There’s a question most marketers haven’t thought to ask yet. Not “are your customers using AI?” They probably are. Not “which AI tools are growing fastest?” That changes monthly.
The question is: which AI is your customer asking for which type of problem — and why?
Because it turns out people don’t just use AI. They’ve developed preferences. Habits. Relationships with specific tools based on the type of task, the stakes involved, and — this is the part that really matters — what they’re comfortable putting on record. If you’re trying to be visible in AI-driven search, understanding this isn’t optional. It’s the whole job.
The Quick Comparison: Seven Major LLM Platforms
Before we get into the psychology, here’s a working map of the major platforms and how they typically show up in practice.
| Platform | Primary User Profile | Typical Use Case | How It Appears in B2B | Visibility Opportunity |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| ChatGPT | Broad adoption, early adopters, SMEs, creatives | Research, drafting, general queries, problem-solving | Individual use and Teams licences; widely self-installed | High — one of the most-used for open research queries |
| Gemini | Google ecosystem users, casual AI users, mobile-first | Quick lookups, Google Workspace integration, basic tasks | Google Workspace deployments, consumer default | Growing — especially in Google AI Overviews crossover |
| Claude | Sophisticated users, long-form thinkers, privacy-aware | Complex analysis, long documents, nuanced reasoning | Less common in enterprise mandates; chosen deliberately | Strong for in-depth, authoritative content |
| Perplexity | Research-oriented, citation-conscious, professionals | Sourced answers, fact-checking, deeper research | Used individually; growing in knowledge worker circles | Very high — Perplexity actively cites sources |
| Copilot | Corporate employees, Microsoft 365 users | Workplace tasks, document drafting, meeting summaries | Mandated in enterprise Microsoft environments | Critical for B2B — this is where corporate buyers live |
| DeepSeek | Tech-savvy, cost-conscious, privacy-aware, global | Open-source tasks, coding, research at scale | Emerging in tech teams; used via API by developers | Early-stage but growing fast in technical audiences |
| Grok | X/Twitter power users, contrarians, news-followers | Real-time information, current events, unfiltered takes | Niche in B2B; more consumer and media adjacent | Relevant if your audience is active on X |
Why the Differences Matter More Than You Think
That table is useful. But it doesn’t capture the full picture. The reason people use different AI tools isn’t just about capability or features. It’s about psychology — the same psychology that explains why someone checks TripAdvisor before they trust a hotel website, or reads Reddit before they buy software.
People have developed AI relationships. They have a go-to. A default. A platform they trust with the serious stuff and one they use for everything else.
I’ll use my own behaviour as an example. I use Claude for complex, sophisticated work — the kind of thinking where a superficial answer won’t do and I need genuine depth. For more general research, mid-level queries where I want something solid but not critical, I’ll go to ChatGPT. And Gemini? I use it for things I’d feel faintly embarrassed to bring into a proper conversation. Quick lookups. Basic questions. Things I don’t want in my Claude or ChatGPT history.
Same person. Three platforms. Three completely different intent levels. Scale that across your entire customer base and you start to see the challenge — and the opportunity.
The Chat History Factor
Here’s something almost nobody in marketing is discussing yet. Part of why people split their AI behaviour across platforms isn’t just about capability. It’s about what they want associated with their account.
Your main AI relationship — the platform you’ve invested in, shared context with, built a history on — that’s personal. The throwaway question. The half-formed idea you’re not ready to commit to. The thing you want to look up without it becoming part of your ongoing context. That goes somewhere else. It’s the same reason you might Google something on your phone rather than say it out loud to a smart speaker in a shared room. Same information need. Different comfort level about where it gets logged.
For marketers, this matters because the AI your customer uses for serious, high-intent decisions is not necessarily the same AI they use for casual browsing. Your visibility in one doesn’t guarantee your visibility in the other.
Platform by Platform: Who’s Actually Using What and Why
ChatGPT — The Default, The Workhorse, The One Everyone Tries First
ChatGPT is where most people start. It has the broadest adoption, the most name recognition, and the longest head start. When someone hears about AI for the first time and wants to try it, they almost always end up here.
The psychology of the ChatGPT user spans a very wide range — complete beginners through to power users running complex workflows. What they share is familiarity. ChatGPT is the default choice because it requires the least explanation. The critical thing to understand is that ChatGPT uses its own index and partnerships — including Bing — to retrieve information. Our ChatGPT SEO page goes into the specific mechanics.
Gemini — The Google Native, The Casual User’s Default
Gemini has a distribution advantage no other AI tool can match: it is woven into the most widely used search engine on the planet. For a large proportion of users, Gemini isn’t something they chose — it appeared inside Google and became part of how they search. The typical Gemini user isn’t necessarily someone who thinks of themselves as an “AI user” at all.
Within Google Workspace environments, Gemini also shows up as a productivity tool. This workplace integration makes it one of the most broadly deployed tools in consumer and SME contexts. For businesses with strong Google search visibility, Gemini is particularly important because of its close relationship with Google’s own index and AI Overviews.
Claude — The Considered Choice, The Long-Form Thinker
Claude attracts a specific type of user: someone who has thought about which AI tool to use and made a deliberate choice. They’re not here by default. The psychology tends toward depth over speed — lawyers, consultants, strategists, senior marketers, researchers. People for whom the quality of the thinking matters as much as the output.
Content that gets cited by Claude tends to be substantive, well-structured and genuinely authoritative. Claude users are also more likely to follow up, dig deeper and engage with referenced sources — which means appearing in Claude’s outputs carries a different quality of visibility. Our Claude SEO page covers how Claude retrieves and cites sources in detail.
Perplexity — The Researcher, The Citation Hunter
Perplexity has carved out a specific and valuable niche: AI-powered answers with cited sources. Every response comes with references. The psychology of the Perplexity user is distinct — they’re typically more research-oriented, more sceptical of unsourced answers, and more willing to follow citations to original material.
This makes Perplexity one of the highest-value visibility opportunities available right now. Being cited in Perplexity means appearing in a context where the user is actively encouraged to engage with your source. It also uses Bing as part of its index — a detail covered in the Bing and AI Visibility guide.
Copilot — The Corporate Default, The B2B Blind Spot
This is the one that catches B2B businesses off guard most often. Microsoft Copilot is not a tool people chose. For millions of employees in corporate environments, it’s simply there — embedded in Outlook, Teams, Word, Excel, and the rest of the Microsoft 365 suite.
The buyer researching your product at their desk in a large organisation is, in many cases, operating entirely within a Microsoft AI ecosystem. And Copilot’s index is Bing. This is the practical consequence most SEO strategies still haven’t fully absorbed. Bing visibility — the thing that felt like a secondary concern for most of the last decade — is now directly connected to the AI tool embedded in the working environment of a significant proportion of your potential B2B buyers. Full detail at Bing and AI Visibility.
DeepSeek — The Technical User, The Privacy-Conscious, The Cost-Aware
DeepSeek arrived quickly and made an impact that surprised a lot of people, primarily because it demonstrated that capable AI didn’t require the infrastructure budget of the major US labs. The psychology sits in a few camps: the developer who wants API access at lower cost, the privacy-conscious user uncomfortable with US-based platforms, and the technically curious.
In B2B, DeepSeek is most visible in technical teams: software development, data engineering, research functions. Worth tracking, worth understanding, and worth ensuring your technical content is substantive enough to hold up to a more analytically minded audience.
Grok — The Contrarian, The Real-Time Follower
Grok lives within X (formerly Twitter) and carries that platform’s psychological DNA with it. Its users tend to be actively engaged with current events and news. In B2B terms it’s a niche platform for most industries — but for businesses where public narrative matters, Grok’s access to real-time X content is worth paying attention to.
The Workplace Split — Captive vs Chosen
Add the workplace layer and the fragmentation deepens further. Millions of people now have a mandated AI tool at work — Copilot embedded in their Microsoft environment, a company-licensed ChatGPT Teams account, an internal tool built on an enterprise API. In those environments, the AI isn’t chosen. It’s assigned.
Then they get home and open something else entirely. The AI they actually like. The one they chose themselves. The one they’d use at eleven at night without it going on a company server. For B2B marketers in particular, this split matters enormously — the person researching your product at their desk in a corporate environment is using a completely different AI ecosystem to the same person doing follow-up research at home that evening.
What This Means for Your Visibility Strategy
Most businesses are still optimising for where they think their customers search. That’s the mistake. The better question is: where does your customer go at each stage of their actual decision?
When they’re exploring — not ready to buy, just building a picture — which platform feels low-stakes enough to ask a casual question in? When they’re comparing options seriously, where do they go for sourced, trustworthy answers? When they’re validating, what platforms and channels do they turn to? And when they’re ready to act, where do they go first and who do they call?
Are you visible at each of those moments, or just one of them? For most businesses, the honest answer is one. Maybe two. Which means there are entire stages of the decision where a competitor — or simply no result at all — is filling the gap.
The Uncomfortable Bit
Here’s what no ranking report will tell you. You might be visible in Google. But invisible in ChatGPT. Invisible in Copilot. Invisible in Perplexity. And because none of your current tools measure that, you won’t know until the leads get quieter, the sales cycles get longer, and someone asks why the pipeline feels harder than it used to.
That’s what modern invisibility looks like. Not a sudden collapse. A gradual exclusion from conversations you didn’t know were happening.
The fix isn’t seven separate strategies for seven separate platforms. It’s one coherent approach: strong index visibility through Google and Bing as the foundation that feeds multiple platforms, authoritative content substantial enough to earn citations in source-led tools, clear entity signals that let AI systems understand and represent your business accurately, and enough independent third-party validation that those systems feel confident recommending you.
Strong brands show up across environments. That’s always been true. The environments have just multiplied.
