Highlights
- The dataset: We analyzed over 240,000 AI source citations generated from prompts specific to the IT consulting industry. The AI responses behind them come from four AI models and were run in 12 countries over the course of Q2 2026.
- reddit.com climbed from #19 to #3 (+229%): The standout mover as the window progressed.
- reddit.com makes up 7% of ChatGPT's citations: Its single most-cited consulting source.
- 83% of top sources differ between any two models: ChatGPT and Microsoft Copilot share just one domain, clutch.co.
- 60% of Google AI Overview's citations are from commercial domains: The most commercial model of the four.
Which sources should you target to get cited as an IT consulting brand?
The single most-cited domain differs by model, and the concentration is modest everywhere, no engine bets heavily on one source the way some categories do. Three of the four models lead with the same B2B listing site, clutch.co; ChatGPT is the lone exception, led by reddit.com.
| Model | #1 | #2 | #3 | #4 | #5 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| ChatGPT | reddit.com (7.4%) | deloitte.com (2.7%) | accenture.com (2.6%) | en.wikipedia.org (2.2%) | it.wikipedia.org (2.0%) |
| Microsoft Copilot | clutch.co (7.3%) | consultancy.uk (5.3%) | themanifest.com (3.6%) | consulting.us (3.3%) | consultancy.com.au (3.0%) |
| Grok | clutch.co (6.1%) | gartner.com (3.6%) | techbehemoths.com (2.9%) | linkedin.com (2.4%) | goodfirms.co (2.4%) |
| Google AI Overview | clutch.co (3.1%) | itoeste.com (2.6%) | casebasix.com (2.1%) | consultancy.nl (2.1%) | consultancy.uk (1.8%) |
The character of each list is distinct: Microsoft Copilot and Grok read like B2B services directories (clutch.co, themanifest.com, goodfirms.co, techbehemoths.com), Google AI Overview adds national consultancy portals (itoeste.com, consultancy.nl), and ChatGPT reads like a forum-and-encyclopedia digest with the marquee Big Four firms (deloitte.com, accenture.com) layered on top.
How have AI source rankings changed over time in the IT consulting industry?
We split the window at its midpoint (early May 2026) and compared each top domain's share of citations in each half, ranking by share within each half rather than raw counts.
The standout mover is reddit.com, which climbed from #19 to #3 by share (+229%). Localized consultancy portals also gained. On the other side, the directory and analyst sites Grok favors lost the most ground. This is an observational snapshot over roughly sixteen weeks, so we read it as directional rather than a forecast, track it in the live AI visibility rankings.
What type of content do AI models cite for IT & digital consulting?
We classified every cited domain by its content category and measured the mix per model. Commercial content, vendor pages, services directories, and rating platforms, leads for every model, but the secondary mix splits the field. Google AI Overview is the most commercial (60.1%); Grok pours nearly a third of its citations into community content; ChatGPT leans hardest on reference material.
For a consulting firm, the read is direct: every model rewards a strong presence on commercial services directories and rating sites, but the differentiators vary. Microsoft Copilot demands editorial trade-press coverage (28.9%, the highest), Grok rewards community visibility (30.0% UGC, forums, professional networks), and ChatGPT uniquely values reference content (9.9%, overwhelmingly Wikipedia), so a maintained, well-sourced encyclopedia presence matters more for ChatGPT than for any other engine.
Do AI models cite local-language content for IT & digital consulting?
Across the six non-English markets we measured (Spanish, German, French, Italian, Dutch, Swedish), 33.5% of citations point to a local-country domain (a .de, .fr, .it, .nl, .se, or Spanish-market .es/.mx/.ar site). That is markedly more local than globally branded categories like cybersecurity, IT & digital consulting is a relationship-driven services market with strong national directories and trade press, and the models reflect that.
German is the most locally grounded market and Spanish the least, and Spanish is by far the largest non-English market in the dataset (over 60,000 citations spanning Spain, Mexico, and Argentina), so its lower local rate pulls the global average down. Spanish-language consulting prompts pull heavily from pan-regional .com directories rather than national domains.
Which AI model relies most on local sources for IT & digital consulting?
The same prompt, asked in the same language, produces very different localization behavior depending on the model. Microsoft Copilot and Google AI Overview cite local sources at roughly twice the rate as Grok.
Microsoft Copilot cites local domains over 60% of the time in the German market and nearly 60% in Dutch. Google AI Overview is close behind and cites local sources above 50% in four of its five reported markets. Grok is the global outlier, it reaches for pan-regional and English directories almost everywhere, citing local sources only 17% of the time in Spanish. Google AI Overview returned no French-market cell in this dataset, so its French figure is omitted; its average covers the five languages with data.
Should IT & digital consulting optimize for each AI model separately?
Yes, emphatically. We built each model's top-20 most-cited domains and compared every pair, the share of domains two lists hold in common out of all the domains they name between them. The average overlap is 17.5%, so more than four out of five top sources differ between any two engines.
Only one domain, clutch.co, appears in all four models' top-20 lists. It is the closest thing the IT & digital-consulting category has to a universally trusted source. Everything else is contested. The gap between the directory-driven engines and ChatGPT is statistically real, not an artifact of small lists, and the headline, that overlap is low across the board, holds across all six comparisons.
How many sources does each AI model cite per answer?
The four models differ sharply in how many sources they pull into a single answer. Grok is the most source-hungry by far, averaging 28.4 cited sources per response; ChatGPT is the most economical at 7.3, a 3.9x gap.
For a consulting firm, source count is opportunity: Grok's wide net means more chances to be cited per answer, but each citation carries less weight; ChatGPT's narrow net means fewer slots and higher stakes for each one.
Context
This analysis draws from Temso's AI visibility monitoring platform, which tracks how brands appear in AI model responses across ChatGPT, Microsoft Copilot, Grok, and Google AI Overview. The dataset covers IT & digital-consulting prompts across twelve markets (US, UK, Canada, Australia, Germany, France, Italy, Netherlands, Sweden, Spain, Mexico, Argentina) and seven languages over roughly sixteen weeks (March–June 2026).
It measures what AI models cite, not the accuracy of answers, the traffic value of a citation, or causation behind any ranking movement. The localization measure is a country-domain (ccTLD) proxy for local-language content, a German-language article on a .com domain counts as non-local here. These findings reflect citation behavior for IT & digital-consulting prompts in the monitored markets and may not generalize to other prompt types or verticals.
Methodology
How we measured this
We analyzed over 240,000 cited source links extracted from 22,156 AI model responses to IT & digital-consulting prompts, collected between March 10 and June 29, 2026 across twelve countries and seven languages. A "citation" is a single web source a model referenced in answering a prompt; we counted only sources flagged as actually cited, not merely retrieved. Domain categories (commercial, editorial, UGC, reference, institutional) were assigned from a global domain registry. Cross-model overlap was measured using Jaccard similarity on each model pair's top-20 most-cited domains, averaging 17.5% across the six pairs. Temporal analysis split the observation period at its midpoint and compared each domain's within-half share of citations.
Sample sizes exceeded recommended thresholds for every reported finding. Localization is measured by a country-code-domain proxy, the source records carry no detected content language, so those figures are directional, undercount local-language pages on generic TLDs, and exclude English-language prompts. Google AI Overview returned no French-market localization cell, so that cell is omitted rather than estimated. Model coverage varied across the observation window, so temporal movements are reported as relative ranks within each half.
Frequently asked questions
Do different AI models cite the same IT & digital-consulting sources?
No, overwhelmingly not. Any two of the four models share on average just 17.5% of their top-20 domains, so about 83% of the sources one model trusts are absent from another's top tier. Only clutch.co appears across all four lists.
Which AI model cites the most sources per answer?
Grok, by a wide margin, about 28 cited sources per consulting response, versus roughly 11 for Google AI Overview, 8 for Microsoft Copilot, and 7 for ChatGPT. That is a 3.9x spread between the most and least source-hungry models.
Which single domain matters most in IT & digital-consulting AI answers?
It depends on the model, but clutch.co is the closest thing to a universal source, it leads Microsoft Copilot, Grok, and Google AI Overview, and is the only domain in all four top tiers. ChatGPT is the exception, leading with reddit.com at 7.4% of its citations.
What type of content gets cited most for IT consulting?
Commercial content, services directories, rating platforms, and vendor pages, leads for every model, from 42.3% to 60.1%. The secondary mix differs sharply: Microsoft Copilot adds editorial trade press (28.9%), Grok adds community and professional-network content (30.0% UGC), and ChatGPT uniquely leans on reference material like Wikipedia (9.9%).
Do AI models cite local-language content in non-English markets?
Yes, substantially, more than in globally branded categories. Across six non-English markets, about 33.5% of citations use a local-country domain. German markets are the most local (43.5%), Spanish the least (27.5%).
Which model is best for reaching non-English consulting audiences?
Microsoft Copilot and Google AI Overview rely most on local sources, roughly 43–47% of their citations in non-English prompts use a local-country domain, about double Grok's rate (23.1%). A firm targeting German, Dutch, or Italian buyers gets the most local-source visibility through Microsoft Copilot and Google AI Overview.
Did the IT-consulting source rankings change over the period studied?
Yes. reddit.com climbed from #19 to #3 by citation share (+229%) and several national consultancy portals (consultancy.uk, consultancy.com.au) rose into the top five, while directory and analyst sites like ensun.io and goodfirms.co fell. We read the movement as directional rather than a firm trend.
What should an IT or digital-consulting firm do with this?
Optimize per model, not in general. Every engine rewards a strong presence on B2B services directories and rating sites (clutch.co, themanifest.com, goodfirms.co), but the differentiators diverge: Microsoft Copilot rewards trade-press coverage, Grok rewards community and professional-network visibility, ChatGPT rewards reference content and brand authority, and in non-English markets a national-domain presence pays off most through Microsoft Copilot and Google AI Overview. Because the models overlap so little, a single-channel strategy leaves you invisible to most of the AI search surface.
