Why Betting on ChatGPT or Gemini Alone Is a Losing Strategy
- Scott Cobett
- 2 days ago
- 5 min read
Everyone predicted ChatGPT would dominate AI search. The numbers in early 2024 seemed unstoppable: 300 million users, exponential growth, market leadership.
Then reality happened.
ChatGPT's growth slowed. Google's Gemini accelerated faster than anyone expected.
New AI search platforms launched monthly, each with different algorithms, ranking factors, and content preferences.
The lesson? Platform dominance in AI search is unpredictable. And companies optimizing exclusively for one platform are building on quicksand.
The Platform Volatility Problem
Let's look at what actually happened in 2025:
ChatGPT's growth trajectory flattened after its explosive 2023-2024 launch period. User acquisition slowed. Engagement patterns shifted. OpenAI's focus moved to enterprise and API customers rather than consumer search.
Gemini's adoption curve shocked the market. Google's integration with Search, Android, and Chrome gave it distribution advantages no competitor could match. Within months, Gemini was answering billions of queries daily—most users didn't even realize they'd switched from traditional search to AI search.
Market share became fluid. What looked like a two-horse race became a multi-platform landscape. Claude, Perplexity, You.com, and others captured specific use cases and demographics.
New entrants keep launching. Every quarter brings new AI search platforms, each claiming advantages in accuracy, speed, or specialization.
Here's the historical parallel: Remember Ask Jeeves? AltaVista? These weren't niche players—they were dominant search engines that seemed permanent. Even Google faced serious competition from Yahoo, MSN, and others. Platform dominance is never as stable as it looks from inside the moment.
What Platform-Agnostic Actually Means
Platform-agnostic doesn't mean "optimize for every platform individually." That's impossible and exhausting.
It means: Build fundamental signals that work everywhere.
Think of it like SEO in the early 2000s. Companies that optimized for Google's specific algorithm hacks got crushed when updates came. Companies that focused on genuinely good content, authoritative backlinks, and user value survived every algorithm change.
The same principle applies to AI search. There are three pillars that work regardless of which AI system processes them:
1. Brand authority and entity recognition. When AI systems across platforms consistently see your brand cited as an authority in your category, they recommend you. This isn't platform-specific—it's fundamental.
2. Structured data (machine-readable content). Schema markup, clear hierarchical organization, explicit attribute relationships—these help all AI systems parse and understand your content.
3. Citation-worthy content. Content so good that other sites, journalists, and experts reference it. Citations are the new backlinks, and they work across every platform.
Build these three, and you're visible everywhere. Ignore them and optimize for platform-specific tricks, and you're vulnerable every time market share shifts.
How to Build Platform-Agnostic Authority
Focus on E-E-A-T signals: Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, Trustworthiness. These aren't Google-specific—they're fundamental markers of quality that all AI systems recognize.
Demonstrate experience through case studies, results, specific examples. Show expertise through comprehensive topic coverage and technical depth. Build authoritativeness through citations, mentions, and third-party validation. Establish trustworthiness through transparency, author bios, and real human voices.
Create comprehensive topic coverage, not keyword targeting. AI systems evaluate your content in context of everything else you've published. A single comprehensive guide on a topic carries more weight than 10 shallow posts targeting different keywords.
Get cited everywhere, not just ranked in one place. When your content gets referenced in articles, podcasts, Reddit threads, and industry reports, every AI system sees those signals. Citations are platform-agnostic authority.
Maintain consistent brand presence across platforms. Your LinkedIn, your website, your YouTube, your podcast—when AI systems see consistent signals across platforms, they recognize you as an entity with real authority.
At Mesa West, we've optimized our content to show up across ChatGPT, Gemini, Copilot, and traditional Google Search. We don't chase platform-specific tricks—we build authority that works everywhere. When clients ask "Should we optimize for ChatGPT or Gemini?" our answer is: "Both, by building neither."
The Risk of Platform-Specific Optimization
Platform-specific optimization creates three problems:
Narrow visibility. You're visible to users on one platform, invisible to everyone else. As market share shifts, your visibility shifts with it.
Constant rework. Every time a new platform gains traction, you're rebuilding from scratch. Platform-agnostic authority carries over automatically.
Algorithm vulnerability. Platforms change their algorithms constantly. Platform-specific optimizations break. Fundamental authority endures.
Think about social media. Brands that built entire strategies around "Facebook organic reach" got crushed when the algorithm changed in 2018. Brands that built email lists and owned audiences weathered every platform shift.
The same pattern applies to AI search. Build on someone else's platform exclusively, and you're at their mercy.
What This Looks Like in Practice
Let's break down how platform-agnostic authority actually works:
Content structure: Use clear hierarchies, structured data, and machine-readable formats. HTML headings, schema markup, clear attribute relationships. This helps every AI system parse your content.
Topic authority: Publish comprehensive content that covers your category from every angle. Don't write 20 articles about "AI search tips"—write the definitive guide that becomes the reference.
Citation generation: Create content so useful that others reference it. Original research, unique frameworks, proprietary data. When journalists, bloggers, and industry experts cite you, all AI systems see it.
Entity recognition: Make it explicit who you are and what you do. Author bios, company information, clear category positioning. Help AI systems understand you as an entity, not just a collection of web pages.
How to Measure Cross-Platform Visibility
Traditional SEO metrics don't capture AI search visibility. You need new measurement approaches:
Query your brand across platforms. Test queries like "best [your category]" or "how to [your service]" across ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity. Are you cited? How often? In what context?
Track brand mentions beyond rankings. Use tools to monitor when your brand gets referenced in articles, podcasts, videos, and forums. These citations influence all AI systems.
Monitor referral traffic from AI platforms. Some AI systems drive referral traffic. Track where it's coming from and how it's performing.
Survey customers on discovery paths. Ask how they found you. If they mention AI search, ask which platform. This gives you real-world data on what's driving decisions.
We run weekly audits for clients, testing their visibility across all major AI platforms. The goal isn't to rank #1 on one platform—it's to be consistently cited across all of them.
The Future Is Fragmented
AI search won't consolidate to one winner. The landscape is fragmenting:
ChatGPT for creative and conversational queries
Gemini for Google-integrated searches
Perplexity for research and cited answers
Claude for professional and analytical queries
Vertical-specific AI search platforms for specialized industries
Different users prefer different platforms. Different queries work better on different systems. The future isn't platform dominance—it's platform diversity.
The companies that win are the ones building authority that works everywhere, not optimizing for whichever platform looks dominant today.
The Bottom Line
Ask yourself: If ChatGPT's market share dropped 50% tomorrow, would your visibility collapse?
If the answer is yes, you're not building platform-agnostic authority—you're betting on platform stability. And that's a bet you'll lose.
The solution isn't to ignore platform-specific features. It's to build a foundation of authority that transcends platforms, then layer platform-specific optimizations on top.
Focus on fundamental signals that work everywhere. Get cited everywhere. Build real authority in your category. The platforms will come and go. Your authority endures.