MarketScale Research
Jul 14, 2026 – Oct 12, 2026Last updated October 12, 2026Latest published snapshotThe State of GEO
The State of AI Visibility for B2B Companies
Across 5 engines in this reporting window, the unweighted average mention rate is 26.98% and the unweighted average citation rate is 20.72%. ChatGPT has the highest observed mention rate at 30.2%; ChatGPT has the highest observed citation rate at 27.2%.
About this analysis
This report summarizes MarketScale’s tracked AI responses for Jul 14, 2026 – Oct 12, 2026. It describes the tracked sample, not all B2B companies or all AI answers. Results can vary by prompt, engine, location, and time. Mentions and citations do not by themselves measure leads or revenue.
Projects: 162 · Models: 5 · Prompts: 12,215 · Responses: 494,489 · Mentions: 129,774 · Citations: 98,870
Why this matters
AI engines are becoming the front door to B2B research.
Buyers increasingly open an AI engine before a search page, and most want to get deep into evaluation before they ever talk to a vendor. That makes one question decisive: when an engine answers, does it point back to you?
of B2B buyers prefer a rep-free buying experience, doing the research before they engage a salesperson.
Gartner, 2025
more visibility in generative-engine answers when content is structured for them, the headline finding of the research that named the practice.
Aggarwal et al., “Generative Engine Optimization,” SIGKDD 2024
Our read: measure mentions and citations separately, then inspect the actual answers to understand how buyers encounter your brand. Use the benchmark as a starting point for testing content improvements.
The brief
Getting named is not getting cited.
Across 5 engines in this reporting window, the unweighted average mention rate is 26.98% and the unweighted average citation rate is 20.72%. ChatGPT has the highest observed mention rate at 30.2%; ChatGPT has the highest observed citation rate at 27.2%. Mention and citation rates are measured separately. Their ratio is not the percentage of mentions that receive a citation. These aggregates do not establish why an engine cites content or whether a content change caused a result. Use the platform comparison to choose where to investigate actual answers and cited pages. Evaluate content changes against a consistent set of prompts and reporting windows before attributing improvement to a tactic.
- 01Establish a consistent prompt baseline
- 02Review which pages are actually cited
- 03Test one content improvement at a time
The benchmark
How B2B brands show up across five AI engines
Mention rate measures tracked brand mentions; citation rate measures tracked citations. These are separate rates, not successive steps in a funnel.
Mentions and citations
Getting named is not getting cited
Compare each engine’s observed mention and citation rates. The gap does not identify the source of an answer or explain why a citation was selected.
Dotted line marks mention–citation parity. Dots below it are named more than they are cited.
The quality axis
Sentiment of AI mentions by topic
Being named is not the same as being named well. A negative mention in an AI answer is a risk, not a win.
The analysis
What the data means for B2B discovery
Reading the benchmark
Use comparable measures to evaluate visibility
Across 5 engines in this reporting window, the unweighted average mention rate is 26.98% and the unweighted average citation rate is 20.72%. ChatGPT has the highest observed mention rate at 30.2%; ChatGPT has the highest observed citation rate at 27.2%. Mention and citation rates are measured separately. Their ratio is not the percentage of mentions that receive a citation. These aggregates do not establish why an engine cites content or whether a content change caused a result. Use the platform comparison to choose where to investigate actual answers and cited pages. Evaluate content changes against a consistent set of prompts and reporting windows before attributing improvement to a tactic.
These observations describe the monitored sample. Differences in prompts, brands and response counts can affect comparisons; the benchmark alone cannot identify the content tactic responsible.
- →Keep a consistent set of buyer questions for repeated measurement.
- →Inspect the actual cited pages before selecting a content experiment.
- →Compare complete reporting windows and record changes to the sample.
In summary
What the data tells marketers
Across 5 engines in this reporting window, the unweighted average mention rate is 26.98% and the unweighted average citation rate is 20.72%. ChatGPT has the highest observed mention rate at 30.2%; ChatGPT has the highest observed citation rate at 27.2%.
CMO playbook
What to do next
Three moves that close the gap between getting named and getting cited. Each is its own play, because every engine rewards something else.
Establish a consistent prompt baseline
1 priorityChanging the prompt set can change the measured rate.
Choose representative buyer questions and keep them stable across reporting windows.
mention rate
Review which pages are actually cited
2 priorityCitation rates alone do not explain why a page was selected.
Inspect cited sources on the engines your buyers use and identify specific evidence gaps.
citation rate
Test one content improvement at a time
3 priorityTreat tactics as experiments until their effect has been measured.
Record the change date and compare complete windows with the same prompts; review other changes before assigning causation.
citation rate
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