What actually gets cited
Across the runs we have done, the same kinds of source come back again and again, and almost none of them are exotic.
On one business we checked, the four assistants leaned first on an open encyclopaedia, a professional network and two software review platforms, then on the company's own website, then on a funding database, a newswire and an investment data service. Twelve named hosts, and every one of them is a place somebody could go and read what it says.
The register shows up more than people expect
On individuals the public company register comes up repeatedly, which catches people out. It is official, free to read and laid out the same way for every company, so it is exactly the kind of thing an assistant will rely on.
That is worth knowing if your register entry is out of date, carries a former company name, or splits you across more than one officer record. When four sources describe you four different ways covers that in more detail, and the register is the source people trust hardest and check least.
Your own page is cited, and that is the point
On our founder's run in September, three of the four engines cited pages he owns, including the hosted page this business sells.
The product being quoted back by an assistant is the strongest evidence we have that a page of your own is worth having.
That is one person on one day and we are not going to inflate it into a rate. What it does establish is that a clear, plainly factual page about a person is the sort of thing these systems will use when it exists.
What is NOT in the lists
Two absences are worth noting because they contradict common advice.
Across the runs we have done:
- Volume of coverage did not predict whether an engine cited a subject's own material. The business with fifty one sources behind it had none of its own among them.
- The engine that named our founder every time cited the fewest sources of the four, so being named confidently and being well sourced are not the same thing.
That second one is the reason the assistants disagree is a page of its own.
Hosts read off real runs in September and October 2026. On one business the four assistants leaned first on an encyclopaedia, a professional network and two review platforms, then the company's own site, then three funding and newswire databases: twelve named hosts in all.