No threshold shows in the data. What shows is which review site the engines cite for a category and how often: G2 in 10 of 36 answers for an email tool, Thomasnet in 10 of 46 for a fabricator. A profile there with reviews to quote gets named; an empty one does not. The report's fix says get to 10 because ten is enough for an engine to quote a rating and a sentence.
What the runs show
In eight runs from September 2026, a review site or directory was among the six most-cited sources in four of them. For the AI email marketing tool, g2.com was the single most-cited page: 10 of 36 answers. For the AI visibility tracker, G2 was cited in 6 of 34. For the stainless steel fabricator, Thomasnet, a supplier directory that carries reviews, was cited in 10 of 46, more than any company's own site. For the OTT release tracker, Metacritic in 7 of 31.
In each case the company's own review presence was thin or absent, and a rival's profile was the page the engine read. The engine does not check whether you have reviews. It reads the page it fetched, and that page names whoever has a profile on it.
What 'get to 10' means
The report's fix reads 'Get your G2 page from 0 to 10 reviews' when it has read the page, or 'Create your G2 page and get your first 10 reviews' when there is none. Ten is a working target: enough for the site to show a rating, enough for an engine to lift a sentence, and reachable in a month by asking the last ten customers who said something kind. A profile at ten with a real rating is cited; a profile at zero is a listing the engine has no reason to prefer over a rival's at forty.
After ten, the runs do not say that more reviews mean more mentions. What they say is that the profile needs to be on the site the engines cite for your questions, and it needs to answer the question they are asking: a G2 category, a Thomasnet capability, a Google listing with the service named.
How to find yours
The free audit lists every source cited for your buyers' questions and whether each one names you. The review site on that list is the one to work; if there is none, your category's answers are written from roundups and vendor pages, and the fix is a page, not a profile. The citation entry in the glossary explains why a cited page is worth more than a mention.
Questions about reviews
Is there a number of reviews that makes AI recommend you?
Not one the runs show. What they show is which review site the engines cite for your category and how often. A profile on that site with reviews to quote gets named; an empty one does not, and no profile at all means a rival's is cited instead. The report's fix says 'get to 10' as a working first target, because ten is enough for an engine to quote a rating and a sentence, not because ten is a threshold anyone has measured.
Which review site?
It depends on the category, and the report reads it off the answers rather than guessing: G2 for the email marketing tool (cited in 10 of 36 answers), Thomasnet for the fabricator (10 of 46), Metacritic for the streaming tracker (7 of 31), Google's own listing for the local services. Chasing Trustpilot when your buyers' answers cite G2 is wasted effort.
Do the engines read the reviews or just the rating?
Both, as far as the answers show. Perplexity's answers quote phrases that appear in reviews ('reasonable, lower-cost option', 'newer vendor that needs a hands-on trial'); the perception section of the report is built from those quotes. A profile with three reviews gives an engine three sentences to choose from.
How we get your company into AI answers
- 01
Read the answers
Your buyers' questions, put to ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini and AI Overviews. Who is named, in what order, which pages each engine cites.
- 02
Find the sources
The pages the engines cited, ranked by how many of your questions they decide. That list is the work.
- 03
Publish the gap
We write the page that answers the question you are missing from and ship it to your domain.
- 04
Earn the citation
Listings claimed, the sites the engines already trust pitched, and the same questions asked again at day 30 until the answer names you.
See which review site your buyers' answers cite
Free audit, three minutes, the sources table shows it.