizes—they're fundamentally different products targeting distinct user behaviors. This is very evident when queries could trigger things like shopping carousels.

The Mobile Experience

Mobile AIO’s reveal a fascinating paradox: while mobile AI Overviews take up less screen space, they're actually doing more heavy lifting for e-commerce queries. In fact, throughout the past month, we observed a 3x higher appearance rate for shopping queries on mobile.

What's really happening here is that mobile AI Overviews are filling a different role in the purchase funnel. While desktop might skip AIOs for transactional queries (letting shopping grids handle it), mobile uses AIOs as an educational bridge—helping users understand product categories, compare options, and make informed decisions before they tap through to buy. It's less about immediate transactions and more about guiding discovery, which explains why mobile e-commerce AIOs appear so much more frequently despite having less screen real estate to work with.

The Desktop Experience

Desktop AI Overviews are essentially playing a different game than mobile. The 80% larger screen real estate isn't just about size—it's about Google having the space to deliver comprehensive, authoritative answers that can truly compete with traditional search results.

The consistency factor is particularly telling: desktop AIOs appear more predictably because desktop users have different expectations and behaviors. They're typically in research mode, sitting down for longer sessions, ready to digest detailed information. Meanwhile, mobile's variability suggests Google is still experimenting with how much information to show users who are on-the-go.

The 39% higher keyword coverage on desktop reinforces our thesis about device divergence—Google is essentially building two different products. Desktop gets the full treatment because users expect depth, while mobile remains selective, knowing that users need quick answers and that other SERP features (like shopping carousels) can handle transactional needs. This isn't just a responsive design choice; it's a fundamental difference in how Google conceptualizes the role of AI Overviews across devices

Strategic Implications for Marketers

This divergence clearly indicates that Google is treating these as separate products:

• 80% more screen space on desktop means more detailed explanations and citation opportunities
• Create mobile-first educational content and product guides, not just product pages
• Content strategy may need to be different for mobile and desktop Generative Engine Optimization

Strategic Imperatives for the AI-First Era

These insights point to clear actions for marketers navigating the AI search landscape:

1. Unified Content Strategy

With 76% brand overlap, create content that performs across platforms while acknowledging their different presentation styles. Focus on

•  
  • Leading with selection/variety or top use cases
  • Including functional benefits as part of your optimization strategy
  • Using competitive advantages and core differentiators
  • Tracking brand sentiment across prompt types

2. Understand the Query Landscape

The surge in long-form queries shows users type conversationally. Your content needs to:

• Optimize for geographic and contextual variations
• Answer specific situational combinations, not generic info
• Mirror natural language patterns over keywords

3. Device-Specific Optimization

Recognize that mobile users are in discovery mode while desktop users seek comprehensive information:

• E-commerce brands especially need mobile-first AIO strategies
• Desktop content should be more detailed with citation opportunities
• Consider different content approaches for each platform

4. Depth Over Breadth

With AI Overviews becoming more selective but detailed:

• Create authoritative content that addresses complete user contexts
• Focus on comprehensive answers that showcase expertise
• Ensure your website clearly displays purchasing options
• Provide buying guides that convey your brand's distinct identity

5. Track Cross-Platform Performance

Monitor how both ChatGPT and AI Overviews describe your brand:

• Track mention patterns across all AI platforms
• Monitor referral traffic from different AI sources
• Use tools like BrightEdge's AI Catalyst for comprehensive visibility

The Bottom Line

The data is clear: AI search isn't just an evolution of traditional search—it's a revolution in how users interact with information online. With ChatGPT creating digital marketplaces and Google's AI Overviews acting as selective curators, with users asking increasingly complex questions, and with mobile and desktop experiences diverging dramatically, the landscape demands new strategies.

The winners in this new landscape will be those who understand these patterns and adapt their strategies accordingly. The good news? You can optimize once and rank everywhere—but only if you understand how each platform tells your story differently.

With technologies like BrightEdge's AI Catalyst and Data Cube X providing visibility into these changes, marketers can stay ahead of the curve and ensure their content thrives in the AI era. The key is understanding that while the brands may be the same, the stories these AI platforms tell—and the users they serve—are fundamentally different.

lpark

M Posted 9 months 1 week ago

t 9 min read

Search is evolving faster than ever—and that’s opening up a big new opportunity for PR teams.

Thanks to AI-powered search engines like Google’s AI Overviews, ChatGPT, and Perplexity, more people are getting direct answers without ever clicking a link. These AI systems aren’t just listing websites—they’re making recommendations. And when your brand is mentioned in those answers, it’s a powerful signal to the user: this is someone to trust.

That’s where PR comes in.

This shift doesn’t mean PR has to become something completely different. In fact, AI search rewards exactly what PR already does well—building credibility, earning trust, and shaping the brand’s story in places that matter. What’s changed is that now, those efforts can directly influence how (and whether) your brand shows up in the new discovery layer of search.

Here’s how PR teams can take advantage of this moment—by focusing on the sources AI trusts, understanding how citations work, and using new data to guide their strategy.

AI Answers Are Becoming a Brand’s First Impression

When AI Overviews show up in Google search results, they take up serious screen space. BrightEdge research shows that when an AI Overview appears, the click-through rate on the top organic listing drops from 25.8% to just 7.4%.

That’s not bad news—it’s a wake-up call. It means users are getting what they need from the AI answer itself. And if your brand is recommended in that answer, that’s where discovery begins.

This changes the role of PR in a good way. Instead of hoping a media placement gets picked up and shared, you now have a direct path to helping your brand get cited where people are actively looking for trusted answers.

Drop of in CTR when an AI Overview is present - Being part of the AI recommendation matters more than ever:

Why PR Is in a Great Spot to Win Here

Search engines powered by AI don’t just pull from top-ranking content—they pull from sources they view as credible, clear, and relevant to the query.

We used BrightEdge Generative Parser™ to compare sources across multiple AI Engines and found important patterns:

• Google AI Overviews tend to cite content that’s concise, updated, and comes from trusted domains.
• Perplexity leans into content that’s rich in facts, citations, and comparisons.
• ChatGPT with browsing pulls from Bing’s index and often favors content that’s fresh and consistently authoritative.

None of that should sound intimidating to PR experts. If anything, it’s encouraging. Because what AI is really looking for is well-communicated credibility. And PR is already great at that.

What’s different now is that you can see which mentions are showing up in AI search, and take action based on that. PR doesn’t need to guess which placements matter most anymore. With platforms like BrightEdge AI Catalyst, you can actually track which domains get cited in AI answers—and use that data to guide your outreach.

What to Focus on If You’re in PR

Here are four areas where PR teams can have an immediate impact in the AI search landscape.

1. Know Which Sources AI Engines Trust

The first step is figuring out which websites and publishers AI engines are pulling from in your space.

BrightEdge’s AI Catalyst makes this easy. It tracks the domains cited in Google AI Overviews, ChatGPT, and other AI engines for the topics and prompts that matter to your brand. That means you can:

• See which media outlets, expert blogs, and publishers consistently get cited and for what articles.
• Prioritize those for outreach and earned media
• Align with SEO and content teams on where to build visibility

You don’t need to overhaul your PR strategy—you just need to aim your efforts where they’ll make the biggest difference.

2. Pitch to the Lists, Roundups, and Reviews AI Loves

When someone asks Google “what’s the best software for nonprofits?” they’re not just looking for a brand—they’re looking for a list they can trust.

AI engines love structured content. Many responses from AI draw on sources like this. If your brand is mentioned in one of those pieces—and that piece is on a site the AI trusts—you’ve just earned a shot at being in the answer.

This is a natural fit for PR. Pitching for inclusion in these types of articles, or collaborating with journalists who write comparison pieces, is already part of the job. Now, it comes with an added upside: you’re influencing how AI introduces your brand to potential customers.

3. Highlight What Makes Your Brand Worth Mentioning

The more clearly your brand is positioned, the more likely it is to be picked up by AI engines.

When PR teams pitch stories, submit product info, or provide quotes, highlighting these kinds of attributes gives AI more to work with. Over time, this messaging builds up across the web—and increases your chances of being pulled into AI-generated summaries.

4. Track AI Mentions Like You Track Media Coverage

If you’re already tracking media pickups and share of voice, it’s time to add a new layer: share of AI voice.

Using BrightEdge AI Catalyst, PR teams can:

• See where and when your brand is mentioned in AI answers
• Monitor sentiment and positioning in those mentions
• Compare visibility against competitors
• Spot new opportunities for outreach

You don’t have to guess whether a placement had downstream impact. You can now see if it helped you earn a spot in AI recommendations—and if it didn’t, you have the data to see what did.

PR’s Role Is Expanding—in the Best Way

This new AI-powered landscape isn’t pushing PR to become something it’s not. It’s giving PR a bigger stage and better data.

You still pitch stories, build relationships, and shape narratives. Now, you also get to see how that work shows up in the new front door of brand discovery: the AI answer.

Best of all, this doesn’t mean overhauling your day-to-day. It means:

• Aiming your outreach where it counts most
• Understanding what makes a brand recommendable in AI
• Using data to prove your impact

In a time when users are asking AI what to buy, who to trust, and how to solve problems—being cited in those answers is the new PR win.

Final Thought: This Is a Big Opportunity for PR to Lead

AI is quickly becoming the first stop in a user’s journey. That means PR is no longer just supporting awareness. It’s influencing the recommendation engine at the heart of modern search.

With capabilities like BrightEdge AI Catalyst, PR teams can take control of this new channel—tracking what’s working, spotting what’s missing, and steering the conversation in the right direction.

And the best part? This is already in your wheelhouse.

You’ve been shaping brand perception all along. Now you get to do it in the one place where trust matters most: the answer people see first.