Glossary term
AI search
AI search is any search experience where a language model retrieves pages and writes the answer itself, instead of handing back a ranked list of links. ChatGPT search, Perplexity, Claude with web search, Gemini and Google's AI Overviews all work this way. The result is a short answer that names a few brands and links a few sources.
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Question: AI search optimization for seed-stage startups
ChatGPT answered: AI search optimization (GEO) for seed-stage startups is about becoming a trusted source that AI engines cite—not just ranking on Google. … Avoid spending early budget on “AI hacks” or special markup promises. GEO is mostly strong SEO fundamentals plus making your expertise easy for AI systems to retrieve and cite.
Sources cited
- 1crowdstax.com
- 2support.storeconnect.com
- 3cituna.com
- 4arxiv.org
- 5redliolabs.com
Not namedAttensira is missing from this ChatGPT answer.
Analyst · reads this workspace's answersattensira.com workspace, read over the Attensira MCP · · n=24 answers to this question in 30 days, Attensira named in 0
Last updated
Key facts
What does AI search look like from the website's side?
It looks like a short list of sources you either made or did not. Take one question from our own attensira.com workspace, "AI search optimization for seed-stage startups", asked of both engines every day. Over the 30 days to 4 October 2026, read over the Attensira MCP, here are the domains each engine attached most often:
1st
- ChatGPT (12 answers, 429 citations)
- developers.google.com, 79
- Perplexity (12 answers, 114 citations)
- topify.ai, 17
2nd
- ChatGPT (12 answers, 429 citations)
- help.openai.com, 55
- Perplexity (12 answers, 114 citations)
- averi.ai, 10
3rd
- ChatGPT (12 answers, 429 citations)
- arxiv.org, 20
- Perplexity (12 answers, 114 citations)
- stackmatix.com, 10
Same question, same days, no overlap in the top three. ChatGPT leaned on the platforms' own documentation and research papers; Perplexity leaned on vendor and agency guides. Attensira was named in none of the 24 answers. That is AI search from a website's side: the engine decides which few pages speak for a topic, and each engine decides differently.
What is AI search?
It is search where a language model does the reading. A question goes in; a search step retrieves pages; the model reads passages from them and writes an answer, usually with a few source links. The technique underneath is retrieval-augmented generation.
The output changes the economics of being found. A results page shows ten links and lets the reader choose. An AI answer names two or three options in prose. If you are not one of them, you were not considered. Pew Research Center found AI summaries on 18% of 68,879 Google searches it tracked in March 2025, and Google is only one of the places this now happens.
How does AI search find your pages?
Through crawlers, and each operator runs several with different jobs. OpenAI documents OAI-SearchBot for ChatGPT search, GPTBot for model training and ChatGPT-User for fetches a person asks for. Perplexity documents PerplexityBot for its index and Perplexity-User for user-initiated fetches. Anthropic runs ClaudeBot, Claude-User and Claude-SearchBot. Google's AI Overviews draw on the ordinary search index Googlebot builds.
That split matters for robots.txt. Blocking a training crawler and blocking a search crawler are different decisions with different consequences. And user-initiated fetchers may not follow robots.txt at all: Perplexity says Perplexity-User generally ignores it, and OpenAI says robots.txt rules may not apply to ChatGPT-User. The crawler directory lists each agent and what it does.
Which crawlers fetch pages for AI search?
On attensira.com, in the 30 days to 4 October 2026, three of the agents that fetch for search indexes made 7,643 of 143,601 AI-crawler requests. OpenAI's search agent led at about 6,481, a derived share of OpenAI's total; PerplexityBot and bingbot followed. Every row is the user agent the request claimed; none was IP-verified.
| Name | Requests from search-index agents | Count |
|---|---|---|
| OAI-SearchBot (~86% of OpenAI's 7,536) | 4.5% | 6,481 |
| PerplexityBot | 0.4% | 621 |
| bingbot | 0.4% | 541 |
Researcher · reads this site's AI-crawler trafficattensira.com workspace, read over the Attensira MCP · · n=143,601 AI-crawler requestsHow is AI search different from Google search?
Output
- Ordinary search
- A ranked list of links
- AI search
- A written answer with a few links
Unit that competes
- Ordinary search
- A page
- AI search
- A passage
Who reads the pages
- Ordinary search
- The person
- AI search
- The model
What you can win
- Ordinary search
- A position
- AI search
- A mention, a citation, or both
Can you see it in your analytics?
- Ordinary search
- Clicks and impressions
- AI search
- Mostly not: you sample the answers
The last row is the practical difference. Search engines report impressions. AI engines do not tell you when they mention you, so the only way to know is to ask the questions and read the answers, repeatedly. See AI search performance.
What are the objections to taking AI search seriously?
"AI search is a fad; Google still sends the traffic." Google itself now answers with AI on a share of searches. The question is not which channel wins but whether you are named where buyers ask.
"If we rank on Google we are covered." Each AI engine has its own index and source preferences, as the seed-stage table shows. Ranking helps you be a candidate on Google's surfaces; it does not carry over automatically elsewhere.
"Blocking AI crawlers protects our content." It can also remove you from answers. Decide training and search separately.
"We can't measure it." You can, by sampling. Every rate needs its sample size beside it, and a change needs to clear the noise before it means anything.
How does Attensira work with AI search?
Attensira reads the questions your buyers ask on the AI engines every day and records whether each answer names you, links you, and which sources decided it. Its crew then does the work: fixes your pages, earns placements on the sources each engine prefers, and ships each change after your approval. That is the service of an SEO agency at the price of a tool. Which engines Attensira reads lists each engine and what is read on it.
Questions about AI search
What is AI search?
What separates AI search from ordinary search?
Which crawler does an AI search product use?
Do user-triggered fetches obey robots.txt?
Do all AI search engines use the same sources?
Where do these facts come from?
4 sources: each statement with the page it came from and the day it was checked.
In a Pew Research Center study of 68,879 Google searches made by 900 US adults during March 2025, 18% of searches generated an AI summary.
pewresearch.org · retrieved
In the attensira.com workspace, read over the Attensira MCP on 4 October 2026, the 12 ChatGPT answers to 'AI search optimization for seed-stage startups' between 5 September and 4 October 2026 attached 429 citations, led by developers.google.com 79, help.openai.com 55 and arxiv.org 20; the 12 Perplexity answers attached 114, led by topify.ai 17, averi.ai 10 and stackmatix.com 10. Attensira was named in 0 of the 24 answers.
attensira.com · retrieved
In the 30 days to 4 October 2026, attensira.com's AI-crawler log, read over the Attensira MCP, recorded 143,601 AI-crawler requests by claimed user agent, none IP-verified, including about 6,481 from OAI-SearchBot (derived as 86% of OpenAI's 7,536), 621 from PerplexityBot and 541 from bingbot, 7,643 together.
OpenAI documents OAI-SearchBot as used to surface websites in ChatGPT's search features, GPTBot for training foundation models, and states robots.txt rules may not apply to user-initiated ChatGPT-User actions.
developers.openai.com · retrieved
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