Direct answer: When Filipinos ask ChatGPT, Gemini or Perplexity what to buy, Philippine brands already show up far more often in their home market than US brands do in theirs: 83.2% of relevant buyer questions named the Philippine brand being tested, against 40% for US brands, according to a 2026 study by the marketing agency Spiralytics. The catch is who the AI quotes. Only 5% of the citations behind Philippine answers came from the brands’ own websites. The rest came from competitors, news sites and directories. For a Philippine business, that means AI visibility is now won mostly on other people’s pages, and a confusing or unprotected business name can make the AI skip you entirely.
Research by Spiralytics · Philippine legal analysis by the Cybercode.ph Editorial Team. This report reads the two together: Spiralytics measured how AI engines treat Philippine brands; the Cybercode.ph team adds what those findings mean under Philippine law and what businesses can do about them. Every study figure and quotation below is Spiralytics’ work, credited in full at the end.
Evidence and action
- Source: Spiralytics, AI Visibility in the Philippines: What 1,146 Buyer Questions on ChatGPT, Gemini, and Perplexity Reveal (2026 Study), published August 11, 2026. Fieldwork ran June 4 to August 3, 2026.
- Qualification: This is a marketing study of 26 brands, not a census. AI answers change over time, and the study itself flags that results for individual questions can shift between runs.
- Philippine law: No law requires an AI engine to name any business. But the Intellectual Property Code protects your trade name and marks, the Consumer Act bans false claims of sponsorship or approval, and the Internet Transactions Act requires online sellers to disclose who they are and how to reach them (RA 11967, Secs. 21 to 23).
- Action: Make your business identity unmistakable, earn mentions on sites AI engines already trust, and publish direct answers to your buyers’ real questions.
Key takeaways
- Home advantage is real: AI engines named Philippine brands on 83.2% of the buyer questions they should have won, more than twice the 40% rate for US brands.
- The engine matters: Gemini named Philippine brands most often (62.6%), then Perplexity (57.4%), then ChatGPT (45.2%).
- Your website is not the main source: only 5% of 7,308 citations in Philippine answers pointed to the brand’s own site. Competitors (36%), news and editorial sites (32.9%) and directories (19.4%) did most of the talking.
- Links are not the whole story: a retailer with very weak link metrics won every answer in its category, while a long-established US law firm was never mentioned.
- Gaps tend to stay gaps: for one US brand tested 11 times over five weeks, 90% of the questions it was missing from stayed missing every time.
- Identity is the hidden failure: AI engines confused brands with same-name companies, refused to pick between them, or credited the parent instead of the subsidiary.
- The law already covers the shortcuts: fake endorsements and misleading business names are regulated today. Trying to game AI answers with them carries legal risk.
Jump to: What the study found · Engine by engine · Who AI quotes · Why it matters here · The blind spot · Identity and the law · Don’t game it · What to do now · What comes next · FAQ · Credits
Decision snapshot
The five questions Philippine business owners and marketers ask most about this study, answered in one line each.
| Question | Short answer |
|---|---|
| Do AI engines recommend Philippine brands? | Yes, often. They named the tested Philippine brand on 83.2% of relevant buyer questions in at least one engine. |
| Which AI engine is hardest to appear in? | ChatGPT. It named the Philippine brand on 45.2% of questions, against 62.6% for Gemini. |
| Will a better website fix it? | Only partly. Just 5% of citations came from brands’ own sites; third-party mentions carried most answers. |
| Do backlinks decide AI visibility? | Not on their own. The study found no clean link between link-strength scores and being named. |
| Is there a Philippine law on AI search rankings? | No. Existing name, consumer and e-commerce laws still govern how you present your brand online. |
If you use AI to produce the content that earns those mentions, check it first: Google now tells publishers to fact-check and review AI-generated content, including titles and descriptions, before publishing. See our report on Google’s sharper AI fact-checking guidance.
What did the Spiralytics study find?
The study found that AI engines already treat Philippine brands as the default answer to most local buyer questions, but not all of them, and not reliably in every engine. Spiralytics built 1,146 buyer questions across 26 companies: 16 Philippine brands in 14 industries and 10 US brands in 10 industries. It then kept only the questions each brand could fairly expect to win. In the study’s words, “A winnable question is one where the brand genuinely should have come up because it sells that thing, in that market, to that buyer.” That left 255 judged questions (155 Philippine, 100 US), and 1,911 stored AI answers.
The study’s opening scenario explains why this matters: a business owner in Metro Manila types a question like “best business loan provider in the Philippines for a small company” into ChatGPT and gets a shortlist in seconds. If your company is not on that shortlist, you may never learn you were considered.
How the study was built, at a glance:
| Study element | What Spiralytics did |
|---|---|
| Fieldwork | June 4 to August 3, 2026 |
| AI engines | ChatGPT (gpt-5-mini with web search), Gemini 2.5 Flash, Perplexity Sonar |
| Brands | 26 in total: 16 Philippine brands (14 industries), 10 US brands (10 industries) |
| Questions | 1,146 buyer prompts: 645 Philippine, 501 US |
| Judged questions | 255 winnable questions: 155 Philippine, 100 US |
| Answers stored | 1,911 AI answers; 7,308 citations classified in the Philippine set |
| Brand names | Not disclosed; the study anonymised the companies tested |
Which AI engine names Philippine brands most often?
Gemini named Philippine brands most often, and ChatGPT least often, and every engine named Philippine brands in the Philippine market more often than it named US brands in the US market. Gemini named the Philippine brand on 97 of 155 questions (62.6%). Perplexity did so on 89 (57.4%) and ChatGPT on 70 (45.2%). For US brands, the rates were 20%, 28% and 26%.
| AI engine | Philippine brands named | US brands named |
|---|---|---|
| Gemini | 62.6% (97 of 155) | 20% (20 of 100) |
| Perplexity | 57.4% (89 of 155) | 28% (28 of 100) |
| ChatGPT | 45.2% (70 of 155) | 26% (26 of 100) |
| Any of the three | 83.2% (129 of 155) | 40% (40 of 100) |
The practical lesson is that “AI visibility” is not one number. A brand that looks strong in Gemini can be missing in ChatGPT. On ChatGPT’s lower rate, Spiralytics offered a careful reading: “ChatGPT just converts what it finds into named recommendations more cautiously than the other two.” In other words, ChatGPT may see the same sources and still decline to name a company unless the evidence is strong.
The Cybercode.ph take: a cautious engine rewards brands whose identity is easy to confirm. The same things that make a business legally clear (a registered name, consistent details across DTI or SEC records, marketplaces and listings, an honest about page) also give an AI engine the confidence to name it.
Where do AI engines get their answers about Philippine brands?
Mostly from pages the brand does not own. Spiralytics classified 7,308 citations in the judged Philippine answers. “In the 7,308 citations from the judged Philippine answers we captured and classified, only 5% of the websites are owned by the brands themselves.” Competitor websites supplied 36% of citations, news and editorial sites 32.9%, and directories and listings 19.4%. In the US set, competitor sites supplied 60.7% of citations.
That finding fits a wider pattern in AI search research outside the Philippines:
- Brand mentions beat backlinks as a signal. In a May 2025 analysis of 75,000 brands, the SEO software company Ahrefs found that branded web mentions correlated with appearing in Google’s AI Overviews at 0.664, against 0.218 for backlinks and 0.326 for its Domain Rating score. Correlation is not proof of cause, but the direction matches what Spiralytics saw.
- AI summaries reduce clicks. Pew Research Center tracked the Google searches of 900 US adults in March 2025. When an AI summary appeared, people clicked a regular result in 8% of visits, against 15% when none appeared, and clicked a link inside the summary in just 1% of visits.
- Being cited still pays. Search agency Seer Interactive reported in April 2026 that, across 53 brands, sites cited inside an AI Overview earned about 120% more clicks per impression than sites that were not cited.
Put together: fewer people click through, and the clicks that remain go disproportionately to the sources the AI chose to quote. Being one of those sources, or being named by them, is the new front page.
The Cybercode.ph take: if 95% of what AI engines read about your brand sits on other people’s websites, what those websites say about you matters more than ever. Accurate listings, genuine coverage and a quick response to fake or impersonating pages are no longer just reputation work; they shape the answer a buyer gets.
Spiralytics’ most striking example makes the same point: “A retailer with a rock-bottom link score owns every single answer in its category. Meanwhile, a US law firm with a decades-old domain and a strong link profile was never mentioned once.”
Why does this matter more in the Philippines?
Because Filipinos are among the heaviest users of AI chatbots in the world, and access is getting cheaper by the month.
- Usage: The Digital 2026 report by Meltwater and We Are Social, as reported by PhilSTAR Life on October 20, 2025, found that 42.4% of Filipino internet users aged 16 and over had used ChatGPT in the past month, the sixth-highest share in the world.
- AI in Google Search: Google announced on August 21, 2025 that it was expanding AI Mode, its conversational search, to over 180 new countries and territories in English, and Philippine tech media reported in September 2025 that the Philippines was included.
- Sachet AI: Globe began offering ChatGPT and Gemini access through AI Fiesta plans from ₱49 in July 2026, and Smart launched AI.Smart, a multi-model AI workspace, in September 2026. Our AI.Smart review covers its prices and limits.
- Government: the DICT launched Gemini-powered AI features in the eGovPH app, including a translator for Philippine languages, The Philippine Star reported on September 22, 2026.
The more Filipinos ask an AI before they search, compare or buy, the more a missing brand costs. And because the same study found Philippine brands already do well in their home market, the gap between the brand that gets named and the one that does not is likely to be decided by details: a clear name, trusted third-party coverage and direct answers.
How often are brands missing from AI answers?
Philippine brands were missing on about 1 in 6 questions they should have won; US brands on 3 in 5. In Spiralytics’ words: “Philippine brands did not appear on 1 out of every 6 commercial questions they should have shown up for. US brands did not appear on 3 out of every 5.”
The more worrying finding is persistence. Spiralytics ran one US brand 11 separate times over five weeks. Of the questions it repeated, 90% of those where the brand was missing came back missing every single time. A gap is rarely a one-off glitch you can wait out. If an engine skips you today, it will probably skip you next month too, unless something about the sources it reads changes.
Why do AI engines skip some brands, and what does Philippine law say about your name?
Often because the AI cannot tell who you are. The study documented three failure modes, all of them about identity rather than quality.
| Failure mode | What the AI does | Legal lens in the Philippines |
|---|---|---|
| Name twin | Answers about a different company with the same name; the buyer may not notice | Trade names are protected even without registration against a similar name likely to mislead the public (RA 8293, Sec. 165.2) |
| “Which one do you mean?” | Sees several firms with the name and refuses to commit to any | A registered mark gives exclusive rights against confusingly similar signs (RA 8293, Sec. 147.1) |
| Swallowed by the parent | Answers about the parent company when asked about a subsidiary | Not a legal wrong in itself; a naming and structure question for the group |
An AI engine that mixes you up with another company is not itself infringing your rights. But the name-twin problem is often a naming problem that started long before AI, and Philippine law gives you tools to fix it at the source:
- Trade names are protected before registration. Section 165.2(a) of the Intellectual Property Code (RA 8293) provides that trade names “shall be protected, even prior to or without registration, against any unlawful act committed by third parties.” Section 165.2(b) treats as unlawful any later use of a similar trade name or mark “likely to mislead the public.”
- A registered mark is stronger. Under Section 147.1, the owner of a registered mark has “the exclusive right to prevent all third parties not having the owner’s consent from using in the course of trade identical or similar signs” for identical or similar goods or services, where the use would result in a likelihood of confusion. Our guides on trademark registration and running a trademark search walk through the IPOPHL process.
- Goodwill is property. Section 168.1 recognises a property right in the goodwill of a business that the public has come to identify, “whether or not a registered mark is employed.”
- Your DTI or SEC name is not a trademark. Registering a business name with the DTI or a corporate name with the SEC does not by itself give you trademark rights. See DTI business name vs trademark and SEC company name vs trademark.
If another business is already trading under your name, start with our guide on what to do when someone trademarks your business name. If a fake page or account is impersonating your brand, and possibly feeding AI engines false information about you, see fake Facebook pages using your business name and fake accounts and impersonation.
Can you game AI answers? What Philippine law already prohibits
The fastest-looking shortcuts, such as fake “best of” lists, invented endorsements and borrowed credibility, are exactly what Philippine consumer law already bans. Because AI engines lean so heavily on third-party pages, some businesses will be tempted to plant them. That carries legal risk.
- False sponsorship or approval. Article 50 of the Consumer Act (RA 7394) makes it a deceptive sales act for a seller to represent that a product or service “has the sponsorship, approval, performance, characteristics, ingredients, accessories, uses, or benefits it does not have” (Art. 50(a)), or that the seller “has a sponsorship, approval, or affiliation he does not have” (Art. 50(j)). A fabricated award, certification or “recommended by” claim written to be picked up by an AI engine fits squarely here.
- Before, during or after the sale. Article 50 applies to a deceptive act “whether it occurs before, during or after the transaction.” Marketing content that shapes a buyer’s choice is not outside its reach just because it sits on a third-party site.
- Online sellers must identify themselves. The Internet Transactions Act requires e-retailers to post their business name, address and contact details on their homepage, and requires e-marketplaces to collect their merchants’ names, addresses and contact details and to publish the name and address (RA 11967, Secs. 21(b) and 23(f)). Clear, consistent identity details help both regulators and AI engines. See our online seller disclosure guide.
- Misleading names. Section 165.1 of the Intellectual Property Code bars a trade name that is “liable to deceive trade circles or the public as to the nature of the enterprise identified by that name.” Naming a product or page to ride on a better-known competitor’s recognition invites an infringement or unfair competition claim.
There is also a privacy angle for the teams doing this work. If staff paste customer lists, complaints or reviews containing personal data into AI tools to write content, the Data Privacy Act still applies. Our guide on customer data uploaded to ChatGPT covers the first steps if that has already happened.
What should Philippine brands do now?
Treat AI visibility as three jobs: be unmistakable, be mentioned, and be the clearest answer. This combines the study’s recommendations with the legal points above. Steps 2 and 6 rest on Philippine law; the other steps are editorial recommendations drawn from the study, not legal requirements.
- Fix your identity first. Use one exact brand name everywhere: website, DTI or SEC records, social profiles, marketplace stores and directory listings. Publish a clear “about us” page that states your legal name, what you sell, where you operate, and how you relate to any parent or subsidiary. Add organisation structured data that matches that visible text. Google’s own guidance, AI features and your website (updated December 10, 2025), says no special AI files or markup are needed to appear in AI Overviews or AI Mode, and that structured data should match the visible text on the page.
- Secure the name legally. Run a trademark search and file your mark with IPOPHL if you have not. If a same-name company is causing confusion, get advice early; the longer two businesses coexist, the harder it becomes to separate them.
- Earn citations, not just rankings. Spiralytics’ advice is that “every mention you earn in a publication or listing the engines trust converts into an AI answer presence.” Pursue genuine coverage in Philippine news outlets, industry publications and credible directories, and keep your listings accurate.
- Answer buyer questions directly. Write the specific question your buyers ask as a heading, answer it in the first sentence, and back it with facts. The study’s advice: “Publish the direct, specific answer on your site and in third-party coverage while it’s still open.”
- Check all three engines. Ask ChatGPT, Gemini and Perplexity the questions your buyers ask. Record whether you are named, which sources are cited, and whether the AI has the right company. Repeat monthly; gaps tend to persist.
- Stay on the right side of the law. No invented awards, fake reviews, undisclosed paid placements or pages that imitate a competitor. The Consumer Act complaint route runs through the DTI, which enforces the Act’s rules on deceptive sales acts (RA 7394, Art. 49), and IP disputes through IPOPHL; see IP dispute options without a lawyer.
Where to go if something is wrong:
| Problem | First step | Where to escalate |
|---|---|---|
| A competitor uses a confusingly similar name | Document examples, check IPOPHL records, send a written demand | IPOPHL, or a court action for infringement or unfair competition |
| A fake page impersonates your brand | Save screenshots and URLs, report it to the platform | PNP Anti-Cybercrime Group or NBI Cybercrime Division if fraud is involved |
| A rival publishes false endorsement claims | Keep copies with dates and links | DTI complaint; an unfair competition claim if it trades on your goodwill |
| An AI answer states false facts about your business | Correct the underlying source pages; use the AI provider’s feedback tools | Legal advice if a specific publisher’s false statement is causing harm |
What to keep as evidence: dated screenshots with the full URL visible, saved copies of the pages or listings, your DTI, SEC or IPOPHL registration papers, and records showing when you first used your name (invoices, signage, early posts). For a wrong AI answer, save the question, the engine, the date and the full answer with its cited sources.
Timing: if a confusingly similar mark is already registered, a petition to cancel it before the IPOPHL Bureau of Legal Affairs must generally be filed within five years from registration, although some grounds, such as fraud, abandonment or a mark that has become generic, can be raised at any time (RA 8293, Sec. 151.1). No fixed filing deadline was verified this run for DTI complaints or platform reports, so act while the evidence is still online.
First step this week: ask ChatGPT, Gemini and Perplexity three questions your buyers actually ask, record whether you are named and which sources are cited, and check that your business name is spelled the same way on your website, your DTI or SEC records and your main listings.
What comes next: the questions this study opens up
The Spiralytics study answers the first question clearly: Philippine brands do appear in AI answers, most of the time. The next question is why some brands and pages appear consistently while others do not. Its framework (buyer questions, narrowed to winnable questions, run across ChatGPT, Gemini and Perplexity, measured by mentions and citations) gives the Philippine market a benchmark to build on. Below are the layers the Cybercode.ph team sees as natural next steps on Spiralytics’ framework, the kind of follow-up research that would turn its findings into even more practical guidance for Filipino businesses.
| Layer | What to measure | Why it matters |
|---|---|---|
| AI visibility | Brand named or absent, per engine | Keeps direct comparability with the Spiralytics benchmark |
| Citation visibility | Which domain and page is cited, how often, in what position | Shows which sources actually feed Philippine answers |
| Traditional SEO | Google Philippines rank, page traffic, page and domain links | Tests whether ranking on Google predicts being cited by AI |
| Entity strength | Consistent name, organisation data, profiles, registrations, media mentions | Turns the study’s identity failures into something measurable |
| Content structure | Direct answers, tables, FAQs, sources, authorship, freshness | Identifies what an AI-cited page looks like |
| Stability | The same questions repeated over several weeks | Separates lasting visibility from one-off appearances |
| Philippine language | English vs Filipino vs Taglish, with a Cebuano subset | Tests whether language changes what AI recommends to Filipinos |
Three of these layers matter most for Philippine businesses:
- Does Google rank predict AI citations? Capturing the Google Philippines results for every question would show whether AI engines mostly cite pages that already rank on page one, or reach further down.
- Page strength, not just domain strength. Spiralytics found no clean pattern between Domain Rating and AI visibility. A strong domain can have a weak page for a given question, and a small site can have the best one. Measuring the page, not only the domain, would sharpen that finding.
- Language. Filipinos ask questions in English, Filipino and Taglish. Whether “What happens if my employer doesn’t give my final pay?” and “Ano ang puwedeng gawin kung hindi ibigay ng employer ang final pay?” draw on the same sources is an open, and very Philippine, question.
Whoever carries this research forward, the Spiralytics benchmark is the right starting point, and credit for opening the question belongs to its team.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is AI visibility?
AI visibility is how often an AI engine such as ChatGPT, Gemini or Perplexity names or cites your brand when people ask questions your business should answer. It is measured by asking real buyer questions and recording whether the brand appears.
Which AI engine names Philippine brands the most?
In the Spiralytics study, Gemini named Philippine brands on 62.6% of relevant buyer questions, Perplexity on 57.4% and ChatGPT on 45.2%. At least one engine named the brand on 83.2% of questions.
Does my website matter if AI mostly cites other sites?
Yes, but it is not enough on its own. Only 5% of citations in Philippine answers came from brands’ own websites. Your site still needs clear answers and accurate identity details, but most AI answers were built from competitor pages, news sites and directories.
Do backlinks help me appear in AI answers?
Not reliably on their own. Spiralytics found a retailer with very weak link metrics winning every answer in its category, while a well-linked US law firm was never mentioned. Genuine mentions on trusted sites appear to matter more.
Is there a Philippine law that regulates AI search results?
No Philippine law requires an AI engine to name or rank a business. Existing laws still govern how businesses present themselves online, including the Intellectual Property Code on names and marks, the Consumer Act on false claims, and the Internet Transactions Act on seller disclosures.
Can I be liable for planting fake reviews or awards to influence AI answers?
Yes. Under Article 50 of the Consumer Act, claiming a sponsorship, approval or affiliation you do not have is a deceptive sales act. Complaints go to the DTI.
What should a small Philippine business do first?
Make your identity unmistakable: one consistent business name, a clear about page, accurate listings, and a registered trademark if you can. Then earn genuine mentions and publish direct answers to your buyers’ questions.
About the research and credits
Study data and findings: Spiralytics. Philippine legal analysis, added context and infographics: Cybercode.ph Editorial Team.
This article builds on AI Visibility in the Philippines: What 1,146 Buyer Questions on ChatGPT, Gemini, and Perplexity Reveal (2026 Study), published by Spiralytics on August 11, 2026. All study figures, quotations and the three failure modes above are Spiralytics’ work. The infographics are Cybercode.ph’s own visual summaries of the published figures.
Report author: Gabe Tagala, SEO Head at Spiralytics.
Sources and legal citations
- Spiralytics, AI Visibility in the Philippines: What 1,146 Buyer Questions on ChatGPT, Gemini, and Perplexity Reveal (2026 Study), August 11, 2026.
- Republic Act No. 8293, Intellectual Property Code of the Philippines, as amended, Sections 147.1, 151.1, 165.1, 165.2 and 168.1 (Supreme Court E-Library).
- Republic Act No. 7394, Consumer Act of the Philippines, Articles 49 and 50 (Supreme Court E-Library).
- Republic Act No. 11967, Internet Transactions Act of 2023, Sections 21 to 23 (Supreme Court E-Library).
- Republic Act No. 10173, Data Privacy Act of 2012 (National Privacy Commission).
- Google Search Central, AI features and your website, last updated December 10, 2025.
- Google, AI Mode in Search gets new agentic features and expands globally, August 21, 2025.
- Ahrefs, analysis of AI Overview brand mentions across 75,000 brands, May 26, 2025.
- Pew Research Center, Google users are less likely to click on links when an AI summary appears in the results, July 22, 2025.
- Seer Interactive, AIO Impact on Google CTR: 2026 Update, April 24, 2026.
- PhilSTAR Life, Pinoys among top ChatGPT users in the world, October 20, 2025.
- Gizguide, Google’s AI Mode expands to PH, September 3, 2025.
- Globe Telecom newsroom, Globe partners with AI Fiesta, July 2026.
- The Philippine Star, Smart launches AI workspace, September 24, 2026.
- The Philippine Star, Government launches AI on eGovPH superapp, September 22, 2026.
Related reading on Cybercode.ph
- What is agentic shopping? The risks for Filipino shoppers
- Trademark registration in the Philippines
- Internet Transactions Act: RA 11967 compliance guide
- AI law in the Philippines
- Can businesses commercially use AI-generated content?
- AI hallucinations and how to verify AI output
Sources rechecked as of: 2026-10-01
Cybercode.ph provides general educational information about technology, cybersecurity, privacy and related Philippine law. It is not legal advice and does not create a lawyer-client relationship. For advice on your specific situation, consult a qualified professional.