Your Competitor Is Being Recommended by ChatGPT. What Should You Do?

Your competitor keeps showing up in ChatGPT answers and you don't. Before you panic, here's how to understand why they appear — and what genuinely useful steps you can take.

You ask ChatGPT a question your customers might ask.

Your competitor appears.

You don't.

So you ask the question again.

Different wording.

Different day.

Maybe a different AI assistant.

Your competitor keeps showing up.

Before you panic and start publishing 100 blog posts, take a step back.

The first thing to understand is why they're appearing.

ChatGPT says its search results are ranked using multiple factors designed to surface relevant and reliable information, and placement isn't guaranteed.

So the useful question isn't:

"How do we beat our competitor in ChatGPT?"

It's:

"What information is available about them that might be helping an AI system understand their relevance?"

Start with the question, not the competitor

Take the exact question where your competitor appears.

For example:

"What are the best payroll platforms for UK startups?"

Don't immediately search your competitor's name.

Look at the answer.

Why did the AI include them?

Was it because they:

• Specifically serve startups?
• Have UK-specific information?
• Have strong reviews?
• Are mentioned by industry publications?
• Have detailed comparison content?
• Have a well-defined product?
• Have a lot of publicly available information?

You are looking for patterns.

Check what the AI says about your competitor

Ask the same AI assistant:

"Why did you recommend [competitor]?"

You may get useful clues.

Perhaps it describes the company as:

"Specialized in payroll for startups."

Now look at your own website.

Do you clearly say that you specialize in startups?

Maybe you do.

Maybe you don't.

Maybe you say something vague like "helping businesses simplify payroll."

That's a positioning gap worth investigating.

Look at the sources

This is where AI search becomes particularly interesting.

ChatGPT search can provide citations and links to sources it used. Perplexity also builds answers from web sources and provides citations so users can inspect them.

Look at those sources.

Are they:

• Your competitor's website?
• Industry publications?
• Reviews?
• Directories?
• Customer stories?
• Comparison websites?
• Reddit discussions?
• News articles?

You might discover that the competitor isn't necessarily doing something magical.

There may simply be more useful information available about them.

Compare the two businesses

Create a simple table.

| Question | Your company | Competitor | | ---------------------------- | ------------ | ---------- | | Clearly defines category | Yes/No | Yes/No | | Clearly defines audience | Yes/No | Yes/No | | Detailed product pages | Yes/No | Yes/No | | Comparison content | Yes/No | Yes/No | | Customer evidence | Yes/No | Yes/No | | Independent coverage | Yes/No | Yes/No | | Reviews | Yes/No | Yes/No | | Relevant educational content | Yes/No | Yes/No |

You're not trying to copy the competitor.

You're trying to identify where the public information about your business is thinner, less clear, or less specific.

Don't create fake "authority"

This is where some GEO advice gets questionable.

Don't start buying hundreds of low-quality backlinks.

Don't create fake reviews.

Don't publish dozens of nearly identical articles.

Don't ask websites to mention your brand just to manufacture AI citations.

Google's current guidance specifically warns against scaled content abuse and says there are no special tricks required for its AI search features. Its guidance continues to point back to useful, original content and strong SEO fundamentals.

Build genuine evidence instead.

Create the information that's missing

If your competitor has a detailed article explaining how their product works for healthcare companies, and you also serve healthcare companies, consider creating your own useful resource.

If customers regularly ask how you compare with a major competitor, write a factual comparison.

If your homepage doesn't clearly explain your audience, fix it.

If your product page is vague, rewrite it.

If your case studies don't explain actual customer outcomes, improve them.

That's a much healthier approach than trying to "hack" an AI answer.

Test again

After you've made changes, return to the same prompts.

Don't expect an immediate or guaranteed change.

AI search isn't a traditional ranking position.

Keep a record of:

• The original question
• The original answer
• Competitors mentioned
• Sources cited
• Changes you made
• New answers over time

This gives you something measurable.

One competitor appearing doesn't mean they're winning

This is important.

AI answers can change based on:

• The exact wording of the question
• Location
• Freshness of information
• Available sources
• The user's context
• The AI system being used

So don't make a major marketing decision because your competitor appeared in one answer.

Test a meaningful set of questions.

Look for patterns.

The better question

Instead of asking:

"How do I get ChatGPT to recommend me instead of my competitor?"

Ask:

"What would a potential customer need to know to understand why our company is relevant?"

Then make that information easy to find.

That's useful whether the customer arrives through Google, ChatGPT, Perplexity, LinkedIn, or a recommendation from a colleague.

And that's a much better long-term AI visibility strategy than chasing a single answer.