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Why AI Is Recommending Some Builders and Ignoring Others: The Case Study

A regional home builder in a competitive Florida market was being cited by ChatGPT 16% of the time when buyers asked real questions like "who are the best new home builders in this area?" A few months later, after a focused initiative with Anewgo, that number was 72%. Same builder. Same market. Same competitors.

In this solo episode, Anya Chrisanthon - CCO at Anewgo and host of the Anewgo of New Home Sales podcast - breaks down exactly what was measured, what changed, and what it means for builders and marketers who are paying attention to where buyer search behavior is heading.

What Anewgo Tracked Anewgo ran 50 real buyer-intent questions through ChatGPT and Gemini and measured three things: mentions (how often the builder was named at all), citations (how often their website was used as a trusted source), and top recommendations (how often they appeared in the top spots). Citations matter most. A mention means AI knows you exist. A citation means AI trusts you enough to point a buyer directly to your content. Those are not the same thing.

The Results On ChatGPT, the citation rate jumped from 16% to 72% - a 56 percentage point increase. The number one ranking rate went from 7% to 36%. Top three ranking rate went from 16% to 59%. On Gemini, citation rate went from 25% to 63%. And during the same period, average website engagement time nearly doubled - from 51 seconds to just under two minutes - because the content wasn't just AI-friendly. It was genuinely useful to real buyers.

The Philosophy The goal was never to trick AI or game the system. Anyone telling you they can game AI recommendation engines is not someone you should trust with your marketing budget. The goal was to make this builder genuinely easier for AI to understand, verify, and confidently recommend - through content that answers real buyer questions and clarity about what the builder actually offers and who they build for.

Why Most Builder Websites Are Invisible to AI Right Now Most builder websites were built for two audiences: human visitors and Google. AI reads your website differently than either. It is trying to build a mental model of your business - who you are, who you build for, where you build, what makes you different. Vague taglines, generic community descriptions, and inconsistent information across your digital presence create uncertainty for AI. And uncertain AI does not recommend you. It moves on.

Three Things to Do This Week:

(1) Search for yourself the way a buyer would - open ChatGPT, Perplexity, or Gemini and ask for a builder like you in your market with specific criteria. See what comes up.

(2) Read your own website like a stranger - is your brand story specific and consistent? Could AI accurately summarize your communities and differentiators to a buyer?

(3) Get an AEO assessment from Anewgo - email your website URL to beth@anewgo.com with subject line "AEO Assessment." No obligation. Beth will reach out with the report and a time to walk through the results together.

Next episode: a deeper dive into AEO itself - what it is, what good AEO looks like in practice, and the broader framework for thinking about this for your business.

About Anewgo Anewgo is an all-in-one new home sales and marketing platform. We equip builders with AI-ready homebuilder websites, interactive design tools, floorplans, sitemaps, AI Sales Assistants, and data analytics to create personalized buyer journeys. Learn more at