Getting to number one on Google can take months. For a small business, it can also mean an agency bill the owner has to think twice about.
So when the company finally reaches the top, it feels like the work has paid off. People looking for what it sells should be able to find it.
Now put the same buying question into ChatGPT. The company’s name may never come up.
That is an awkward discovery to make after spending so much time trying to get found.
New research from Discoverable, an AI visibility software company, puts a number on that gap. In its UK study, the business occupying Google’s first organic result went unnamed in 72.5% of eligible ChatGPT answers. That was 1,183 out of 1,632 scored answers, including repeated checks across 575 questions.
The comparison applied where Google’s actual first organic result was a supplier’s own website. Ads and map listings were excluded.
The UK AI Shortlist Study covered 1,000 buying questions across 25 commercial categories. Discoverable collected 17,537 completed answers from ChatGPT, Microsoft Copilot, Gemini, Perplexity, Google AI Mode and Google AI Overviews, alongside 3,000 Google results captures.
The team used browser automation to collect answers from the consumer websites, submitting identical questions in three rounds on 6 and 7 September 2026. The final findings have been human-verified.
One example makes the problem easy to picture.
For “cheap coffee for a moka pot”, Iron & Fire ranked first on Google in all three rounds. Across the 17 available AI answers to that question, the coffee business wasn’t named once.
A Google ranking report would show a business doing well. Someone asking an AI service could have an entirely different experience.
One ChatGPT answer suggested options including Lavazza. Another asked for the shopper’s location. Both are reasonable ways to respond to someone looking for affordable coffee. Neither named Iron & Fire.
There is an important distinction here. An AI answer can cite a business’s website without mentioning its name in the text. When either a name or a captured citation counts as presence, ChatGPT’s omission rate falls to 68.0%.
And some businesses appeared consistently.
For “free platform for selling digital products”, Payhip ranked first on Google in all three rounds and was named in all 18 AI answers. These examples were selected after collection to illustrate different outcomes.
The research describes a selected UK sample during one collection window. Some answers offered advice without naming any suppliers, and those still counted. It did not measure lost sales or establish why a particular business appeared.
For business owners, the uncomfortable part is the assumption this challenges. A strong Google position can feel like reassurance that the company is easy to find. It says much less about what happens when someone asks an AI service for help.
For teams exploring generative engine optimisation, or GEO, there is a practical starting point. Take the questions customers ask before buying and see what the AI services actually say. Record whether the business is named or cited, then repeat the checks.
A company that has worked hard to get found should know what customers see when they ask elsewhere. Even a number-one Google ranking cannot answer that question.
