What Is an AI Search Engine? Key Services Businesses Should Check and How to Choose

An AI search engine is a search service that answers questions in text and links to the web pages it used as evidence. In this article, the term covers Google’s AI Overviews and AI Mode, ChatGPT search, Perplexity, Bing and Copilot. Businesses need to check two things: the answer text and the cited sources attached to it.

As an illustration, imagine a PR manager at a training company. They are asked, “How does AI describe our company?” and are unsure which AI to check first.

What Is an AI Search Engine? How It Differs from Regular Search

Regular search lists page links; AI search summarizes an answer in text and then adds supporting links. So what businesses check expands beyond rankings to the answer text and cited sources.

Google’s AI Overviews and AI Mode may run multiple related searches to build a response and show links to supporting pages. This is called “query fan-out” [1].

For example, if someone asks how to choose new-hire training, the AI may also look up related information such as price and format, then combine it into one answer. A page that is not first in regular search may still be shown as supporting evidence.

Point	Regular search	AI search
What appears	A list of page links	A text answer with citation links
What businesses check	Rankings, clicks	How they are described, cited sources
How results change	Over time and by conditions	Answers and citations vary even for the same question

Key AI Search Services Businesses Should Check

Comparing services by provider, citation links, official data available to site owners and the name of the crawler that reads pages makes the differences clear.

Service	Provider	Citation links	Official data for site owners	Crawler name
AI Overviews and AI Mode	Google	Links to supporting pages [1]	Search Console generative AI report [2]	Googlebot (shared with regular search) [1]
ChatGPT search	OpenAI	Citations and Sources list [4]	Not described in the official sources checked	OAI-SearchBot [3]
Perplexity	Perplexity	Surfaces and links websites in results [5]	Not described in the official sources checked	PerplexityBot [5]
Bing and Copilot	Microsoft	Citations in AI answers [6]	AI Performance in Bing Webmaster Tools [6]	Not described in the official sources checked
Gemini	Google	Not described in the official sources checked	Not described in the official sources checked	Google-Extended controls training and grounding use [1]

“Not described” does not mean the feature does not exist. It means we could not find it in the official sources checked for this article.

AI Overviews and AI Mode in Google Search

Both are features inside Google Search, and regular SEO fundamentals apply. You can check part of their performance in the Search Console generative AI report.

Google says there are no additional requirements or special files needed to appear in AI features. Pages must be indexed and eligible to show a snippet, and inclusion is not guaranteed [1]. AI Mode is available in Japan and in Japanese, among other countries and languages [7].

The two features may use different models and techniques, so the links shown can vary [1]. The Search Console generative AI report shows impressions for both by page and country [2].

ChatGPT Search and Perplexity

The crawler settings to check are OAI-SearchBot for ChatGPT and PerplexityBot for Perplexity. Both are separate from training settings.

OpenAI treats OAI-SearchBot (search) and GPTBot (training) as independent settings. Blocking GPTBot does not remove you from ChatGPT search if OAI-SearchBot is allowed. OpenAI says robots.txt changes can take about 24 hours to take effect for search [3]. ChatGPT’s help explains that results are ranked using multiple factors and placement is not guaranteed [4].

PerplexityBot is used to surface and link websites in Perplexity results and is not used to crawl content for AI model training. Perplexity-User, which fetches pages at a user’s request, generally ignores robots.txt [5].

For details on crawler settings, see How AI Crawlers Differ.

Bing and Copilot

Citation Share in Bing Webmaster Tools is the percentage of all citations shown for a specific grounding query that point to your site. It is not a ranking or traffic share.

Microsoft offers an AI Performance report in Bing Webmaster Tools showing where your content is cited in AI answers across Copilot, Bing and select partners. In June 2026, Citation Share and other features were added in preview. It is an observational metric that does not show competitor domains [6].

How to Choose Which AI Search Services to Monitor

You don’t need to monitor everything at once. Prioritize by three questions: do customers use it, is there official data, and do answers show links?

Criterion	How to check	Higher priority when
Do customers use it?	Services customers mention in inquiries or sales calls	Customers name it
Is there official data?	The official data column in the table above	You can verify numbers from your side
Do answers show links?	Ask a question and check the links	Links can lead to visits

In the training company example (illustrative), if customers mentioned ChatGPT and Google, start with Google’s AI Overviews and AI Mode plus ChatGPT search. Use official data to check Google impressions, and ask ChatGPT questions and record the answers.

Record Results Separately for Each AI Search Service

Do not combine results from multiple AIs into one number; record each service separately. Services may rely on different pages.

Date and time	Service	Question	Company named?	Link to you?	Main cited source
Sept 23, 10:00	ChatGPT search	Which companies can run new-hire training?	No	No	Comparison site A
Sept 23, 10:00	AI Mode	Which companies can run new-hire training?	Yes	Yes	Your service page

This table is an illustrative example. ChatGPT may use approximate location and enabled memories in searches, so also note your sign-in status and memory settings [4]. Recording the same question on several days helps you tell whether a result was a one-off.

What AgentSignal Can and Cannot Check

AgentSignal’s AI citation rate feature sends the same questions to ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity and Claude and records whether your site was cited. Claude is available on paid plans only.

This feature does not check the actual AI Overviews or AI Mode screens in Google Search. Results from asking Gemini are not the same as what appears in Google’s AI Overviews. Check Google Search appearances in the Search Console generative AI report [2].

The citation rate records answers to the questions you choose; it does not reveal what real users typed. To see visits to your site, install the tracking tag and use the AI referrals view. See How to Use AI Optimization for the steps.