Getting named by AI
We asked 4 AI tools 12 Australian patient questions on 12 September 2026. Then we sorted all 427 sources they cited. Here is what it means for you.
The easy part
Perplexity cited a clinic's own site in 12 of 12 answers. Claude did in 11, ChatGPT in 9 and Google's AI Overviews in 8.
The advice you often hear
A provider's own site took 60.3% to 71.7% of all citations. Directories, comparison sites and insurers took 6.2% to 21.3%.
The surprise
Google's AI Overviews cited a directory 6.2% of the time, the lowest of the 4. Perplexity was highest at 21.3%. Even so, it cited clinic sites 3 times more often.
The hard part
Of the 167 clinic sites cited, 124 showed up on just 1 tool. Only 6 showed up on all 4. So one win tells you little about the rest.
Some good news
In 11 of the 11 questions we could compare, at least 2 tools cited the same clinic. Around that small shared group sat a long tail unique to each tool.
Where Google said nothing
One was the most commercial question we asked, for the top physio in a named Sydney suburb. There, your normal blue link was the whole answer.
A mistake worth knowing
Seven citations pointed outside Australia, all from 1 tool. A Hobart back pain question returned 4 US practices. A Newcastle NSW sleep question returned a UK hospital trust.
Our own error rate
It tagged 212 sites as clinic sites. A person opened every one and moved 45. YouTube was one of them. Every figure you see here is the corrected one.
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