When Australians ask an AI assistant which law firm, bank or sunscreen to pick, Reddit is the single site it cites most. That is one finding from the Findrix Australian AI Source Index, released on 30 September. A day later a Sydney agency published a second study that found ranking first on Google made almost no measurable difference to whether ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude or Perplexity recommended a business.

Put the two together and the answer to “how do we show up in AI search?” gets clearer. Your own website decides whether an assistant can describe you accurately. Other people’s websites decide whether it puts you on the shortlist. Digital One Agency works on both halves of that for Australian businesses, and the free AI audit is where we check what the assistants currently say about you before anyone spends money.

What the two studies actually measured

The Findrix study asked 23,000 shortlist questions across nine Australian markets on three engines (ChatGPT, Google AI Mode and Google AI Overviews) during September 2026. It counted 228,000 citations, meaning links in the answer to a site the engine used. Reddit came first with 3,128 citations. The legal directories Legal 500 and Chambers came second and third, and Facebook, YouTube and the ATO also made the top ten. In fashion, Reddit was cited four times as often as Vogue Australia.

The second study came from EarnedMedia.com.au and was published through Medianet on 1 October. It is much smaller: 360 AI responses to 90 everyday questions across nine industries, benchmarked against 137 Australian websites, producing 3,069 citations. Its headline result is that businesses in the top quarter for online mentions and links were recommended 1.9 times more often than those in the bottom quarter.

A fair warning before anyone rebuilds a marketing plan on these numbers. Both studies were run by companies that sell AI visibility work. Both cover one month. Both show association, not cause. They are still the best Australian data published this week, and where they agree, the agreement is worth acting on.

One calculation the releases do not make: divide citations by questions and both studies land in the same place. Findrix works out at roughly 9.9 citations per answer, EarnedMedia at about 8.5. An AI answer to a buying question draws on somewhere around nine or ten sources. If your business is not mentioned in any of them, the assistant has nothing to recommend you from.

Your own site is read most. Other sites decide who gets picked

Findrix found that two thirds of what AI reads is a company’s own website. Yosif Meerman, the company’s co-founder, put the split neatly: Reddit and the directories decide who gets a second look, while your own pages decide whether AI can recommend you at all.

That sits comfortably with the EarnedMedia result. Mentions on other legitimate websites, publications and review sites were the strongest predictor of being recommended. Company size, marketing budget and brand recognition counted for much less than owners expect, and the release names small Australian sites that won a real share of recommendations against bigger competitors. The practical reading is a two-stage filter:

1. Eligibility. Can the assistant reach your site, read it, and work out exactly what you sell, where, and to whom? If not, you are out before the comparison starts.
2. Selection. When it builds the shortlist, do independent sources (reviews, directories, comparison sites, forums, press) mention you? This is where Reddit threads, Legal 500 entries and Canstar or Finder listings carry weight.

Start with stage one. It is cheaper and faster to fix, and stage two counts for nothing until it is fixed.

What Google says you do not need to do

There is a small industry selling special files and markup for AI. Google’s own documentation disagrees. Its Search Central page on AI features and your website says specific optimisation is not required for AI Overviews and AI Mode, and that you do not need new machine-readable files, AI text files or markup to appear in them. It also says there is no special schema.org structured data you need to add.

What Google does list is plain: allow crawling in robots.txt, make content findable through internal links, give users a good page experience, put important content in text rather than only in images, make sure any structured data matches the visible text, and keep Merchant Center and Business Profile information up to date. Traffic from AI features is counted in the normal Search Console Performance report under the Web search type, so you can already see it.

This also explains an apparent contradiction. EarnedMedia found Google rankings did not predict recommendations, while Google says ordinary SEO still matters for its AI features. Look at the engines. EarnedMedia tested ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude and Perplexity, not Google AI Overviews. Findrix did test Google’s AI features and found AI Mode leans on intermediaries and social sources far more than ChatGPT, which relies more on institutional sources. Different engines, different source habits. A strategy built for one assistant will miss the others.

The robots.txt line that quietly removes you from ChatGPT

This is the cheapest check on the list and the one most often wrong. OpenAI runs separate crawlers, and its crawler documentation is explicit about what each does. OAI-SearchBot surfaces websites in ChatGPT’s search features. GPTBot collects content for training foundation models. The settings are independent: you can allow OAI-SearchBot to appear in search results while disallowing GPTBot.

The catch is in one sentence of that page: sites opted out of OAI-SearchBot will not be shown in ChatGPT search answers, though they can still appear as navigational links. Here is how it goes wrong. Someone adds a blanket AI block to robots.txt to stop training, or a security plugin or hosting firewall adds one for them. If that block catches OAI-SearchBot, the business has removed itself from ChatGPT’s answers, and nothing on the website looks any different.

Ten minutes fixes it. Open yoursite.com.au/robots.txt, look for OAI-SearchBot and any User-agent: * disallow rules, and decide deliberately. If you want to keep content out of training but stay visible in answers, block GPTBot and allow OAI-SearchBot. Then check your firewall or CDN is not challenging those bots separately, because robots.txt is not the only thing that can turn them away.

Products and services are answered from different places

The Findrix localisation numbers matter more than the Reddit headline for most Australian owners. More than 85% of citations for clinics, home services and finance went to .au domains. For fashion and beauty it was about half. For B2B software, about one third.

If you run a service business, the assistants are already looking at Australian sources, so the competition is local and winnable: your site, your Google Business Profile, Australian directories and review platforms, and local press. If you sell products or software, two in three citations in B2B software go to overseas domains, which means a global review site or a US comparison article may be doing the describing for you. In that case the first job is finding those pages and making sure your product is on them, accurately.

What to fix this month, in order

None of this needs a new platform. It needs someone to look properly and then do the boring work in the right order.

• Ask the assistants. Put your ten most valuable buying questions to ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude, Perplexity and Google AI Mode. Record who gets named and which sources are cited. That list is your real competitor set, and it is often different from the one in your sales deck.
• Fix eligibility. Robots.txt and firewall rules for OAI-SearchBot and the other answer-engine crawlers, service and location pages written in plain text, structured data that matches the page, and a current Google Business Profile.
• Say the specific thing. Pages that state exactly what you do, for whom, in which cities and at what starting point are easier for an assistant to quote than pages built on slogans.
• Earn the second look. Get listed and reviewed on the directories and comparison sites the assistants already cite in your category. Answer real questions where your customers already ask them. Pitch something newsworthy to trade press.
• Measure it monthly. Re-run the same questions. Watch the AI feature impressions in Search Console. Treat it like any other channel.

We covered the brand-protection side of this in our earlier piece on ChatGPT sending shoppers to scam sites, and how the main assistants differ in our Claude vs ChatGPT vs Perplexity comparison.

How Digital One Agency helps

We do SEO and AI search visibility for Australian businesses, built around the two-stage problem above. The work starts with the free AI audit: we run your buying questions through the main assistants, show you who they recommend and why, and check the technical blockers that stop them reading your site. You get a written list of what is wrong and what it would take to fix, ranked by effort and payoff.

Pricing depends on what the audit finds. A business whose only problem is a robots.txt rule and thin service pages needs days of work. A product company that needs to get onto the overseas review sites the assistants trust needs a longer programme, and we will say so up front rather than sell you a monthly retainer you do not need. Technical fixes show up as soon as the crawlers come back. Third-party mentions take longer, because other people have to write them.

Why us rather than doing it yourself? You can do every step above in-house, and the list is there so you can. What we add is speed and the technical side: crawler rules, firewall settings, structured data and page builds are core to what we do, alongside the AI systems and apps we build for clients. Compared with a large firm, you deal directly with the people doing the work.

If you want to know what ChatGPT says about your business before your customers find out, book a meeting with Digital One Agency. We will run the audit, walk you through what the assistants see, and give you a costed plan you can take to us or anyone else.

Frequently asked questions

How do I check whether ChatGPT can see my website?

Open yoursite.com.au/robots.txt and look for rules covering OAI-SearchBot and any blanket disallow for all user agents. OpenAI's crawler documentation says sites opted out of OAI-SearchBot will not be shown in ChatGPT search answers. Also check your firewall or CDN is not blocking the bot, then ask ChatGPT a buying question in your category and see whether you are cited.

Do I need an llms.txt file or special schema to appear in Google's AI Overviews?

Google says no. Its Search Central documentation states you do not need new machine-readable files, AI text files or markup to appear in AI Overviews or AI Mode, and there is no special schema.org structured data to add. Ordinary SEO fundamentals still apply, including structured data that matches the visible page.

If I rank first on Google, will AI assistants recommend me?

Not necessarily. The EarnedMedia study released on 1 October found ranking first on Google made almost no measurable difference to recommendations from ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude and Perplexity. Mentions and links from other legitimate websites were the strongest predictor.

Can I block AI training but still appear in ChatGPT answers?

Yes. OpenAI states its crawler settings are independent, so you can disallow GPTBot, which collects training data, while allowing OAI-SearchBot, which surfaces sites in ChatGPT search. A blanket rule for all bots can block both by accident.

Why does Reddit matter for AI search visibility?

In the Findrix study of 23,000 Australian buying questions, Reddit was cited more than any other site, with 3,128 citations. Assistants use forums and directories to decide which businesses deserve a closer look, so genuine discussion of your business in those places helps get you onto the shortlist.