We’ve been spending a lot of time in HubSpot AEO lately, tracking AI brand visibility across ChatGPT, Gemini, and Perplexity for multiple clients clients.
And something interesting happened over the past couple of weeks.
There was a lot of discussion in the AEO/SEO community after data showed Reddit’s share of ChatGPT Search citations dropping dramatically, reportedly from 3.83% to 0.52% in just a few days. Source: Reddit’s ChatGPT Search citations fell 86% in four days: Report
The immediate reaction from a lot of people was: “ChatGPT killed Reddit.”
And then came the questions:
- Should brands stop focusing on Reddit?
- Does Reddit still matter for AEO?
- Do we need to change our ChatGPT strategy?
But when we looked at our clients inside HubSpot AEO after the same ChatGPT update, we saw something that made this much more interesting.
ChatGPT brand visibility increased significantly across multiple clients.
I’ve attached screenshots of a few examples.
And some of these companies actively use Reddit as part of their AEO and content strategy.
Of course, correlation doesn’t equal causation. We’re not saying the ChatGPT update caused these increases.
But I think there’s a bigger lesson here.
AEO probably shouldn’t be about optimizing for one source
The more we track this in HubSpot, the more I think focusing on individual citation sources or short-term model changes can send us in the wrong direction.
We’re also seeing meaningful differences between engines.
ChatGPT appears to lean heavily on broader consensus around a brand, established entities, reviews, directories, discussions, third-party mentions, and other signals that reinforce what the web already knows about a company.
Gemini appears more closely connected to Google’s understanding of the brand, including technical SEO, E-E-A-T, YouTube, Google Business Profile, schema, and entity relationships.
Perplexity often behaves more like a live research engine, where fresh content, original research, statistics, comparisons, and directly citable sources can become particularly important.
I wouldn’t consider any of those hard rules. These systems are evolving too quickly for that. And that’s actually the point.
This reminds me a lot of long-term SEO
For years, every major Google update created a new wave of tactics and “hacks.” But companies doing SEO the right way didn’t have to completely reinvent their strategy after every update. They kept building authority, publishing genuinely useful content, earning mentions and links, strengthening their brand, and answering the questions their customers were actually asking.
Algorithms changed. The fundamentals didn’t.
I think we’re heading toward the same thing with AEO.
Instead of asking: “What’s working in ChatGPT right now?”
Maybe the better question is: “How do we create enough credible evidence across the web that ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, and whatever comes next all reach the same conclusion about our brand?”
We’ve started thinking about this as AI consensus.
- Your website says you’re an expert.
- Your YouTube content demonstrates that expertise.
- Your customers reinforce it through reviews.
- People discuss your company on Reddit and other communities.
- Your executives share expertise on LinkedIn.
- Third-party websites mention and cite you.
- Your original research gives other people something worth referencing.
Over time, all of those signals create a body of evidence around the brand.
That’s why HubSpot AEO has become particularly useful for us. Instead of only asking “Are we showing up in ChatGPT?”, we can compare prompts across engines and look at competitors, sentiment, visibility, and especially the citations behind the answers.
We broke down what we’ve learned at Nextiny so far from testing HubSpot AEO across ChatGPT, Gemini, and Perplexity here:
I’d love to compare notes with other HubSpot users experimenting with AEO.
Are you seeing major differences between ChatGPT, Gemini, and Perplexity for the same prompts?
And for anyone who’s been tracking it over the last few weeks: did your ChatGPT brand visibility increase after the recent changes too?