How can businesses increase their chances of being cited or recommended by AI search assistants like ChatGPT, Google AI Mode and Perplexity without relying on paid advertising?

None of the three sells a place in its answers: ChatGPT and Google AI Mode show ads separately, labeled as sponsored, and Perplexity dropped advertising. Your chances depend on your website: crawlers must be able to get in, each page must answer something specific, and the content must have sources and data. A website optimized for GEO has better chances of being cited.

Does paid advertising influence what they answer?

According to all three, no. Each one says so in its own documentation.

1. What does OpenAI say about ChatGPT?

That ads are kept apart. Since February 2026 it shows them on the Free and Go plans, in the United States and eight more countries, including Mexico. Its official announcement puts it this way:

Each ad is labeled as sponsored and visually separated from the organic answer.

2. What does Google say about AI Mode?

The same. Ads in AI Overviews and AI Mode are labeled "Sponsored" and distinguished from organic content. In its help center for advertisers, Google answers whether paid ads change what its AI says:

3. And Perplexity?

It tried ads and dropped them. In November 2024 it began showing sponsored follow-up questions in the United States and stated that advertisers would not influence the content of its answers. In 2025 it abandoned that format, as the Financial Times reported in February 2026.

What does it take to appear without paying?

Three things, which depend on your website, not on a budget.

1. Can they get into your site?

That is the starting point. In Google AI Mode, the page must be indexed and eligible to be shown in Search with a snippet. The site must also be included in Search Console's generative AI control, which is on by default. ChatGPT and Perplexity each have their own crawler: we explain it in how a small website can appear in ChatGPT or Perplexity.

2. Does each page answer a specific question, with sources and data?

It should. AIs rewrite the question, retrieve candidates and cite only a few, as we show in how they decide which sites to cite. In a KDD 2024 experiment, citing sources, adding quotations and including statistics were the changes that brought the most visibility.

3. Is your business data up to date?

If you sell products or serve customers at a location, it should be. Google says Merchant Center and Business Profiles can help your products and services be visible in its AI responses.

Why should your website be optimized for GEO?

Because if visibility can't be bought, the work happens on your own website. A website optimized for GEO has better chances of being found, cited and recommended.

There is room to improve: in our study of 39 Argentine e-commerce domains, data density averaged 31 out of 100, and 36% of the sites scored below 30 on that criterion.

To find out where your site stands with AIs, analyze it with Nostos: the result shows you what to fix first.

What are the limits of this answer?

Three. That advertising does not influence the answers is each company's claim about itself; there is no way to check it from outside. The countries with ads change often. There is no official Perplexity statement about the shutdown: that information comes from the press.