Overseas buyers now ask AI before they search
A buyer in Texas choosing a portable power station, a parent in Berlin comparing robot vacuums, a gamer in São Paulo looking for a new mobile RPG: more and more of them start by asking ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini or Google’s AI Overviews “what is the best …”. The assistant answers with three to five brand names and a handful of sources. If your brand is not in that answer, the buyer never reaches your store page.
For Chinese brands this is a specific problem. AI assistants build their answers from English reviews, Reddit threads, comparison articles and Wikipedia-style pages. Brands that grew through marketplaces and paid ads often have strong sales but thin English “source material”, so the AI recommends the Western competitor it can find more evidence for.
We ran 24 typical buyer questions across 12 categories through ChatGPT to see which brands it names and which sites it reads. The results are in our Chinese brands AI visibility benchmark.
What we do for brands going global
- English AI visibility baseline. We ask ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini and Google AI Overviews the questions your buyers ask, in your target markets, and record who gets named and which pages are cited.
- Source gap map. For each question we list the review sites, Reddit threads, YouTube videos and comparison pages the assistant relies on, and mark the ones where you are missing or misdescribed.
- Community word of mouth. Disclosed, genuine participation on Reddit and the forums your buyers use, so real discussion about your product exists where AI looks. See Reddit community marketing.
- English site GEO. Product, comparison and FAQ pages written so assistants can quote them: clear specs, honest comparisons, structured data, crawlable by AI bots. See GEO services.
- Re-test and report. The same questions are re-run on a schedule so you can see which answers changed. Weekly monitoring is available on our monitoring plans.
Where to start by industry
| Industry | Typical buyer question | Read more |
|---|---|---|
| Consumer hardware (drones, cameras, power stations, robot vacuums) | “Best portable power station for camping” | E-commerce |
| Mobile and PC games | “Best mobile RPG like Genshin” | Gaming |
| EVs and auto parts | “Is BYD a good car to buy in Europe” | Automotive |
| Apps and B2B software | “Best AI note-taking app for teams” | SaaS |
Who we have worked with
Our team has worked with brands such as Alibaba.com, JD.com, Autohome, ZOOMLION, SMOORE and NetEase Games on overseas growth. See clients and service scope.
How an engagement starts
- Run the free AI visibility test to see in a few minutes what ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, Qwen, Doubao and DeepSeek say about you and your category.
- Ask for a free growth audit: we run your buyer questions on ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini and AI Overviews and send the gap map.
- Agree on markets, questions and channels, then start the monthly plan with links, screenshots and re-test records.
FAQ
Does the free test cover ChatGPT?
Yes. The free test asks ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, Qwen, Doubao and DeepSeek five buyer questions in English or Chinese. Google AI Overviews has no public API, so we cover it in the free growth audit, where we also run your own questions and markets.
Can you guarantee ChatGPT will recommend us?
No one can honestly guarantee that. AI answers change and depend on what the web says about you. We guarantee the work we deliver and show you before-and-after answers for the same questions.
Which markets do you cover?
English-speaking markets first (US, UK, Canada, Australia), plus the major European languages on request.
We already do SEO and paid ads. Is this different?
Yes. SEO gets your own pages ranked; AI visibility depends mostly on third-party sources such as reviews, Reddit and comparison articles. The two work together.
How do we get the benchmark data for our category?
Read the benchmark report or ask for an audit and we will run your category and competitors.
Want to know what ChatGPT says about your brand and competitors overseas?
Get the free growth audit