We asked ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, Claude and Google’s AI Overviews 200 questions that call for a number, the kind people ask every day.1Note 1A statistic is a share, rate, average, count or cost that an assistant states as fact. We left out advice (“save 20% of your income”) and prices. Then we clicked the citations, and kept clicking. Here is one trail, from the answer to the end.
Every assistant got the same question: “What percentage of salespeople give up after one follow-up?” All five assistants gave the same figure, and only ChatGPT said the evidence behind it was unclear.
Google AI Overviews cited a sales firm’s stats page, from 2020. The number is right there. Its “source” link goes to a writing sample.
