ReferenceEdge wins on ChatGPT.
Deeto doesn't show up.
An independent 25-query audit of Deeto's visibility across AI-powered search platforms. We tested the exact questions Customer Marketing Managers, CROs, and VP of Customer Success leaders ask when evaluating customer advocacy and reference management solutions during discovery.
When a Customer Marketing Manager asks ChatGPT or Gemini how to scale a reference program, Deeto barely exists.
ReferenceEdge appears on 9 of 25 ChatGPT queries. Influitive on 7. UserEvidence on 6. Deeto appears on 5 — and only when the question explicitly invites "emerging platforms." On Gemini, it drops to 2 of 25. That's not a brand awareness problem. That's a pipeline problem hiding in plain sight.
Methodology
How we conducted this Xtrusio AEO/GEO Audit
This assessment combines Semrush AI Visibility data with manual buyer-intent query testing across AI platforms to reveal the real competitive landscape for Deeto — going beyond automated scores to test what decision-makers actually ask during discovery.
Why Semrush AI Visibility Fails for Niche B2B
Automated scores hide a critical problem: brand dilution
Semrush AI Visibility gives Deeto a score. That score sounds directionally useful. But when you look at what Semrush is actually tracking — and compare it to what real buyers are asking on ChatGPT and Gemini — the picture changes dramatically. Deeto's Semrush score doesn't reflect its buyer-intent citation rate.
| Company | Semrush AI Score | ChatGPT Citations (25Q) | Gemini Citations (25Q) | Gap |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Deeto | 16/100 | 5/25 — 20% | 2/25 — 8% | Semrush ≠ Reality |
| ReferenceEdge | Pending | ~9/25 | ~8/25 | Category leader |
| Influitive | Pending | ~7/25 | ~6/25 | Strong presence |
| UserEvidence | Pending | ~6/25 | ~4/25 | Growing fast |
Semrush gives Deeto a score of 16/100 — rated "Low" and flagged as "Rarely mentioned in LLM outputs compared to competitors." With only 39 mentions and 201 citations, Deeto's distribution is dominated by AI Overview (33.3%) and AI Mode (35.3%), while ChatGPT accounts for just 23.1% and Gemini a mere 7.7%. Yet the Topics tab shows Semrush is tracking Deeto under "B2B Buyer Journey and Process" — a generic category that inflates the score while hiding the real buyer-intent gap.
ReferenceEdge, Influitive, and UserEvidence all have Semrush AI Visibility scores — but the real differentiator isn't their automated score. It's that all three appear consistently when a Customer Marketing Manager or CRO asks a buying question on ChatGPT. Semrush tracks brand awareness; Xtrusio tracks buyers.
Semrush AI Visibility is a directional signal — not a buyer-intent metric. This is why we use Xtrusio's buyer-intent methodology to test what real decision-makers actually ask during discovery. Deeto's score of 16/100 with just 7.7% Gemini citation share means nothing if the topic Semrush is tracking — "B2B Buyer Journey and Process" — isn't the query your buyer is actually typing into ChatGPT. ReferenceEdge appears on 9 of the 25 questions that matter.
Platform Scorecard
Who wins the buyer's attention — platform by platform
We tested 25 buyer-intent queries across ChatGPT, Gemini, and Claude. Here's how often each platform cited Deeto vs the competition. The results reveal a category where Deeto is losing the discovery phase to older, more entrenched players — despite having a more modern product.
| # | Query Topic | ChatGPT — Deeto? | Gemini — Deeto? | ChatGPT Winner |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Platform landscape | ✗ | ✓ | ReferenceEdge, Influitive |
| 2 | Manual testimonial collection | ✗ | ✗ | Airtable, Notion, Gong |
| 3 | Identifying advocates | ✓ | ✗ | Deeto, Delighted, Influtive |
| 4 | Reducing reference coordination | ✗ | ✗ | ReferenceEdge, Base |
| 5 | Self-serve reference for sales | ✗ | ✗ | ReferenceEdge, Seismic |
| 6 | Preventing advocate fatigue | ✗ | ✗ | Influitive, ReferenceEdge |
| 7 | AI from calls to stories | ✗ | ✗ | Gong, Grain, Otter |
| 8 | Small-team advocacy | ✗ | ✗ | Base, UserEvidence, Influitive |
| 9 | Advocacy vs reference tool | ✗ | ✗ | Influitive, Base, ReferenceEdge |
| 10 | Proving revenue impact | ✗ | ✗ | Base, ReferenceEdge, Highspot |
| 11 | Customer voice into CRM | ✗ | ✗ | UserEvidence, Gong |
| 12 | Regulated industries / compliance | ✗ | ✗ | TrustRadius, G2, Gainsight |
| 13 | Video testimonials at scale | ✗ | ✗ | Vocal Video, Testimonial Hero |
| 14 | Battlecards / win-loss | ✗ | ✗ | Klue, Crayon, Gong |
| 15 | Opt-in advocacy on customer terms | ✓ | ✗ | Deeto, Influitive, Base |
| 16 | Mid-market social proof | ✗ | ✗ | G2, TrustRadius, Vocal Video |
| 17 | Organizing stories for self-serve | ✗ | ✗ | Highspot, Seismic, ReferenceEdge |
| 18 | Quick quotes for PMM | ✗ | ✗ | G2, Delighted, Gong |
| 19 | Tracking reference usage / fatigue | ✓ | ✓ | Deeto, ReferenceEdge, Influitive |
| 20 | VoC for churn/expansion | ✗ | ✗ | Gainsight, Totango |
| 21 | Emerging platforms 2024–2025 | ✓ | ✗ | Deeto, Base, UserEvidence |
| 22 | Reward mechanics | ✗ | ✗ | Influitive, Tremendous, Giftbit |
| 23 | Modern evidence strategy | ✓ | ✗ | Deeto, UserEvidence, ReferenceEdge |
| 24 | Sentiment data in active deals | ✗ | ✗ | Gong, Klue, Crayon |
| 25 | Salesforce + MAP integration | ✗ | ✗ | ReferenceEdge, UserEvidence, Base |
| Total Deeto Mentions | 5 / 25 | 2 / 25 | — | |
| Citation Rate | 20% | 8% | — | |
The ChatGPT Gap
Where Deeto goes invisible during buyer discovery
When a Customer Marketing Manager asks ChatGPT how to give sales reps self-serve access to customer references, ReferenceEdge gets cited. When they ask how to prove the revenue impact of their advocacy program, Base and Highspot appear. Not Deeto. Here's what that looks like in practice.
When asked how sales reps can find the right customer reference without going through marketing, ChatGPT recommends ReferenceEdge, Seismic, and Highspot — platforms that Deeto directly competes with. This is a use case Deeto's own website leads with, yet the AI platform doesn't surface it during buyer discovery.
"What platforms help sales reps find the right customer reference for a specific deal without going through marketing?"
This isn't an isolated miss. Across 20 of 25 buyer-intent queries on ChatGPT, Deeto goes unmentioned while ReferenceEdge, Influitive, and UserEvidence appear consistently. The pattern reveals a systematic content and citation gap — not a one-off oversight. Deeto's narrative isn't making it into the training signals that AI platforms rely on.
But on ChatGPT — when the question explicitly asks about emerging or AI-native platforms — Deeto does appear:
"What software platforms are emerging in the customer advocacy and customer marketing space in 2024 and 2025?"
On Q21, ChatGPT mentions Deeto alongside Champion and CaseLeap — framed as an "emerging" player. This proves Deeto is in ChatGPT's training data. But it's only surfaced when buyers ask about novelty, not when they ask about solving real operational problems. That's the positioning problem — Deeto is known as "new," not "the answer."
Deeto's content and public narrative positions it well as an innovative platform. But AI platforms don't recommend innovators — they recommend solutions to specific problems. When a buyer asks "how do I stop overusing my top advocates?" ChatGPT cites ReferenceEdge because ReferenceEdge has published deep, specific content on exactly that operational challenge. Deeto hasn't claimed those answers publicly yet.
AI Positioning Audit
All 25 buyer-intent queries — click any row to see the full question
Every question below was tested across ChatGPT, Gemini, and Claude in April 2026. Click any row to expand the exact question used. Green checkmarks indicate Deeto was cited in the response.
| # | Query Topic | Cluster | ChatGPT | Gemini | Claude |
|---|
Topic Cluster Performance
Where Deeto wins, loses, and barely shows up
Across 5 topic clusters, Deeto's AI visibility is consistently weak. The only cluster with any meaningful citation rate is Platform Discovery — and only on ChatGPT, where "emerging platforms" framing occasionally surfaces Deeto. Every operational cluster is dominated by ReferenceEdge and Influitive.
Recommendations
How Deeto wins the AI discovery phase in 90 days
Deeto has the product. It has the customers — Atlassian, Dropbox, Klaviyo, Bloomreach. It has the funding ($17M Series A). What it doesn't have is AI-indexed content that answers the specific operational questions buyers are asking during discovery. That's fixable — and it compounds fast.
- Publish a definitive "How to scale customer reference programs without burning out advocates" guide — using the exact language buyers use on AI platforms. Target Q1, Q4, Q6 directly.
- Create a "Deeto vs ReferenceEdge" comparison page — ReferenceEdge is the #1 competitor appearing in Deeto's buyer queries. Owning this comparison forces AI platforms to index Deeto alongside it.
- Publish a "Deeto vs Influitive" comparison page — second most-cited competitor across both platforms.
- Answer Q5 verbatim: write "How sales reps find the right customer reference without going through marketing — with Deeto." This exact query returns zero Deeto results today.
- Publish a "Customer Advocacy ROI Calculator" or data study showing how Deeto customers measure advocacy impact on pipeline — directly targeting Q10 and Q19 where Deeto scores 0%.
- Push all customer case studies (Atlassian, Dropbox, Klaviyo, Bloomreach) onto external platforms — G2, TrustRadius, Pavilion, Capterra — with specific metrics. AI platforms cite third-party indexed content heavily.
- Write a structured "2025 State of Customer Reference Management" report — this category of content gets heavily cited by AI platforms when buyers ask operational questions.
- Build an "Advocate Fatigue Monitor" landing page with specific content on how Deeto's fatigue tracking works — Q6 and Q19 are live buying queries that return no Deeto results today.
- Activate Deeto's own customer advocates to publish detailed LinkedIn posts, G2 reviews, and blog contributions answering the 25 buyer-intent questions — peer content gets indexed faster than vendor content.
- Target Pavilion, CMX Hub, and Revenue Collective communities with specific, educational content — these communities are AI-indexed and cited heavily when buyers ask peer validation questions.
- Build a "Deeto Hub" or publicly accessible knowledge base with specific answers to every cluster — Reference Management, Program Measurement, Content at Scale — structured as AI-crawlable FAQ pages.
- Re-run this 25-query audit every 90 days to track citation rate movement as content is indexed. The goal: 40%+ on ChatGPT and 30%+ on Gemini within 6 months.
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Learn about the Xtrusio methodology →The Gap is Fixable. The Window is Now.
Before ReferenceEdge widens the lead, let's fix Deeto's AI discovery presence.
