Comparing Different Methodologies for GEO Across ChatGPT, AI Mode, and AI Overviews (Based on Sources in Prompt-Tracking Data)

There’s no single “GEO content strategy” to rule them all. AI platforms such as ChatGPT, AI Mode, and AI Overviews retrieve different sources to support their generated responses. That means you need a holistic content portfolio if you want broader AI visibility.

That’s what I’ll show in this post, which evaluates the sources contributing to chats for three AI platforms, based on prompt-tracking data.

If you use a prompt-tracking tool, I recently wrote a guide on how to find content ideas there. In fact, I also wrote one of the example post ideas from that guide, and it was cited by AI Mode in three days.

Why am I telling you this? Because I uncovered this blog post topic using the same framework described above. It’s based on a prompt I’m tracking:

I track three AI platforms for this prompt: ChatGPT, AI Mode, and AI Overviews.

We can compare the sources contributing to generated responses for each platform to uncover differences in how each platform behaves, and use that to build our content strategy for AI visibility.

Let’s start by filtering the prompt-tracking data for ChatGPT and looking at the sources for that prompt above:

What’s interesting here is that none of the sources address the prompt’s topic directly. They are mostly general GEO guides, with some research papers included.

What this does show is that for visibility in ChatGPT for this prompt, a clearly structured, evidence-supported GEO guide that explains the terminology, shows how retrieval and citations work, and provides a practical framework for implementation could be a good option.

Now let’s filter by AI Mode and see how the sources change:

Here, things get interesting, because we don’t see any of the same sources as before for ChatGPT.

The lack of source overlap suggests that AI Mode and ChatGPT use different retrieval and source-selection processes. This means if we want visibility in either AI assistant’s chats for this prompt, we need to cater our content to the platform’s preferences.

For AI Mode, we observe a couple of YouTube videos in the top sources by retrievals. ChatGPT had no videos.

We also see the AI Mode sources are more focused on SEO-to-GEO comparisons, practical optimization techniques, tools and software, and include sources from Google’s own domain.

Finally, let’s look at sources for AI Overviews for the tracked prompt:

We definitely get more crossover between AI Overviews with AI Mode than we did with ChatGPT in terms of sources retrieved for the tracked prompt.

We see three videos this time, while the top source is a guide on GEO best practices.

Compared to ChatGPT, the AI Overviews sources are less focused on citation theory and underlying retrieval mechanics and more focused on best practices and implementation. They’re also more dependent on Google’s guidance.

And compared to AI Mode, we see more concentration in AI Overviews sources around best practices and comprehensive GEO guides and slightly less focus on tool comparisons and industry narratives.

Again, we’re talking about sources for a single prompt we’re tracking, but we clearly see differences in how ChatGPT, AI Mode, and AI Overviews function, based on the top sources they retrieve.

What takeaways can we draw, based on the retrieved sources across the three AI platforms?

For ChatGPT, AI Mode, and AI Overviews, the retrieved sources for our tracked prompt consistently frame GEO as a combination of:

• GEO definitions
• Comparing GEO with SEO
• Showing how content gets retrieved, cited, or recommended
• Practical optimization steps
• Tools and workflows

The major difference is how each platform approaches that information:

AI platform	Strongest source theme	Apparent preference
ChatGPT	Concepts, citations, retrieval mechanics, research	Reference, editorial, and academic content
AI Mode	GEO vs. SEO, tools, tactics, industry change	Corporate guides, comparisons, and video
AI Overviews	Best practices and implementation	Actionable guides, official Google guidance, and video

If we’re looking for practical takeaways for optimizing content across different AI platforms (here including ChatGPT, AI Mode, and AI Overviews), we have a few:

• GEO content needs to be both educational and actionable: Definitions aren’t enough; the AI platforms repeatedly retrieve pages that explain the topic and then tell the reader what to do.
• Each AI platform appears to have different sourcing preferences: One article isn’t likely enough to be competitive everywhere; a broader content portfolio is probably more effective.
• Practical guides are the most consistent format: “How-to guide,” “complete guide,” “best practices,” “definitive guide,” and comparison formats appear repeatedly.
• Google’s official guidance matters most within Google’s platforms: Google’s AI optimization documentation appears prominently in both AI Mode and AI Overviews, but not in the ChatGPT sources.
• Video is a meaningful opportunity: YouTube sources appear prominently in both AI Mode and AI Overviews.
• A few sources appear across AI Mode and AI Overviews (but not ChatGPT): Certain sources recur, including Google’s documentation, LLMrefs, the Jotform video, and an arXiv paper.

Here’s a video summary to accompany this article:

What does all of this mean?

Again, we’re only looking at data for one tracked prompt here, but the sources retrieved for it across ChatGPT, AI Mode, and AI Overviews do tell a story.

While GEO is commonly framed as the next layer of SEO, based on the sources, each AI platform explains GEO through a slightly different lens, in terms of the sources retrieved.

ChatGPT leans more toward definitions, research, citation mechanics, and conceptual frameworks. AI Mode favors comparisons, tools, videos, and practical discussions about how search is evolving. While AI Overviews puts greater emphasis on best practices, comprehensive guides, and Google’s own documentation.

That said, all three platforms converge on a similar type of source: content that is authoritative, clearly structured, easy to understand, and useful enough to help the reader (or viewer) take action.

The most visible sources across ChatGPT, AI Mode, and AI Overviews don’t merely define GEO; they compare it with related concepts, explain how AI visibility works, offer specific techniques, and support claims with examples, research, or official guidance.

The ultimate takeaway? There isn’t a single “GEO content formula” that guarantees visibility across every AI platform. Different platforms retrieve different sources for different reasons. That means you need a cross-platform SEO/GEO strategy focused on a portfolio of helpful content, as opposed to one definitive guide.

If you want a hand with your SEO/GEO strategy, feel free to hit me up. I’m an independent consultant helping brands and agencies improve their visibility across traditional and AI-powered search.

Until next time, enjoy the vibes:

Thanks for reading. Happy optimizing!

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