AI engine guides
How each AI engine decides what to recommend
Every engine builds a shortlist differently, and AI visibility, the thing AEO and GEO work on, comes down to getting onto it. These guides take each one apart from its maker's own documentation and our own scans.
Each guide shows which lever moves which half of your TofuBofu AI Visibility Index:
- The Tofu Index: are you getting mentioned? The share of queries where the engine names you.
- The Bofu Index: are you getting recommended? The share of head-to-head comparisons against a named rival where it picks you.
Every engine we query searches the live web before it answers
An engine answering from memory cannot name a firm that published after its training cutoff, however good that firm's pages are. Score that engine and you are measuring what a model remembered, then calling it visibility. So we force retrieval on every engine we query. Where an engine did not search by default, we record the day it started.
| Engine | Searching on every query since | How |
|---|---|---|
| ChatGPT | 18 August 2026 | OpenAI's web search tool, forced on every query we send. Before this date the API answered from what gpt-4o remembered. |
| Claude | 28 August 2026 | Anthropic's web search tool, forced on every query. Left to itself the API answers stable vendor queries from training weights. |
| Gemini | 1 October 2026 | Grounding with Google Search on Google's native API. The OpenAI-compatible route accepts the search flag and silently ignores it. |
| Perplexity | Always: retrieval is how it works | Retrieval-native. It searches before it answers on every query. |
| Google AI Mode | Always: retrieval is how it works | A live Google Search product. It runs searches against Google's index and returns its reference links with the answer. |
Why that matters when you read your own number:
- A low Tofu Index from us means the engine went looking, read the pages that answer your buyer's query, and did not find you on them.
- It does not mean we never let it look.
- That is a problem you can fix with pages, listings and coverage. The cross-tab below shows which of those each engine reads.
It also means a jump in your number on one of the dates above is our instrument improving, not your visibility moving. Your Overview marks those dates so you never read our step as your progress.
Which engine leans on which channel
- Read a row to see where a channel pays.
- Read a column to see what an engine reads.
- Every cell says whether we counted it, the engine's maker states it, or it is our read.
The table covers every engine B2B buyers use, including any we do not currently query.
| Channel | ChatGPT | Claude | Perplexity | Gemini | Google AI Mode |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Your own site Schema, answer pages, llms.txt, crawlability | Heavy Vendor | Heavy Vendor | Heavy Measured | Heavy Our read | Heavy Vendor |
| Reviews and directories G2, Clutch, Capterra, Trustpilot, Google Business | Moderate Our read | Light Measured | Heavy Our read | Moderate Our read | Moderate Measured |
| Reddit and forums Unpaid opinion, where buyers go for the unvarnished view | Light Our read | Light Measured | Heavy Our read | Moderate Our read | Heavy Measured |
| Video YouTube. Only counts once there is a transcript | Moderate Our read | Light Our read | Moderate Our read | Heavy Our read | Heavy Measured |
| Newsletters LinkedIn, Substack, Beehiiv. Published under a named person | Moderate Our read | Light Our read | Moderate Our read | Heavy Our read | Heavy Measured |
| News and PR Earned coverage, wire pickup, journalist mentions | Heavy Vendor | Heavy Vendor | Heavy Our read | Moderate Our read | Moderate Our read |
Your own site. Your own site counts most for ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity, Gemini, Google AI Mode.
Reviews and directories. Reviews and directories counts most for Perplexity. It is a light signal for Claude.
Reddit and forums. Reddit and forums counts most for Perplexity, Google AI Mode. It is a light signal for ChatGPT, Claude.
Video. Video counts most for Gemini, Google AI Mode. It is a light signal for Claude.
Newsletters. Newsletters counts most for Gemini, Google AI Mode. It is a light signal for Claude.
News and PR. News and PR counts most for ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity.
Where this comes from
- OpenAI: publishers and developers FAQ States that a site must allow OAI-SearchBot to be eligible for ChatGPT search at all.
- OpenAI: introducing ChatGPT search The named publisher partnerships behind the news and PR row.
- Anthropic: web search tool documentation Citations are always enabled. Left to itself Claude decides when to search; our scans force the search on every query.
- Google Search Central: AI features and your website AI Overviews and AI Mode report inside the ordinary Search Console Performance report.
- Search Console Help: impressions, position and clicks How AI Mode counts a click, and why a follow-up question is treated as a new query.
- Dan Petrovic: citation mining of OpenAI grounding metadata Reddit retrieved in 76 percent of OpenAI searches and selected 0.61 percent of the time.
- Our production scan database, read 12 August 2026 46 completed reports, 34 brands, 419 buying queries, 2,421 answered buying cells. Where the per-engine mention rates come from.
- Our 15-region managed services study 743 records, 566 named by an engine, and the per-engine corroboration rates.
- What our crawler finds on real sites 39 readable crawls: 38 with no llms.txt, 26 with no FAQ schema, 16 with no Organization schema.
- How we check an AI visibility report The method behind every first-party number on this page, including what it cannot show.
Engine behaviour moves month to month. This table is maintained, not published once.
The engines, one at a time
Each guide covers how that engine retrieves and cites, sourced from its maker. Then it shows what moves your Tofu Index and your Bofu Index there.
OpenAI's crawler rules, how search results get cited, and why ads never buy the answer.
Read the guide →What Claude reads once search is on, and why corroboration beats volume.
Read the guide →The retrieval-native engine: how it picks the page it cites, and why it moves first.
Read the guide →Grounded on Google Search: Google's index, Business Profile and YouTube all feed it.
Read the guide →Our Google engine is AI Mode. AI Overviews is the results-page feature built on the same index.
Read the guide →How a G2 profile reaches AI answers for software queries, and what a review can and cannot do.
Read the guide →How Clutch profiles reach AI answers for services firms.
Read the guide →The transcript is the asset. Why video feeds Google's engines first.
Read the guide →See your AI visibility on every engine we query
Free, across ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity, Gemini and Google AI Mode: the Tofu Index half. Paid plans add the Bofu Index.
Check your AI visibility free