- A structured template to compare your AI citation presence against 5 competitors side by side
- Tests 20 industry queries across ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Google AI Overviews
- Includes scoring methodology, a filled-out example, and action items based on gaps
- Takes about 2 hours for a full competitive analysis
You Can’t Win a Race You’re Not Tracking
Most brands know their Google ranking positions relative to competitors. They track keyword rankings, backlink counts, domain authority. Standard stuff.
But almost nobody tracks AI citations competitively. They don’t know if ChatGPT recommends their competitor instead of them. They don’t know if Perplexity cites a rival’s blog post for their target query. They’re flying blind in the channel growing at 527% year over year.
This template fixes that. You’ll test 20 industry queries across 3 major AI platforms and map exactly who gets cited. The output is a competitive gap analysis that tells you where to focus.
Step 1: Pick Your Competitors
Choose 5 competitors. Not just your traditional SEO competitors. Your AI search competitors.
These might be different groups. A company that barely ranks on Google might get cited constantly by Perplexity because they publish well-structured, data-rich content. And a Google #1 result might never appear in ChatGPT responses.
How to Identify AI Search Competitors
Ask ChatGPT and Perplexity “What are the best [your industry] companies?” See who gets mentioned.
Your Google search competitors are a starting point. They likely compete for the same AI citations.
Companies that publish research, original data, or tools often get cited more than bigger brands with thin content.
Add a brand from an adjacent industry or a smaller player you’ve noticed getting AI mentions. Sometimes the most useful insights come from unexpected competitors.
Step 2: Build Your Query List
You need 20 queries. These should be questions your target customers actually ask. Split them into four categories:
| Category | Count | Examples |
|---|---|---|
| Definition/What is | 5 | “What is [industry term]?” “What does [your product type] do?” |
| Comparison/Best | 5 | “Best [product] for [use case]” “[Brand A] vs [Brand B]” |
| How to | 5 | “How to [solve problem]” “How to choose [product type]” |
| Industry-specific | 5 | Technical questions, trend queries, niche topics specific to your space |
The mix matters. Definition queries test whether AI engines recognize your brand as an authority. Comparison queries show if you’re being recommended. How-to queries reveal if your content gets cited as a resource. Industry queries test your depth.
Step 3: Run the Analysis
For each query, search on three platforms and record which competitors get cited.
Search on Perplexity
Run all 20 queries on perplexity.ai. Record every source cited. Perplexity always shows sources, making it the easiest to audit. For details on its ranking factors, read how Perplexity ranks sources.
Search on ChatGPT
Use ChatGPT with web browsing enabled. Run the same 20 queries. Record cited sources. Note: ChatGPT doesn’t always cite sources, so document when it provides an answer without citations too. See how ChatGPT selects sources for context.
Check Google AI Overviews
Search the 20 queries on Google. For queries that trigger AI Overviews, record which sources are cited in the overview. Not all queries will trigger AI Overviews.
Use our free AI citation checker to speed up some of these checks.
Step 4: Fill the Competitive Matrix
Create a spreadsheet with this structure:
| Query | Platform | Your Brand | Comp. A | Comp. B | Comp. C | Comp. D | Comp. E |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| What is [topic]? | Perplexity | ✅ Cited | ✅ Cited | ❌ | ❌ | ✅ Cited | ❌ |
| What is [topic]? | ChatGPT | ❌ | ✅ Cited | ❌ | ✅ Cited | ❌ | ❌ |
| What is [topic]? | Google AIO | ❌ | ❌ | ✅ Cited | ❌ | ✅ Cited | ❌ |
| Best [product]? | Perplexity | ✅ Cited | ✅ Cited | ✅ Cited | ❌ | ❌ | ✅ Cited |
Yes, this creates a lot of rows (20 queries × 3 platforms = 60 rows). That’s the point. You want the detailed view.
Step 5: Calculate Citation Scores
For each competitor (including yourself), calculate these metrics:
Citation Frequency: Total citations / Total possible citations (60 for each brand). A brand cited 15 times out of 60 scores 25%.
Platform Coverage: Cited on all 3 platforms = 3. Just Perplexity = 1. This matters because a brand only showing up on one platform has a fragile presence.
Category Strength: Which query categories (definition, comparison, how-to, industry) does each competitor win? This shows topical strengths.
Step 6: Identify the Gaps
Now compare your scores to each competitor. The gaps are your opportunities.
| Scenario | What It Means | What to Do |
|---|---|---|
| Competitor cited, you’re not | They have content or authority you lack for that query | Analyze their cited page. What makes it citable? Create something better. |
| You’re cited on Perplexity but not ChatGPT | Platform-specific gap. Different engines weight different signals. | Review what ChatGPT favors for that query type. Often it’s training data presence vs. web content. |
| Nobody gets cited | Content gap in the market. No one has strong enough content for this query. | Opportunity. Create the definitive resource for this query and you’ll likely win the citation. |
| You’re cited but competitor isn’t | Your content is working. Protect this advantage. | Keep the content updated. Don’t let it go stale. |
A Real Example
Here’s a simplified version of an analysis I did for a marketing automation company in January 2026:
| Brand | Citation Frequency | Perplexity | ChatGPT | Google AIO | Strongest Category |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| My client | 18% | 7/20 | 2/20 | 2/20 | How-to |
| HubSpot | 55% | 12/20 | 10/20 | 11/20 | All categories |
| Competitor B | 30% | 10/20 | 5/20 | 3/20 | Comparison |
| Competitor C | 22% | 6/20 | 4/20 | 3/20 | Definition |
| Competitor D | 12% | 4/20 | 2/20 | 1/20 | Industry |
| Competitor E | 8% | 3/20 | 1/20 | 1/20 | None strong |
The takeaway? My client had decent Perplexity presence (how-to content) but was almost invisible on ChatGPT and Google. HubSpot dominated everything because they have massive content depth and authority. The realistic goal wasn’t to beat HubSpot. It was to close the gap with Competitor B and C.
Three months later, after targeted content improvements based on this analysis, citation frequency went from 18% to 31%. Not by trying to compete everywhere, but by doubling down on the “how-to” category where they were already strong and expanding into “comparison” queries.
Turning Analysis Into Action
Data without action is just trivia. Here’s how to turn your competitive analysis into a content plan:
List Your Citation Gaps
Every query where a competitor is cited and you’re not. Sort by business value (which queries would drive the most valuable traffic if you won the citation).
Analyze Cited Pages
For each gap, look at the competitor’s cited page. What’s their word count? How is it structured? Do they use data and citations? Do they have schema markup?
Create or Improve Your Content
For each priority gap, either create a new page or improve an existing one. Focus on the AI search signals that matter: direct answers, entity coverage, factual density, and proper structure.
Re-test in 90 Days
Run the full competitive analysis again after 90 days. AI engines update their responses as they discover and index new content.
For the full playbook on improving your content for AI search, check our AI search improvement checklist.
Tips for a Better Analysis
Run queries in incognito mode. AI platforms can personalize results based on your history. Incognito gives you a cleaner baseline.
Test at the same time of day. AI responses can vary slightly. Running all queries in one session reduces variability.
Document the full response, not just citations. Sometimes an AI engine mentions your brand without linking to you. That’s a different signal (brand recognition vs. content citation). Both matter.
Don’t compare yourself to unfair benchmarks. If you’re a 20-person agency, don’t measure yourself against HubSpot. Compare against companies of similar size and content resources. Big brands have unfair entity advantages that take years to build.
Look for non-obvious competitors. Sometimes the brand getting cited isn’t even a direct competitor. It might be a media site, a consultant’s blog, or a review platform. These are your content competitors, and they matter just as much. Understanding your AI citation landscape starts with knowing who’s actually getting cited.
How Often to Run This Analysis
Quarterly. AI engines update frequently, and the competitive landscape shifts fast. What I’ve observed:
- Citation patterns change significantly every 60-90 days
- New competitors can appear quickly (a single well-written piece can earn citations within weeks)
- Model updates (new GPT versions, Perplexity algorithm changes) reshuffle citations
Set a calendar reminder. Run the analysis. Update your content strategy. Repeat. That’s the whole game in AI search right now.
For the broader strategic context, our AI search improvement guide covers the foundations you need to build on.
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Frequently Asked Questions
Five is the sweet spot. Fewer than 3 doesn’t give you enough comparison data. More than 7 makes the analysis unwieldy and takes too long. Pick your top 5 most relevant competitors, including both traditional and content-focused competitors.
About 2 hours for the initial analysis. That includes running 20 queries across 3 platforms and documenting all citations. Subsequent quarterly analyses take less time (about 90 minutes) because you already have the query list and spreadsheet set up.
Partially. Tools like AEO God Mode Pro (£9/mo, about $12/mo) track citation presence over time. But the competitive analysis component, comparing your citations against specific competitors, still requires manual query testing as of March 2026. The automation landscape is improving though.
That’s actually an opportunity. It means the AI engines haven’t found strong enough content for that query yet. If you create a well-structured, data-rich page targeting that query, you have a strong chance of winning the citation with no competition.