- Brands with no Trustpilot account only appeared in 1% of AI-generated answers
- Review and trust platforms are the second-most cited source type
- Relevance, recency and ranking are vital in a good GEO strategy
Trustpilot claims businesses could effectively be “invisible” in AI-generated answers if they fail to build visible trust signals through customer reviews and engagement, indicating a new post-SEO era.
While optimizing for search engines remains key, generative engine optimization (GEO) has introduced yet more challenges for companies looking to survive in 2026 and beyond.
According to Trustpilot’s research, only those with active review profiles are most likely to appear in AI results per the analysis of 800K answers across ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity and Google’s AI Mode.
Reviews could revolutionize your business
The alarming data reveals brands with no Trustpilot presence were cited in just 1% of AI-generated answers. Conversely, those with 80+ reviews were cited in over three-quarters of answers.
Thankfully, even laying out the foundations can create a meaningful uplift. By creating a Trustpilot account, or presumably a similar online reviews account, the company saw businesses being cited in more than half (53.5%) of AI-generated answers. More reviews, responses and engagement lead to even higher visibility.
This is all important information for companies looking to increase visibility, with more than half (58%) of consumers now using AI to find products and services – a number that’s expected to climb.
The report claims that brands increasingly need AI visibility as well as search visibility – not in place of it – as AI-generated answers quickly emerge as the new front page for businesses.
More broadly, review and trust platforms are playing bigger roles in AI discovery. Per the data, they’re now the second-most cited source type in AI-generated answers, accounting for 14% of all citations.
The availability of fresh content, detailed information and signals of public trust and legitimacy all influence the prevalence of review platforms in AI-generated answers, the firm said, summarizing the ‘3Rs’ – relevance, recency and ranking.
Trustpilot criticized company web pages for being static, corporate places of information, whereas public forums like review sites offer real-time, conversational and experience-based details to tick the relevance box.
Recency is where Trustpilot sings its own praises, amassing around 200K reviews daily in 2025, while a 94/100 domain authority score affords this website high ranking for information retrieval by AI engines.
As for the industry in general, the report details how AI systems are increasingly combining traditional search indexing (hence the continued importance of SEO), retrieval systems, LLMs and real-time web grounding.
Why responding to reviews matters
Although opening a profile can boost AI visibility somewhat, Trustpilot found that responding to comments and engaging with customers gives businesses the best chances of being seen in AI-generated search results.
It’s not clear why, but the company surmises that the two-way interaction could reduce spam signals and demonstrate accountability.
Live feeds also show that a company is still operational, that customer support exists and that complaints are addressed.
“In an era of AI-powered buying journeys, trust is a quantifiable, high-value asset for businesses,” Chief Customer Officer Alicia Skubick commented.
While Trustpilot’s findings center around its own business model, the data does point to a broader shift in how businesses need to reach customers in an AI-first era.
Future discovery strategies must expand beyond SEO to include trust signals, customer engagement and real-time information to tackle the emerging challenge that is GEO.
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