A year ago, "get recommended by ChatGPT" sounded like a party trick. Today it's a channel. OpenAI reports ChatGPT is sitting at around 800M weekly active users in 2025 (Reuters), and Google's AI Overviews now appear on a majority of commercial-intent searches. When a user types "best AI [X]", the LLM answer is often the only answer they read. Getting your tool named inside those answers is the highest-leverage marketing job of 2026.
What LLMs actually cite (from primary research, not guesses)
Two large 2025 studies mapped the sources LLMs pull from when they recommend tools. Search Engine Land's 8,000-citation analysis and Semrush's most-cited-domains study landed on nearly identical rankings. The domains that show up over and over:
- Reddit — the single most-cited source across ChatGPT and Google's AI Overviews. Real user opinions in threads are catnip for LLMs.
- YouTube — transcripts of tool reviews and demos.
- Wikipedia — brand entity signals.
- G2, Capterra, TrustRadius, Trustpilot — structured review aggregators with star ratings LLMs quote almost verbatim.
- Listicles & comparison pages — "top 10 AI X" pages on trusted domains (TAAFT, Zapier blog, HubSpot, tech media).
- Press releases in Google News — used heavily for "what does company X do" style questions.
Notice what's not on the list: your homepage. LLMs almost never cite the vendor page directly. They cite what other people say about you.
How to influence what LLMs say about your tool
1. Reviews are the highest-leverage lever
Trustpilot, G2, Capterra and Product Hunt reviews get quoted by ChatGPT nearly verbatim — including the star rating. A tool with 40 reviews at 4.7★ gets described as "highly rated by users". A tool with 3 reviews gets skipped, or worse, described as "early-stage". Start collecting reviews on day one; a structured campaign (see our Trustpilot & reviews boost) usually adds 20–50 verified reviews inside a few weeks.
2. Press release distribution builds "brand opinion"
When an LLM builds an opinion of your brand, it's aggregating what news outlets, blogs and press wires have said. One well-syndicated release across Benzinga, Digital Journal and AP affiliates typically generates 60–200 live URLs, all of which become training data over the next 6–12 months. This is the single fastest way to shift "never heard of it" into "a growing AI startup that raised/launched X" inside an LLM's answer. Our press release service is built for exactly this.
3. Get inside the listicles LLMs already quote
If ChatGPT is currently listing five competitors and not you, the fix is almost always the same: those competitors are inside the ranking listicles it's scraping. Niche edits and guest posts on already-ranking listicles are the most cost-efficient way in — same tactic that works for Google SEO, double-purposed. We break the full mechanic down in SEO & link building strategies for AI startups.
4. Sit inside the directories LLMs scrape
TAAFT, Futurepedia, AIbase, 5app — the directories LLMs treat as structured catalogues. A listing there isn't just a backlink, it's an entry in the dataset an LLM uses to answer "what AI tools exist for X". Full shortlist in our round-up of the most reliable AI directories.
5. Reddit and YouTube — earn honest mentions
Reddit threads ("what's the best AI for X?") are the #1 cited source in most 2025 LLM audits. You cannot fake this, and paid Reddit promotion backfires immediately. Show up in the relevant subs, answer real questions, and let happy users mention you. A single 200-upvote thread with your tool in the top comment can influence LLM answers for months.
6. Build a clean Wikipedia-style entity footprint
LLMs cluster mentions by entity. Make it easy: consistent brand name, Crunchbase/LinkedIn/company profiles filled in, founder attribution consistent across bylines. When the model builds its internal "who is this company" graph, you want every node pointing at the same story.
How to check your AI ranking — for free
You don't need a paid GEO/AEO tool to measure this. Three options:
- Just ask. Open ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity and Claude and run the same prompts your buyers run: "best AI [your category]", "alternatives to [main competitor]", "what's a good tool for [use case]". Note whether you appear, in what position, and which sources are cited. Repeat weekly — LLMs update.
- Use a free AI rank checker. The easiest we've found is PRNow's AI Rank Checker — enter a keyword and it checks your visibility across ChatGPT, Gemini and other major LLMs at once. Zero signup for the basic check.
- Track sources, not just rank. When ChatGPT cites a page, open it. That page is a direct target for a niche edit, review, or expert quote. Fixing the citation source is the fastest way to change the answer.
A 60-day plan to move the needle
- Week 1: Baseline your visibility with PRNow's checker and a manual sweep of ChatGPT/Gemini/Perplexity. Screenshot everything.
- Weeks 1–2: Launch a Trustpilot / G2 review campaign to your existing happy users.
- Weeks 2–4: One press release wire, one round of directory submissions to the LLM-scraped shortlist.
- Weeks 3–6: Niche edits into the top 5 listicles ranking for your category.
- Weeks 6–8: Re-run the visibility check. You should see movement in citations, sources, or both.
Bottom line
You cannot pay ChatGPT to recommend you. But you can absolutely shape what it says by seeding the sources it reads — reviews, PR, listicles, directories, Reddit. It's the same authority-building work SEO has always rewarded, just with a wider audience of readers, half of them robots.