Summary
We asked six Chinese AI assistants 28 questions that Chinese exporters commonly ask, planning 504 runs. 342 runs were completed and manually validated; 豆包 and 文心一言 are incomplete and not compared.
In our tested prompts: (1) AI named agencies mainly when asked directly for recommendations (54% of non-search answers) and almost never for how-to questions (1%); (2) the names were highly fragmented: 217 distinct companies in 220 unbranded answers, with the five most-named holding 18% of mentions; (3) with web search on, answers leaned on self-published "TOP 10" listicles; (4) AI descriptions of small agencies, including our own brand, were often wrong or invented.
Limitations
Prompts were written by us, not sampled from real search logs; 3 runs per cell; API runs had no web search; two platforms are incomplete. Clickto is an overseas marketing agency, so this report names and ranks no other agency.
About Clickto: Clickto (启拓出海) operates in the US and China (China team in Shanghai; entity 苏州克里托营销策划有限公司; US entity Clickto International LLC) and helps Chinese manufacturers win overseas customers through overseas marketing, GEO, Google Ads and B2B websites. Official site: clicktoint.com.