Writesonic study finds AI engines often skip naming source brands
Writesonic analyzed roughly 16 million brand appearances across seven AI answer engines over a 30-day window and found citations frequently reference source content without naming the brand behind it — what the study calls “ghost citations.” Rates varied widely by engine: Perplexity (52%), Google AI Mode (49%), Google AI Overviews (41%), ChatGPT (37%), Gemini (25%), Grok (22%) and Microsoft Copilot (19%). Writesonic’s CEO is the study’s author; the company says the numbers are a snapshot and don’t establish effects on clicks, brand recall, or conversions.
Why it matters: If measurement tools count a citation whenever an engine pulls from your content, but the engine never says whose content it was, visibility trackers built on citation counts alone are missing a real chunk of exposure.
The record: PerplexityGoogle AI ModeChatGPT
Posted to the wire July 29, 2026.