Research Identifies Key Content Formats for AI Answer Engine Optimization

A new study based on data from HubSpot’s State of AEO 2026 report and Wix Studio’s AI Search Lab research reveals key content formats favored by artificial intelligence (AI) answer engines. The research, which analyzed over one million AI citations across platforms like ChatGPT, Gemini, AI Overviews, and Perplexity, identifies listicles, articles, product pages, and category pages as the most frequently cited on-page content types.

Specifically, comparison content demonstrated exceptional performance on ChatGPT, achieving a 95% citation rate. This rate was the highest observed among all formats and engines included in the study.

The research also highlighted that content type is one of three critical layers influencing AI citations. In addition to the format itself, title patterns play a significant role, with phrases such as “What is X,” “X vs. Y,” “How to X,” and “Best X” being particularly effective. Structural elements within the page also correlate with high AI citations, including the presence of statistics and data, visible last-updated dates, author biographies, and FAQ sections incorporating schema markup.

For platforms like Perplexity, off-site discussion content from sources such as Reddit, G2, LinkedIn, and Quora accounted for 17.35% of citations in the Wix dataset. This suggests that a discussion-based strategy may complement on-page optimization efforts for specific AI engines.

According to HubSpot Marketing, these insights can assist businesses in structuring both new and existing web pages to enhance their visibility and citation rates within AI-driven search environments.