Why Gemini and Perplexity give different answers about the same business
Brand Design Ltd.’s published analysis explains the different Gemini and Perplexity answers through the sources used to represent the business. In his Forbes Bulgaria analysis, Nikola Mishev found that the official Grand Hotel Pomorie website was absent from the Perplexity citations he examined, while external publications supplied its source material. Your own website therefore needs support from consistent, verifiable descriptions elsewhere.
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Imagine two prospective guests with similar requirements. Each explains what they need to their preferred AI system because they want an understandable answer without collecting every option themselves. If one sees your hotel and the other chooses among names that exclude you, your opportunities to reach them differ. When the second guest books elsewhere, you lose a sale in a conversation you never joined.
A favourable result is not the whole market
You probably have a system you use more often than the others. A positive answer there is easy to remember and can become your reference for the company's entire presence. But it describes the particular observation you made. Without the other results, you do not know whether the picture holds for someone who chose a different way to ask.
This is one of the business questions behind AI SEO. People use the name when looking to be found in search engines and represented in AI answers. SEO and GEO are the disciplines used to address that need. When commissioning the work, you need to see the individual answers, the sources they use and whether the service described matches what your company actually sells.
The observed representation differs between systems. If those differences disappear from the report, you can end up making a decision from an average that describes none of the individual customer conversations particularly well.
A comparison with the same denominator
The July 2026 study covered 50 measurable medical spa centres in Bulgaria. The four models were ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity and Claude. They received 20 questions, with 10 in Bulgarian and 10 in English, producing 80 unedited answers. The figures for Grand Hotel Pomorie can therefore be read against a defined number of observations.
The hotel appeared in 17 of 20 Gemini answers and two of 20 Perplexity answers. Both results have a denominator of 20. That makes the difference clear without adding another score. It is not a single positive screenshot compared with an arbitrarily chosen negative example. It is a finding from the described sample, available for examination within that scope.
The total answers a different question
Grand Hotel Pomorie had 34 mentions overall and led the study on that measure. It was also absent from 46 of the 80 answers. Reporting only its overall position would conceal the contrast between Gemini and Perplexity. Reporting only Perplexity would leave out its recorded presence in Gemini. The total and its distribution are useful together because they describe different aspects of the same exercise.
That is why the published study offers more than an isolated promotional number. It places the finding within a defined investigation. As an owner, you can examine what supports the summary and expect the same clarity for your company. A date, a stated scope and retained answers turn an impression into something you can discuss.
What the cited sources tell us
In “Architecture of Trust”, published in Forbes Bulgaria, Nikola Mishev looks beyond mention counts. His analysis finds that the hotel's official website was absent from the Perplexity citations he examined. Travel portals, media and booking platforms appeared instead. This connects the explanation to the hotel's representation outside its own domain, where an owner may have paid less attention to how the offer is described.
Mishev's conclusion distinguishes finding the official website by name from using it to answer a category question. The business implication is that a strong description on your website needs support from verifiable external sources. An inconsistency elsewhere can leave a prospective guest with a different understanding of the offer, even when your own page states its terms correctly.
This is the published analysis of Brand Design Ltd.'s founder, not an independent replication. The figures establish the observed difference, while the source review supports the explanation in this case. We do not need to assign a single hidden mechanism to every Gemini or Perplexity answer to identify an inaccurate external description and commission work to correct it.
A source and a recommendation mean different things
A link to a page gives you a source to inspect. A business name in the text shows that the business was mentioned. To judge whether it was offered as a suitable choice, the answer needs to be read for meaning. These distinctions matter commercially because they shape what a person still choosing a provider can take from the response.
Consider a hypothetical hotel comparison in which your page about a local attraction is cited. That citation does not tell you whether the hotel was suggested as a place to stay. For someone seeking accommodation, the commercial question is whether your property appears among the suitable choices. Reading the answer shows whether your information contributes to that choice or supplies background on something else.
The evidence should describe the same business
Different answers are not a reason to vary the facts according to the system. If your service has a defined scope, that scope remains the reference for every description. Clear facts allow the answer to be compared with the real offer. An unclear offer leaves any dispute about accuracy without a firm basis. This is a business question that comes before an assessment of an individual model.
Your confidence in the service cannot substitute for evidence of what it includes. If your own page and an external publication describe different terms, the work begins by establishing which account is accurate and which representation needs correction. More mentions could otherwise carry the same misunderstanding to more prospective customers. The problem would grow even as the headline count improved.
Work on SEO and GEO for AI search aligns the facts with their supporting evidence; measurement then shows how the business is represented in the observed answers. You can assess the work against a particular problem, such as an omitted service, incorrect terms or absence from the suggestions. Each needs to be described clearly in the commissioned scope so that completion has a concrete meaning.
A measure should support the next decision
Different results also call for different quality checks. Frequent mentions make the accuracy of the description worth examining. An absent business calls for a closer reading of the question and the sources used to answer it. A technical failure or missing response belongs in a separate category: it is not a valid answer that leaves out your company.
The same applies to a before-and-after comparison. Comparable questions and retained answers allow the change to be discussed. If the conditions differ, that difference belongs in the interpretation. This preserves the report's meaning and gives you a basis for assessing the website and representation work without attributing every new answer to one particular edit.
The study included ten questions in Bulgarian and ten in English. For an owner serving international guests, a combined language total could conceal different descriptions of the same service. That is a hypothetical business situation, not an additional finding from the Bulgarian study. Reporting by language lets you see whether the offer reaches each reader with the same meaning before discussing the enquiries and sales that follow. The purpose is to examine a commercially relevant difference, rather than multiply scores.
Commission work with a defined scope
B2A Brand Signal includes an audit and corrections to approved facts and public evidence, with measurement before and after the work. You commission changes to the identified representation within an agreed scope; separate system results show what was observed. The one-time fee is €1000, paid 50% in advance and 50% on completion. The Business Audit costs €200 one-time and is not charged again if already paid.
Start with the free website check, which examines public website signals. Actual representation in AI answers is measured separately. The check opens a discussion about the scope your business needs, grounded in its current public description. You can then commission work on the identified problem and assess it against the facts, evidence and before-and-after observations agreed for that task.
Questions and answers
If Gemini finds me, does Perplexity find me too?
A result from one system is not a measurement of the other. In the cited study, Grand Hotel Pomorie appeared in 17 of 20 Gemini answers and two of 20 Perplexity answers.
Why is an overall AI visibility score insufficient?
A total does not show how the observations are distributed between systems. Separating them lets you see where the business appears and which answers omit it.
Is AI SEO a separate discipline?
It is a name used when searching for the need to be found and represented in AI answers. The work is addressed through SEO and GEO according to the particular task.
What should I expect from B2A Brand Signal?
The scope includes an audit and corrections to approved facts and evidence, with measurement before and after the work. That gives you a basis for discussing the observed change in your company's representation.
