How does ChatGPT get its answers?

ChatGPT gets its answers two ways. By default it generates responses from patterns learned during training on a large body of text, without checking the live internet or citing sources.

When its web search feature is turned on, ChatGPT instead retrieves current pages from the web, reads through them, and generates an answer that cites specific sources with links, similar to how Perplexity or an AI Overview works. Which sources get chosen depends on relevance to the query, how clearly a page states its answer, and standard ranking signals like site authority.

That second mode is where GEO work matters most, since it determines whether your page becomes one of the sources ChatGPT actually quotes.

Our GEO softwareshows exactly when and how often ChatGPT cites you.