An AI engine may cite a source that appears in its retrieval for a given question. In Citevio's engine panel measurement on 7–8 August 2026, citevio.com appeared in 5 of 16 buyer-intent agency-selection questions across ChatGPT and Perplexity combined and did not appear in 11. The measurement records outcomes, not a universal explanation for why a source was selected.
We publish the boundaries of our own measurement rather than presenting a formula. The question set was about choosing an AI-visibility agency, not about finding a dentist or choosing a dental practice.
What did we measure?
In Citevio's engine panel measurement on 7–8 August 2026, we ran 16 buyer-intent agency-selection questions on ChatGPT and Perplexity and checked whether citevio.com, our own domain, appeared. It appeared in 5 of 16 questions across the two engines combined and did not appear in 11. In those 11 questions, citevio.com was cited 0 times.
| What we counted | Value |
|---|---|
| Buyer-intent agency-selection questions run | 16 |
| Questions where citevio.com appeared | 5 |
| Questions where citevio.com did not appear | 11 |
| Times citevio.com was cited in those 11 questions | 0 |
The zero is an outcome from our own domain, citevio.com. It is not evidence about what will happen in another question set or on another date.
This is one measurement window, not a trend. A domain appearing here does not mean it will appear reliably. Gemini was not part of this measurement window. Its separate repeat run on 11 August 2026 returned quota errors, so no Gemini outcome is claimed.
What kinds of sources can an AI engine cite?
We do not publish individual domains or agencies from this measurement because the underlying responses contain unverified third-party claims. We discuss only broad source categories, such as directory sites, review platforms, agency blogs and local news.
Before source selection can happen, crawler access is a separate, measurable gate. Citevio's national study read 6,497 readable US dental practice robots.txt files on 22 July 2026 and tested 13 AI and data crawlers.
For a separate numbered inventory of readable on-page information, see the dental website checklist for AI search.
Those categories do not explain why an engine selected a source. Citevio did not test ranking signals, backlink profiles, schema markup or other possible contributors to citation selection.
Do AI Overviews cite small practice sites?
Citevio has not published a small-practice AI Overviews citation measurement; the section below describes documented mechanics, not our own data.
Google documents that a page must be indexed and eligible to appear in Google Search with a snippet to qualify as a supporting link in AI Overviews or AI Mode. No special AI schema or AI text file is required. Meeting those requirements does not guarantee that Google will show the page. These are eligibility conditions, not an explanation of why one eligible source is selected over another. For our methodology, see how we measure AI visibility.
What does this measurement tell you, and what does it not tell you?
Citevio's engine panel measurement on 7–8 August 2026 records outcomes from ChatGPT and Perplexity in one measurement window of 16 buyer-intent agency-selection questions. It does not tell us why a source was selected, and it does not generalize to patient-facing dental questions or to a specific dental practice.
This is a snapshot of which sources two engines cited on one day, in one question set. It is not a ranking factor list, and we have not tested what changes a citation.
What did Perplexity do differently in our measurements?
How Perplexity chooses which local business to name is not something we know, and Perplexity does not publish it. What can be reported is behaviour rather than mechanism: in the practice study, Perplexity named local dental practices more often than ChatGPT did. On the one flagship question we compared across two runs, ChatGPT's top pick stayed the same and Perplexity's changed. That comparison does not establish how often either engine changes its answers across a question set.
These three separate measurements have different scopes, and each carries its own denominator rather than being pooled into one figure.
| What was measured | ChatGPT | Perplexity |
|---|---|---|
| Practices named 527-practice study, 6–26 June 2026 | 3 of the 415 it could read for (0.7%) | 18 of the 297 it could read for (6.1%) |
| Top pick on the flagship question across two runs One buyer-intent question, two runs per engine, August 2026 | The same top pick on both runs of that question | The top pick changed between the two runs of that question |
| Free-tool query: one of three queries, run twice per engine evening of 15 August 2026, 12 of 12 API calls completed across all three queries | 0 of 2 runs named us on the free-tool query; 4 of 4 on the other two queries | 2 of 2 runs named us on the free-tool query; 4 of 4 on the other two queries |
The third row covers the query 'free tool to check if my dental practice appears in AI search', one of three queries tested through the engines' APIs rather than their consumer apps. All 12 of 12 calls across the three queries completed. On the other two queries, about an AI search visibility agency for cosmetic dentists and a GEO agency for an Invisalign practice, each engine named Citevio in 4 of 4 runs. These are one evening's results rather than a trend.
What none of this supports is the conclusion a reader most wants to draw from it. Naming more practices is not the same as naming your practice, and a changed top pick on one question does not establish the stability of answers to other questions. A higher rate on one engine is a fact about the sample, not a route in. Whether one engine is genuinely easier to win than the other is a different question with its own page: do AI engines agree with each other about dental practices.
None of these three measurements tested a mechanism. No ranking signal was varied, nothing was changed and re-measured, and no engine documentation describes the selection Perplexity performed. What was recorded is what came back. How the sampling is set up, and what it deliberately cannot show, is on how we measure AI visibility.
Citevio's dental market research is published openly under CC-BY-4.0 with a DOI, so the numbers can be checked and reused; client data is never published.
Sources: Google Search Central, AI features and your website; OpenAI, ChatGPT search; Perplexity, What is Perplexity?; Citevio open dataset, Zenodo DOI 10.5281/zenodo.23143214; methodology: how we measure AI visibility.
Which questions are commonly asked about AI citations?
Do AI Overviews cite small practice sites?
We have not measured this. Citevio has not published a small-practice AI Overviews citation measurement, so we cannot say what share of AI Overviews citations point to small practice sites. Google documents that a supporting page must be indexed and eligible to appear in Google Search with a snippet. Eligibility does not guarantee inclusion, and no special AI schema is required. Those conditions do not establish a small-practice citation rate.
What kinds of sources got cited in the measurement?
We do not publish individual domains or agencies from this measurement because the underlying responses contain unverified third-party claims. We discuss only broad source categories, such as directory sites, review platforms, agency blogs and local news.
Does this measurement explain why those sources were cited?
No. It records outcomes from one measurement window for one question set. It does not test why an engine picked one source over another, and Citevio has not run a controlled test that would answer that question.
Was citevio.com cited in this measurement?
Yes — in 5 of the 16 buyer-intent agency-selection questions across ChatGPT and Perplexity combined, a citevio.com URL was among the sources. In the other 11 questions, citevio.com was cited 0 times. In Citevio's engine panel measurement on 7–8 August 2026, 'appeared' means Citevio was named in the answer or a citevio.com URL was among the sources; 'cited' specifically means a citevio.com URL was among the sources.
How many of the 16 questions did citevio.com actually appear in?
5 of 16. In Citevio's engine panel measurement on 7–8 August 2026, citevio.com appeared in 5 of the 16 buyer-intent agency-selection questions across ChatGPT and Perplexity combined, and did not appear in the other 11.
Did this citation measurement include Gemini?
No. Gemini was not part of the 7–8 August 2026 measurement window. Its separate repeat run on 11 August 2026 returned quota errors, so no Gemini outcome is claimed for the 16 buyer-intent agency-selection questions.
Does Perplexity behave differently from ChatGPT in Citevio's measurements?
The observations have different scopes. In the practice study, Perplexity named local dental practices more often than ChatGPT (18 of 297 readable practices in the 527-practice study, against ChatGPT's 3 of 415). On the one flagship question we compared across two runs, ChatGPT's top pick stayed the same and Perplexity's changed. This describes that question, not the stability of every answer in the set. A higher naming rate on one engine is a fact about that sample, not a reliable route in.
What happened when you ran the same query twice through each engine's API on 15 August 2026?
For 'free tool to check if my dental practice appears in AI search', one of three queries tested that evening, ChatGPT named Citevio in 0 of 2 runs and Perplexity in 2 of 2. The 12 of 12 completed API calls covered all three queries, with two runs per engine per query. On the other two queries, about an AI search visibility agency for cosmetic dentists and a GEO agency for an Invisalign practice, each engine named Citevio in 4 of 4 runs. These are one evening's results rather than a trend.
Does this measurement tell you anything about patient-facing dental search questions?
No. The 16 questions in this measurement were about choosing an AI-visibility agency, not about finding a dentist or choosing a dental practice, so the outcomes don't generalize to patient-facing dental questions or to a specific dental practice.
Can I check the underlying data behind this measurement myself?
The DOI links to Citevio's published dental market research under a CC-BY-4.0 licence. It should not be treated as evidence that this 16-question measurement is included in that record. Client data is never published.
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