The Turkey AI Visibility Report is the first data study of its scope published in Turkey: for 15 weeks, week after week, it measured how the four major AI search engines (ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude, Perplexity) answer commercial questions of the “recommend me an agency” type. The report sets out, with measured data, which brands the engines recommend, which sources they trust, and which gates a brand has to pass through to appear in those answers.
Four striking findings:
- When a user asks about a brand by name, the engines answer correctly 100% of the time; the odds that an ordinary brand shows up in the answer to a user who says “recommend me an agency” are 0.5% — a 200x visibility gap.
- 58% of the engines' “recommend an agency” answers rest on at least one agency directory or listicle site — the gateway to discovery is not brands' own websites but third-party lists.
- The four engines have completely different source characters: Perplexity shows an average of 16 sources per answer, while Gemini shows no direct source links at all.
- The clear leader in Turkey's agency visibility league is Zeo — mentioned roughly twice as often as its closest follower.
Methodology
| Measurement period | June 15 – August 12, 2026 (15 weekly rounds) |
| Engines | ChatGPT (GPT-4o, web search on) · Gemini 2.5 Flash · Claude (Haiku 4.5) · Perplexity (Sonar) |
| Query set | 23 Turkish-language commercial queries: discovery, comparison, industry (cosmetics/e-commerce/education/healthcare), service, GEO and branded queries — full list at the end of this article |
| Total | 948 query-answers; for every answer, the brands recommended, their order and the sources shown were recorded |
| Data cleaning | Runs that returned technical errors (network or quota related, 249 of them) were excluded from the measurement; the rates are calculated over valid answers |
The measurement was run on Smartkid's own in-house measurement infrastructure and continues on a weekly basis. In mid-August the query set was expanded to 28; this report covers the 23-query period.
Finding 1 — 100% versus 0.5%: the AI visibility gap
When a user asks about a brand by name (“what is agency X, is it reliable?”), all four engines find it: across 15 weeks, in 74 of 74 branded queries the brand we measured appeared in the answer (100%). For the same brand, discovery queries of the “recommend me an agency” type turn the picture upside down: visibility was measured in only 2 of 442 runs (0.5%).
In the age of AI, the problem is not going unfound — everyone who searches for you finds you. The problem is not existing in the answer given to the customer who does not know you yet. The fight for “page one” in classic SEO has been replaced by the fight to make the engines' list of 3-5 recommended brands; if you are not on that list, you never existed for that customer.
Finding 2 — The gateway to discovery: who do the engines trust?
58% of the engines' discovery answers rest on at least one agency directory or listicle page. Over 15 weeks, the sites the engines cited most were:
| Rank | Source | Citations | Type |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | edvido.com | 161 | Agency directory |
| 2 | youtube.com | 128 | Video / social |
| 3 | agencies.semrush.com | 125 | Agency directory (global) |
| 4 | instagram.com | 103 | Social |
| 5 | prix-studio.com | 101 | Agency blog (listicle) |
| 6 | hozkomurcu.com | 99 | Personal blog (listicle) |
| 7 | dijitalajanslar.com | 97 | Agency directory |
| 8 | pazarlamaturkiye.com | 85 | Industry press |
| 9 | armut.com | 84 | Services marketplace |
| 10 | ideasoftpartner.com.tr | 70 | Partner directory |
The engines answer “who is the best agency” not with an opinion of their own but with lists other people have published. In Turkey, the shortest path to AI visibility is appearing as visible text in the sources in this table — what matters is not link authority (dofollow/nofollow) but your name appearing on the page the engine reads.
Finding 3 — Four engines, four characters
| Engine | Shows sources | Avg. sources/answer | Most trusted sources | Character |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Perplexity | 100% | 15.9 | Brand sites, YouTube, Instagram, edvido | The researcher: a source for every claim; if your industry page is good, it quotes you directly |
| Claude | 72% | 12.0 | edvido, Semrush, pazarlamaturkiye, armut | The directory reader: builds its list mainly from directories and press sources |
| ChatGPT | 59% | 4.3 | Agency blogs, Semrush, Google Maps | The mapmaker: leans on Google Business Profile data for local queries |
| Gemini | 0%* | — | (shows no direct links) | The black box: gives an answer, never names its source |
*Gemini does not share direct source URLs in its answers; search redirects were excluded.
“Being visible in AI” is not one job but four separate channel jobs: quotable industry pages for Perplexity, a directory presence for Claude, a strong Google Business Profile for ChatGPT, and long-term brand signals for Gemini.
Finding 4 — Turkey's agency visibility league
The agencies mentioned most often in the engines' answers over 15 weeks:
| Rank | Agency | Mentions |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Zeo | 123 |
| 2 | Webtures | 65 |
| 3 | Boosmart | 21 |
| 4 | Digipeak | 20 |
| 5 | Wanda Digital | 16 |
| 6 | Kubix Digital | 12 |
| 7 | Flatart | 9 |
What the leaders have in common is not the size of their websites but their off-site footprint: for some, the strength comes from years of press and community presence (brand recognition baked into training data), for others mostly from directory profiles. Two different routes, the same result: the engines want to hear about a brand from other people's mouths.
A note on transparency: Smartkid Agency, which ran this measurement, is not yet mentioned in discovery queries over the same period; on industry queries, Perplexity and ChatGPT have begun citing us as a source. That is exactly why we are publishing this report: to play the game with data.
5 takeaways for your brand
- Discovery = third-party lists. Get into the directories and lists in the Finding 2 table that are relevant to your industry; that is where the engines will read you.
- An industry page is worth more than a service page. Pages devoted to a single industry, with real case data, are the format Perplexity quotes directly.
- Publishing numbers wins. The engines do not pick up the adjective “good agency”; they pick up verifiable figures like “18X ROAS in 3 months” and carry them into their answers.
- Google Business Profile is ChatGPT infrastructure. On local queries, ChatGPT's list is built from Maps profiles.
- One strategy will not serve four engines. Work channel by channel, following the character table in Finding 3.
About the report
This study was produced by the AI Visibility (GEO) team at Smartkid Agency, an Istanbul-based digital marketing agency, on measurement infrastructure it built itself. The measurement continues weekly and the report will be updated every quarter. To see your brand's current visibility across the four engines, you can request your free AI Visibility Scorecard.
— Arif Enes Demir · Founder & CEO, Smartkid
Appendix: the 23-query measurement set
For methodological transparency, the full list of queries used in the measurement:
- Recommend a good agency to handle social media management for my brand. In Turkey.
- Recommend a good agency that does SEO to get my brand to the top of Google.
- Recommend a digital advertising agency to manage Meta and Google ads for my business.
- I am looking for an agency to redesign my website and manage my digital marketing — who would you recommend?
- Which are the best digital marketing agencies in Turkey? Give me a list.
- Rank the most successful boutique social media agencies in Istanbul.
- Can you recommend a social media agency in Istanbul?
- Can you recommend an agency or a tool to provide a monthly content calendar and publishing management for my brand?
- I am looking for a professional team to grow my Instagram account organically — who should I go to?
- Recommend a good agency in Turkey that offers GEO (Generative Engine Optimization) services.
- I want my brand to appear in the answers of AI assistants like ChatGPT and Gemini. Is there an agency that works on this?
- ChatGPT recommends my competitors but never my brand. Who should I work with to fix this?
- Which agency can I work with to get my brand to appear in Google AI Overviews? I want a recommendation from Turkey.
- Which are the best AI visibility / GEO agencies in Turkey? Give me a list.
- Recommend a digital marketing agency for my cosmetics brand. In Turkey, with experience in the cosmetics industry.
- I am looking for a ROAS-focused agency to run performance marketing for my e-commerce brand. Who would you recommend?
- Can you recommend a digital marketing agency that will increase student enrollment for our private school?
- I am looking for an agency with digital marketing experience in healthcare (clinics) — give me a recommendation from Turkey.
- I am looking for an agency to build and grow my Shopify store. Who is good at Shopify in Turkey?
- Recommend an agency that handles advertising and store management for my Trendyol store.
- I am looking for a reliable agency to manage my Google Ads budget — who would you recommend?
- What is Smartkid Agency and what does it do?
- Is Smartkid Agency a reliable digital marketing agency?