The arrival of artificial intelligences like ChatGPT, Google AI Mode, and Perplexity is transforming the way your clients, beneficiaries, and partners discover information. But where do these tools get their answers from? A recent Semrush study1, covering over 100 million AI citations analyzed over 13 weeks, reveals which sources AIs favor — and what this means for your organization.
The Most Cited Sources by AIs
Despite significant fluctuations observed in September 2025, certain domains remain the preferred sources for artificial intelligences.
Giants still leading:
- Reddit and Wikipedia continue to dominate, particularly on ChatGPT
- LinkedIn is among the top five most cited sources across all platforms
- Forbes, Medium, and PRnewswire have experienced notable growth
- YouTube, particularly favored by Google AI Mode
A worrying volatility: The study reveals that citation patterns can change drastically overnight. In September, Reddit went from 60% to 10% of citations on ChatGPT in a matter of weeks. This demonstrates that visibility in AIs is not guaranteed — it must be monitored and cultivated.
What This Means for Your Organization
Whether you work in the cultural sector, professional services, or the community sector, this reality has concrete implications for your organization's discoverability.
1. Your Website Alone Is No Longer Enough
AIs don't only cite official websites. They favor platforms where authentic conversations, community discussions, and user-generated content are found. Your presence must extend beyond your own domain.
Concrete Examples Based on Your Context:
For cultural organizations: When someone asks an AI for recommendations on cultural activities in your region or seeks information about your artistic field, the AI doesn't just consult your website — it synthesizes reviews, online discussions, blog articles and Wikipedia entries, videos.
For professional services firms: If a potential client searches for experts in your field or asks questions about your specialized services, the AI will rely on professional networks, industry discussions, specialized articles, not just your service pages.
For non-profit organizations: When a person seeks help or resources in your field of intervention, the AI compiles available information, mentions in community media, testimonials, and educational resources.
2. Diversifying Your Digital Presence Becomes Essential
Considering that different AIs favor different sources, your strategy must include multiple platforms:
Wikipedia: For established organizations or individuals with significant history, a well-documented presence remains valuable.
LinkedIn: Particularly important for establishing your professional credibility, sharing your achievements and expertise, regardless of your field of activity.
YouTube: Well-referenced video content becomes essential for documenting your activities, presenting your projects, or explaining your services in an engaging way.
Discussion platforms (Reddit, Quora, Facebook): Encouraging authentic conversations about your organization, your services, your impact.
A crucial technical tip: Adding links to your LinkedIn, YouTube, and Wikipedia profiles in your website's structured metadata (via Schema.org's sameAs tag) can greatly help establish a connection between your site and these platforms favored by AIs. This explicit connection helps artificial intelligences understand that these different online presences belong to the same organization, thereby strengthening your overall discoverability.
3. Structured Content Takes on Critical Importance
AIs rely on well-organized and structured information. The Schema.org metadata we implement for our clients makes it easier for AIs to understand and cite your content, whether it's events, services, projects, professional biographies, or educational resources.
Practical Recommendations
For Everyone: Short-Term Actions
1. Optimize Your Website for AI Discoverability
Ensure your important pages contain clear, well-structured, and up-to-date information: description of your activities, details about your services or events, biographies of key people, achievements and testimonials.
2. Develop Your LinkedIn Presence
Regularly publish quality content: event or project announcements, profiles of key people in your organization, reflections on your field of expertise, behind-the-scenes of your work, sharing relevant trends and analyses.
3. Invest in YouTube
Well-referenced video content is growing in importance: recordings of your activities, interviews with key people, client or beneficiary testimonials, process explanations, project documentation.
4. Encourage Third-Party Mentions
Press articles, external blog posts, reviews, mentions in professional publications — everything that talks about you elsewhere on the web contributes to your AI visibility.
5. Be Present on Wikipedia
This applies particularly to cultural organizations and artists. A Wikipedia page and the creation of a Wikidata identifier are also important.
Medium-Term Actions
1. Monitor Your "AI Visibility"
Just as you track your Google ranking, start checking how AIs talk about your organization. Test queries relevant to your field and see if your organization appears in the answers.
2. Create Reference Resources
Develop educational content about your specialty. AIs look for authoritative sources: in-depth articles, practical guides, analyses, educational resources that demonstrate your expertise.
3. Collaborate with Other Organizations
Partnerships, collaborations, and cross-mentions strengthen your presence in the digital ecosystem of your sector.
Special Considerations Based on Your Mission
For cultural organizations
Quebec's Digital Cultural Plan (PCNQ) takes on a new dimension in this context. Organizations that adopt cultural metadata standards (schema.org/Datascène) now — aligned with the PCNQ — give themselves a significant advantage for being discovered and correctly cited by artificial intelligences.
For social mission organizations
Your discoverability can have a direct impact on your ability to reach people who need your services. Clear, accessible, and well-structured information can make the difference between someone finding the necessary support or remaining isolated.
For professional services firms
Your AI visibility impacts your ability to attract clients. Your professional online presence, your demonstrations of expertise, and your well-structured testimonials become crucial for AIs to recommend you relevantly.
A New Reality That's Rapidly Evolving
The Semrush study reminds us that visibility in AIs is not static. Algorithms change, favored sources fluctuate, and what works today could evolve tomorrow.
For all organizations — whether cultural, commercial, or community-based — this means that a comprehensive and adaptive digital strategy becomes more important than ever.
At Percumédia, we integrate these considerations into our redesign and migration projects to Drupal. Our expertise in structured metadata (particularly Schema.org and, for the cultural sector, DataScene), combined with an understanding of the new challenges of AI discoverability, allows us to guide our clients — regardless of their sector — toward this new digital reality.
The question is no longer just "How do people find us on Google?" but rather "How do AIs talk about us?" — and the answer begins with solid foundations:
- A well-structured website with appropriate metadata
- A diversified digital presence on relevant platforms
- Quality content that establishes your expertise
- Clear and accessible information about who you are and what you do
Whatever your mission — cultural, professional, or social — your visibility in artificial intelligences is now beginning to shape your future discoverability.
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The data comes from a Semrush analysis of over 230,000 queries made on ChatGPT, Google AI Mode, and Perplexity, over a 13-week period (July to October 2025), representing more than 100 million citations analyzed.
https://www.semrush.com/blog/most-cited-domains-ai/