Which AI platforms should you actually be monitoring? Here's my experience testing all of them

Your findings match exactly what I’ve seen with my clients. The platform differences are massive and most people don’t realize it.

Here’s why each platform behaves differently:

Perplexity: Searches the web in real-time and explicitly cites sources. If you have strong, recent content, you’ll show up here first. The citations are visible to users, which makes it great for traffic too.

ChatGPT: Uses a mix of training data and web browsing. More “sticky” - once you’re in, you tend to stay. But harder to break into initially.

Google AI Overviews: Pulls from Google’s search index. If you’re not ranking organically, you won’t appear in AI Overviews either. It’s like a secondary layer on top of traditional SEO.

For the tracking problem - Am I Cited is what I use. Runs the same prompts across all platforms simultaneously and shows you the differences side-by-side. Saved me about 20 hours a month.

We went through the same discovery process 6 months ago. Here’s our current monitoring setup:

What we track:

• Same 75 prompts across ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Google AI Overviews
• Weekly cadence for most prompts
• Daily for high-priority brand queries

Biggest learnings:

1. Perplexity is the canary in the coal mine - If new content is working, it shows up on Perplexity first because of real-time indexing. If Perplexity starts mentioning you, ChatGPT usually follows within a few weeks.

2. Google AI Overviews are unpredictable - They appear for some queries and not others, even similar ones. Very hard to optimize for directly.

3. Source citations are gold - Perplexity shows exactly which URLs it pulled from. We’ve used this to identify which pages to double down on.

We use Am I Cited for the tracking - the export feature is great for monthly reports to leadership.

The different-platforms-different-results thing cost us months of wasted effort.

Our mistake: We saw we were getting mentioned on ChatGPT and assumed we were “done” with AI visibility.

Reality check: When we finally checked Perplexity and Google AI Overviews, our main competitor was dominating both. They had been optimizing for multi-platform while we were celebrating one win.

What we changed:

• Started monitoring all platforms weekly
• Created platform-specific content strategies (more citation-friendly content for Perplexity, more Q&A for Google AI)
• Set up alerts for when competitors appear where we don’t

Three months later, we’re visible across all three platforms for our core queries. But we lost 6 months by not checking earlier.

Adding a technical perspective here.

Why the discrepancies exist:

Each platform has fundamentally different architecture:

• ChatGPT: Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) that can browse but often relies on training data. Knowledge cutoff matters here.

• Perplexity: Pure real-time search. Basically a search engine with an LLM layer. Fresh content wins.

• Google AI Overviews: Pulls from Google’s existing index but re-ranks based on AI-specific signals. Intersection of SEO and AI optimization.

Practical implication: You need to track all three because gaming one doesn’t translate to the others. A fresh blog post might rocket you up on Perplexity but do nothing for ChatGPT.

We run multi-platform monitoring for about 30 clients now. Here’s our framework:

Platform Priority Matrix:

Our monitoring cadence:

• Daily: High-intent brand queries on all platforms
• Weekly: Industry comparison queries
• Monthly: Comprehensive prompt audit (150+ prompts)

Tool: We standardized on Am I Cited after trying three others. The unified dashboard view across platforms is what sold us - no more switching between tabs.

Jumping in specifically about Perplexity since that’s where I’ve focused most.

Why Perplexity is worth extra attention:

1. Growing rapidly - User base doubled in last 6 months
2. Source citations drive traffic - People actually click through
3. Real-time = opportunity - You can influence results faster than other platforms

What gets cited on Perplexity:

• Recent content (freshness matters a lot)
• Clear, structured answers
• Authoritative domains
• Content that matches search intent exactly

Pro tip: Check which sources Perplexity is citing for your target queries, then make your content better than those sources. It’s like competitive SEO but faster feedback loop.

Chiming in about Google AI Overviews since that’s my specialty.

Key insight most people miss: AI Overviews don’t just pull from top-ranking pages. They synthesize from multiple sources, and those sources can be deep in the SERPs.

What triggers AI Overview citations:

• Content that directly answers the query (not just touches on it)
• Sources Google already trusts for that topic cluster
• Content structured for extraction (clear sections, bullet points)

How this differs from regular SEO: Regular ranking = “Does this page deserve position X?” AI Overview = “Does this page have a good answer to extract?”

Different questions, different optimization approaches.

Also worth noting: tracking AI Overviews manually is nearly impossible because they don’t appear consistently across users/sessions. You need automated monitoring.

Reading this as someone with limited resources. Is multi-platform monitoring really necessary for smaller brands?

We only have bandwidth to focus on one or two things. Where should we start?

This thread is exactly what I needed. Thank you all!

My takeaways and action plan:

1. Stop treating platforms as interchangeable - Each has different data sources, timing, and optimization strategies

2. Priority order: Perplexity (quick wins) > Google AI Overviews (search traffic impact) > ChatGPT (long-term authority)

3. Set up proper monitoring - Going to try Am I Cited since multiple people recommended the unified dashboard approach

4. Track source citations - Especially on Perplexity and Google AI Overviews to understand what’s getting cited

5. Platform-specific strategies - Will develop separate optimization approaches for each based on what you all shared

The point about Perplexity being the “canary in the coal mine” for new content was particularly helpful. We publish a lot of content and having a faster feedback loop would be huge.

Will update in a few weeks with results!