Among the four leading AI answer engines, Google’s Gemini is probably the one most people come across unintentionally. Users interact with the platform through Google Search, Android OS, and Gmail rather than deliberately opening an app, and that directly impacts its reach and how it sources brand recommendations.

As of 2026, the Gemini app has surpassed 900 million monthly active users, more than doubling over the past year. In the same time, AI Overviews reached over 2.5 billion monthly users and AI Mode passed 1 billion within twelve months of launch.

Its growing market position confirms the numbers. Gemini held 27.7% of the US generative AI chatbot market in July 2026, a sharp rise attributed largely to integration across Android devices and Gmail. Pew Research Center’s study found 24% of US adults have used Gemini, second only to ChatGPT’s 44%.

Gemini also behaves differently from the other three engines in ways that change what a visibility strategy needs to include. In Agility’s ‘Closing the AI Visibility Gap‘ study, it named more brands per answer than any other engine and was the only platform where social and community content registered as a meaningful citation source.

Here is what that means for PR teams:

What our research revealed about Gemini behaviour

As part of our study, we submitted 6,120 prompts to Gemini across 48 industry categories, capturing every brand named, every source cited, and the reasoning behind each recommendation. Here are the key insights:

It names far more brands than any other engine

Gemini surfaced an average of 10.6 brands per answer, against 6.8 on Perplexity, 6.3 on ChatGPT, and 6.2 on Claude. That produced 64,833 brand mentions across the prompt set, well ahead of Claude’s 38,124.

That translates to the highest brand density across all industries in our research. For instance, it recommended 15.3 brands per prompt in Entertainment, the highest brand per industry for any engine, followed by 12.9 in Travel and 11.8 in Education.

For PR teams, a wider shortlist means a higher opportunity to get in, as earning a mention on Gemini is easier. However, the downside is that appearing in a list of thirteen brands is a materially different outcome from holding a place in a shortlist of six. Measuring presence alone will overstate how well a brand is actually performing here.

It cites the fewest sources per brand recommendation

Gemini averaged 4.9 citations per answer, ahead of only ChatGPT’s 3.6 and well behind Perplexity’s 7.7 and Claude’s 12.8. Its citation rate of 99.3% is the third lowest among the four, ahead of only ChatGPT.

We did the math, and it revealed that Gemini names roughly two brands for every source it cites. That is the thinnest source-to-brand ratio in the study, particularly when compared to a platform like Claude that sources two citations for every brand mentioned.

For PR teams, this means that a significant share of Gemini’s brand mentions may not have a citation backing it up. Your brand might be mentioned without your content being cited, and PR teams tracking AI visibility through referral traffic alone may understate their presence.

Gemini had the most balanced citation profile

Corporate content drew the highest citations, as we have consistently seen across our study. However, among the four engines, Gemini (51.6%) has the lowest share of corporate citations. Independent third-party content accounts for 16% of citations on Gemini, the second highest in the study.

However, what’s most interesting is Gemini’s sourcing of social and forum data. Social media makes up 7.1% of Gemini’s citations, against 2.5% on Perplexity, 0.3% on ChatGPT, and 0.2% on Claude. Adding forums, social and community sources reaches 10.3% of Gemini’s total citations, more than double Perplexity’s 4% and far above Claude (1.5%) and ChatGPT (0.6%).

Concentration increases when you analyze specific industries. Social hits13.9% citations on Gemini in Beauty and Hair Care, the highest social media citations for any industry in the study. Similarly, social media accounts for 12% of citations in Sports and 11.4% in Entertainment.

Variance across industries also shifts beyond social. Independent third-party sources are cited more heavily in Travel (25.1%) and Entertainment (23.9%), while trade publications carry weight in Telecommunications (26.3%) and Finance (21.9%).

For communications teams, this elevates social media and community platforms as influential channels for AI visibility on Gemini. Channels that may not be as effective for visibility on ChatGPT or Claude can meaningfully affect how Gemini describes your brand.

Performance is the primary driver for brand recommendations

Performance remains the major factor that gets a brand into the shortlist, contributing to 78.6% of all brand mentions on Gemini. This is consistent across industries and AI answer engines we examined in our study.

The differentiator is what comes second. Reputation accounts for 15.8% on Gemini, against 12.1% on ChatGPT and 12.3% on Perplexity.

Performance signals are the kind of evidence that lives on review sites, comparison pages, and community threads, which is consistent with Gemini’s heavier weighting toward independent and social sources.

For PR teams, this means demonstrable results rank higher than institutional standing when targeting AI visibility on Gemini. Product comparisons, review coverage, and third-party testing power the majority of its recommendations, while accreditation and expert authority also play a part.

Gemini is based on Google’s own index

Unsurprisingly, Gemini relies on Google for conducting live searches and retrieving data. Google’s documentation confirms that its generative AI features rely on retrieval-augmented generation to surface content from the Search index. Where Claude’s web search runs on Brave and Perplexity maintains its own index, Gemini sources its content from Google Search.

For PR teams, that combines AEO and SEO as complementary strategies, where one fuels the other. Ranking well for industry terms and keywords positions your brand to appear as an authoritative source to cite from and recommend on Gemini.

Google also describes a query fan-out process on the platform where one question triggers multiple related searches. Every search allows Gemini to cite and draw from a wider and more diverse set of supporting pages than a single search. This may also explain the higher brand density we recorded on the platform.

The Google integration also helps with measurement. Appearances in AI Overviews and AI Mode are reported in Search Console under the Web search type, making Gemini the only AI answer engine with first-party visibility data.

What this means for PR teams

Gemini rewards breadth where the other engines reward depth, and it is the one platform where social presence and existing search investment both translate directly into AI visibility.

Here are the practical takeaways for PR teams prioritizing Gemini:

• Expect presence to outrun citations. With 4.9 citations supporting 10.6 brands on average, referral traffic and link counts may understate your Gemini footprint. Analyze brand mentions, and not just citations.
• Dig deeper into mentions. While mentions are important, presence might not be the most suitable metric to track on lists averaging 10.6 brands. Monitor position and prominence within the answer, not just whether you were named.
• Lead with reputation signals in reputation-weighted sectors. Reputation drives 15.8% of Gemini’s recommendations overall, so accreditation, expert authority, and institutional standing carry weight.
• Treat social and community presence as a citation channel. Social and forum sources drive 10.3% of Gemini’s citations. Gemini rewards a broader citation profile than other engines.
• Existing SEO positioning helps. Google mentions that AI visibility on Gemini does not depend on llms.txt, chunking, and schema markups. Since it draws from Google, existing SEO fundamentals can help boost visibility for your brand.
• Use Search Console as your baseline. It is the only first-party measurement available across these four engines, and it captures AI Overviews and AI Mode appearances directly.

Across our study, every engine displays a distinct citation and recommendation profile. ChatGPT rewards mainstream placement, Claude rewards specialist depth, Perplexity rewards a crawlable and specific web presence, and Gemini rewards breadth backed by search fundamentals and social reach. The same earned media footprint produces four different outcomes.

Determining what works where is difficult to manage without measurement. As these engines continue to diverge, PR teams need dedicated AI visibility measurement to track where their brand appears across platforms, identify which sources are driving citations, and increase AI visibility.

See how your brand is surfacing across Gemini, ChatGPT, Claude, and Perplexity today. Book a demo with our team to walk through Visibility Intelligence and what it reveals about your AI presence.