AI · Term
Generative engine
A generative engine is an AI-powered system that answers a query by synthesising a response from multiple sources, rather than returning a ranked list of links.
ChatGPT, Perplexity, Google AI Overviews, and Copilot are generative engines. Because they present one synthesised answer — often citing only a handful of sources — visibility in them is closer to winner-take-most than a traditional results page, which raises the value of being the clearest source on a topic.
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