Topic
How ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, Copilot, and Google AI Mode build answers, and how to measure what they say.
Every AI app picks a search API assuming it's basically Google. We ran the same 500 queries through Brave, Tavily, Exa, and the Perplexity Search API against cloro's live Google SERP. The result is a spectrum that runs from "Google's sources reordered" to "a different web by design", plus one thing every vendor shares.
Grounding is when an AI engine answers from live web results instead of training memory. We measured it across six engines on ~2,500 prompts each. Five ground 91–98% of the time, and one, Gemini, grounds just 41%.
If your LangChain or LangGraph agent searches the web, it's probably searching with Tavily, not Google. So how close is Tavily to Google? We put the same 500 queries through both. It's the closest of any search API we've measured, but it reranks Google's sources into an order of its own.
Reputation no longer lives only in reviews and headlines. It's what ChatGPT, Perplexity, and AI Overviews say about you, and no incumbent stack watches that layer.
Exa searches the web by meaning, not keywords. So how different is it from Google, really? We ran 500 identical queries through Exa and cloro's live Google SERP. The overlap is the lowest of any search API we've measured, and that's exactly the point.
There are three different "Perplexity webs": the Search API, the answer users see, and Google. Most people conflate them. We ran 500 identical queries through the Perplexity Search API and cloro's live Google SERP to measure exactly how far apart they sit.
Ten AI rank tracking dashboards, measured against running the tracking yourself on an API: engine coverage, pricing, and which way suits your team.
Travelers now plan trips inside ChatGPT, and when an AI answer recommends a hotel it cites Tripadvisor, Expedia, and Condé Nast Traveler far more than the property's own website. Direct hotel sites appear in about 6% of citations, and only for the largest chains. Hotel and travel SEO in 2026 is about being present in the sources AI reads.
The 2018 voice-SEO playbook optimized for a pipeline that no longer exists. In 2026 the assistants people talk to are large language models, and we tested it: six AI engines answered 100% of ~1,900 spoken-style questions. Optimizing for voice search is now the same work as optimizing for AI answers.
