Your Competitor Is Showing Up in ChatGPT and You're Not

The 60-Second AI Visibility Check

Here's something that should worry you if you run marketing for a B2B SaaS company. Open ChatGPT right now and type: "What is the best [your category] software?" — whatever category you compete in. Privacy management, CRM, project management, HR tech, whatever.

Look at the response. Is your brand mentioned? What position are you in? Is the language positive, neutral, or are you just not there at all?

Now do the same thing in Perplexity. And then check Google's AI Overviews by searching the same query in Google and looking at the AI-generated box at the top.

What You'll Probably Find

If you're like most B2B SaaS companies I work with, here's what you'll discover: your main competitor is showing up, and you're not. Or you're mentioned but buried — listed 4th or 5th while your competitor is getting a full paragraph with feature highlights.

This matters because AI-assisted search is growing fast. Gartner estimates that by 2026, traditional search traffic to commercial websites will drop 25% as buyers shift to AI assistants. Your prospect is asking ChatGPT "what's the best compliance automation tool" instead of Googling it. If you're invisible in that response, you don't exist in their consideration set.

The comparison query is even more revealing

Try this: "Compare [your brand] vs [your competitor]." This is the highest-intent query a buyer can ask. They already know both options and are making a decision. If the AI response favors your competitor — or worse, if your brand doesn't even generate a useful comparison — you're losing deals you never knew existed.

Why This Is Happening

AI platforms build responses from indexed web content, but they don't just scrape your homepage. They favor structured, authoritative content that makes clear factual claims. If your website reads like marketing copy — vague, benefits-focused, buzzword-heavy — AI models will skip it in favor of sources that state things directly.

Your competitor's blog post titled "Complete Guide to [Category]: Features, Pricing, and Comparison" is getting cited because it contains the specific, factual information AI models need to build a response. Your homepage that says "Transform your business with our industry-leading platform" gives them nothing to work with.

What To Do About It

Three things, in priority order:

1. Create definitive comparison content

Build a page for every major competitor comparison: "[Your Brand] vs [Competitor]." Be honest, be specific, include actual feature comparisons. AI models reward factual specificity. If you write the definitive comparison page, AI platforms will cite it instead of letting someone else define the narrative.

2. Structure your content for AI extraction

Clear H2/H3 headings, direct factual statements, feature lists with specific capabilities. AI models need discrete, extractable facts — not flowing prose. Think of every paragraph as a potential answer to a question an AI assistant might be asked.

3. Build topical authority, not just individual pages

AI platforms assess source authority across topics, not just individual pages. A cluster of 8-12 interconnected pages covering your category from multiple angles signals expertise. One lonely blog post about your category does not.