How often do AI answers change their sources in 2026?
Being cited today tells you little about whether your company will still appear next week.
Steen Stones · Reviewed
AI answers can change their sources within a day, as SE Ranking found in repeated US tests. SISTRIX measured substantial weekly changes in UK answers too, so judge your presence over time.
- Google AI Mode54%
- ChatGPT Search60%
Source and study details
SISTRIX, published 1 May 2026. Weekly comparisons from 17 December 2025 to 8 April 2026. The wider study covered 82,619 prompts across six countries; these bars show its UK results. ChatGPT data included only prompts with consistent source attribution. Different denominators mean new-source and retained-source shares do not add to 100%.
| AI tool | New cited domains compared with the previous week |
|---|---|
| Google AI Mode | 54% |
| ChatGPT Search | 60% |
What did the UK research find?
In UK AI Mode answers, SISTRIX found 54% of cited websites were new compared with the previous week. For UK ChatGPT Search, that rose to 60%. These figures count websites, called domains, rather than individual pages.
The study covered six countries from 17 December 2025 to 8 April 2026. It only counted ChatGPT prompts with consistent source attribution, which leaves some conversations outside the results.
Can the sources change on the same day?
SE Ranking tested 10,000 keywords three times in the US on June 20, 2025. On average, just 9.2% of distinct page links appeared in all three answer sets.
That counts links shared by all three answers against every distinct link the tests found. Compare just the first and second sets and overlap rises to 18.5%, so the calculation matters.
Those US tests show that sources changed within a day in 2025. They do not tell us the current rate in the UK.
What should you take from these figures?
Keep the engine, country and time period with each result, and measure your presence over time, as SISTRIX recommends. One appearance does not establish a lasting position.
SISTRIX counts new websites between weeks, while SE Ranking compares shared page links within a day. Their percentages answer different questions.