What to make sure your business is seen by AI tools like ChatGPT and Google AI Search? AI answer engines cite pages with real evidence in them... and penalise the ones without it.

A GEO study out of Princeton, Georgia Tech and IIT Delhi:

• Expert quotes lifted AI visibility by 41%

• Statistics lifted it by 33%

• Citing sources lifted it by 28%

• Keyword stuffing cost pages 8%

A separate arXiv paper backs the same pattern: pages with statistics, citations and quotes got cited more by AI answer engines, keyword-stuffed pages got cited less.

The obvious reading here is to add more stats and citations to your content for AI visibility purposes, but you need to be careful this doesn't become a version of last decade's keyword stuffing, wearing a slightly sparklier, prettier AI outfit.

A stat only earns citation because it proves something useful to the reader or cements a point being argued by the author. For their own sake, they're detrimental to both readers and AI visibility.

Grab a random 33% from somewhere and drop it in without understanding what it means, and AI reads it exactly like it once read a page stuffed with repeated keywords: A trick wearing a signal's clothing.

For a small business without a research team, the fix isn't hunting for more numbers to sprinkle in.

It's writing about what you already know well enough that a real detail turns up on its own, because you noticed it, not because you searched for it. What's the last statistic you added to something you wrote?

Did it prove your point, or just decorate it?

++ I'm Nigel, I help SMEs optimise their businesses in the age of AI. I created Ghostart, an AI Visibility/GEO platform and The Foundry, helping SMEs implement AI to make their business easier to run.