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Key takeaways
- No. Asked the same question again and again, ChatGPT and other AI tools give the same list of brands twice less than 1 time in 100.
- The order changes even more: the same list in the same order comes up about 1 time in 1,000.
- What stays fairly stable is how often a brand appears. Strong brands show up in 60% to 90% of answers for the same need.
- So judge your AI visibility by how often you are named across many answers, never by one screenshot or by your position in a list.
No. ChatGPT does not recommend the same brands every time. Each answer is generated fresh, so asking the same question twice usually gives a different list, in a different order, sometimes of a different length. What does hold steady is *how often* a given brand is named across many answers, and that is the number worth tracking.
AI rarely gives the same answer twice
What to track instead
- 1How often you are named
- 2Rivals named instead
- 3Wrong facts about you
- 4Sources AI cites
What the research found#
In late 2025, Rand Fishkin of SparkToro and Patrick O'Donnell of Gumshoe.ai asked about 600 volunteers to run the same 12 prompts through ChatGPT, Claude and Google's AI, nearly 3,000 times in total. Each answer was turned into a list of the brands it named, then compared.
- The chance of getting the same list of brands twice was under 1 in 100.
- The chance of getting the same list in the same order was about 1 in 1,000.
- Lists varied from two or three names to more than ten.
- Even when people phrased the question very differently, the AI tools tended to return a similar set of brands for the same need.
Other studies point the same way. SE Ranking ran 10,000 searches through Google's AI Mode three times on the same day: on average only 9.2% of the cited web pages were the same across the three runs, and 14.7% of the sites. Ahrefs compared Google's AI Mode with AI Overviews and found they cited the same pages only 13.7% of the time, even though their answers said much the same thing.
Why AI answers change from run to run#
- Each answer is generated fresh. AI tools write their answer word by word with some built-in randomness, so two runs rarely match exactly.
- They search the web differently each time. When a tool looks things up, it may read different pages, and those pages shape which brands it names.
- The models are updated often. A tool can behave differently from one week to the next.
- Context matters. Your past chats, location and account settings can change the answer. That is why a fresh chat gives the cleanest result.
What stays stable#
The list changes, but the overall picture does not change much. In the SparkToro study, some brands appeared in 60% to 90% of answers for the same need, even though the exact list moved every time. Answers were also more stable in smaller, specialised markets, such as niche B2B tools or regional services, than in big crowded categories.
In other words: a brand AI strongly associates with a need keeps turning up. A brand it only half knows appears now and then.
What this means for your brand#
- Never judge AI visibility from one answer. A screenshot that shows you named, or missing, is an anecdote.
- Ignore your position in the list. Being third today and first tomorrow is mostly noise.
- Count how often you are named across a fixed set of buyer questions, several AI tools and repeated runs. Our guide on how to measure AI visibility explains the method step by step.
- Compare yourself with the rivals named on the same questions, not with a general benchmark.
- Work on being the obvious answer. Clear facts on your site, pages that answer buyer questions directly and mentions on trusted sites make AI connect you to the need more consistently.
To see how often AI names your company today, and who it names instead, run the free AI visibility check.
Sources: Search Engine Land, AI recommendation lists rarely repeat (SparkToro study) · Search Engine Journal, SE Ranking study on AI Mode results across sessions · Ahrefs, AI Overviews vs AI Mode
Questions and answers
Does ChatGPT give the same answer to the same question?
Usually not. ChatGPT generates each answer fresh, so the wording, the list of brands and their order often change between runs, even for an identical question.
Why does ChatGPT recommend different brands each time?
Because each answer is generated with some randomness, the tool may read different web pages when it searches, and the models are updated often. Your chat history and settings can also play a part.
Is my brand's position in ChatGPT's answer important?
Not on its own. The order of brands changes on almost every run. How often you are named across many answers is a far more reliable signal than where you appear in one list.
How many times should I ask the same question?
At least three times per AI tool, in fresh chats. Across a set of 10 to 20 buyer questions, that gives enough answers to see a real pattern.
Do other AI tools behave the same way?
Yes. The same pattern was found for Claude and Google's AI, and studies of Google's AI Mode and AI Overviews show they cite different pages most of the time.
B2B marketers who build tools to measure how ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude and Perplexity talk about companies. About us