AI search
ChatGPT vs Google: where should a small business focus?
Focus on Google first, because it still carries vastly more of your buyers' journeys, and its AI Overviews now sit inside half of searches by some industry measures. Then check yourself on ChatGPT and its peers, because the citation research shows the platforms lean on surprisingly different sources, and presence on one says little about the other. One content strategy, verified on both, is the whole answer for most small businesses.
what the reach data says
Google remains where most commercial journeys touch, and its answer layer is expanding rather than separate: industry reporting through 2026 puts AI Overviews in roughly half of searches. ChatGPT's audience is enormous and growing as a starting point for research, especially in considered purchases. The mistake is treating this as either-or. Your buyers cross both in a single decision, often within the hour.
what the divergence data says
Analyses of hundreds of millions of citations find only around one in ten domains cited by both ChatGPT and Perplexity, and even Google's own AI surfaces reportedly agree with each other on sources only a minority of the time. These are industry measurements and the numbers move, but the pattern is stable: each engine builds its own map of who is credible. Practical translation: check your visibility on each platform separately, because there is no single scoreboard.
the strategy that serves both
Everything the evidence rewards is platform-agnostic: indexed pages, answer-first passages, claims with evidence attached, a named expert, and a consistent story across the wider web. Build once, honestly, then spend your platform-specific effort on measurement rather than content forks. Where you show up weak on one engine, the fix is almost always more corroboration in the places that engine reads, not different writing.
the honest catch
Any specific market-share or citation figure in this post will age, some of it within months, and we would rather flag that than be quoted out of date. The durable claims are reach asymmetry, source divergence, and the shared foundation. Revisit the numbers quarterly; keep the strategy.
Common questions
Should a local business care about ChatGPT at all?
- Modestly, for now. Local discovery still runs overwhelmingly through Google's surfaces, and your profile, reviews and site do the work. Ask an assistant about your category locally once a quarter and you will see the shift arrive before it matters.
Do we need to write differently for each platform?
- No credible evidence says so. Both reward clarity, verifiability and corroboration. Write once, well, and measure twice.
Which should we measure first?
- Both, monthly, with the same ten buyer questions. The interesting number is the gap between platforms, because it points at where your corroboration is thin.
Tom Claydon
Co-founder of Nudge
Ask Tom anything about search, he answers on WhatsApp.