Yext study reveals how ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini choose citations

Yext’s analysis of 17.2 million AI citations across ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini and Claude found that verified, structured, directly distributed data accounted for 54.53% of distinct citation sources. Websites also produced 4.31 citations per URL.

Gemini was tied closely to Google Search, which pushed it toward authoritative, well-structured brand sites and official sources. Perplexity was more search-first, with citation behavior that stayed relatively stable across sectors and a habit of mixing official websites with directories. Claude leaned far harder on user-generated content than the others, with Limited Control citations running 2-4 times higher across the seven sectors Yext studied.

In hotels, SearchGPT cited official hotel websites 38.1% of the time, while competing models ranged from 16.7% to 22.4%.

Google says AI Overviews and AI Mode may use a query fan-out method to search subtopics and data sources, and that no special optimizations are required beyond standard SEO best practices. Google recommends unique, valuable content, strong page experience, accessible pages and structured data that matches visible content. AI Overviews expanded from more than 100 countries and territories in October 2024 to more than 200 countries and territories and more than 40 languages in May 2025, after reaching more than 1 billion users globally each month.

In Yext’s survey of 2,237 consumers across the United States, the United Kingdom, France and Germany, 75% said they use AI tools more than they did a year earlier, 43% said they use AI search daily or more, 48% said they cross-check answers across platforms and only 10% trust the first result. Anthropic launched Claude Citations on June 23, 2025, and said it delivered up to 15% better recall accuracy in internal evaluations.