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What AI reads before it recommends Live Chat tools

One question, put to the two AI engines that hand back the pages they opened.

The question, as it was asked

“What are the best live chat and conversational AI tools for websites?”

asked Sep 18, 2026 · Perplexity and Google AI Overviews · US English

These are not the leaderboard's engines. The leaderboard and the debate ask ChatGPT, Claude and Gemini. This page asks Perplexity and Google, because they are the two that disclose what they read. What an engine reads here does not explain a rank there.

Who they named

The companies each engine's answer named, in the order it first mentioned them. Order of mention is not a rank — neither engine ranked anything.

PerplexityPerplexity named 14 companies
  1. 1Intercom×2#1
  2. 2Tidio×2#6
  3. 3Gorgias#9
  4. 4Re:amaze—
  5. 5Tawk.to#20
  6. 6Crisp#7
  7. 7HubSpot Live Chat#5
  8. 8Zendesk Chat×2#2
  9. 9LiveChat#4
  10. 10Botpress×2—
  11. 11Twilio—
  12. 12Respond.io—
  13. 13ChatBot#12
  14. 14Zipchat—
Google AI OverviewsGoogle AI Overviews named 6 companies
  1. 1Intercom×2#1
  2. 2Tidio×2#6
  3. 3Zendesk Chat×2#2
  4. 4Botpress×2—
  5. 5Freshchat#8
  6. 6Ada#13

Named here, not on our leaderboard

5 companies the engines named are not on our leaderboard at all.

BotpressRe:amazeTwilioRespond.ioZipchat

What they read

Every page each engine retrieved while answering. Retrieved is not the same as relied on — the engines report the pages they pulled back, and no engine tells anyone which of them changed its answer.

PerplexityPerplexity retrieved 50 pages from 47 sites· 8 of those pages sit on a company's own site

Most-read sites

featurebase.app2 pages
thecxlead.com2 pages
toolradar.com2 pages
aerochat.ai1 page
aiproductivity.ai1 page
boei.help1 page
bolddesk.com1 page
botpress.comown site1 page
capterra.comreview site1 page
chatim.app1 page

Every page retrieved

Google AI OverviewsGoogle AI Overviews retrieved 5 pages from 5 sites· 1 of those page sits on a company's own site

Most-read sites

1mind.com1 page
commplify.ai1 page
reddit.comcommunity1 page
tidio.comown site×21 page
upfirst.ai1 page

Every page retrieved

The regulars

This is the first check for this category, so there is nothing to count across weeks yet. From the next one, each site carries how many of the last 5 checks it was retrieved in.

What these numbers rest onOne question · the dates · how often each engine was asked

This page is about one question, not about the category. It says: when a buyer asks this exact question, here is what each engine retrieved and who each one named. It does not say these are the pages AI reads about this category — measured, one question finds only about a third of the sites the engines keep returning to across a whole market.

  • Retrieved, never cited. The engines hand back the pages they pulled; none of them says which ones it leaned on.
  • Per engine, never pooled. The engines read mostly different webs, so a combined page count would describe a list neither of them produced. The only cross-engine facts here are that both engines read a site and that both engines named a company.
  • Counts, never rates. Every number here counts a named thing. There is no percentage anywhere on this page.
  • An engine we could not read is said so plainly and enters no count. It is never shown as a zero.

When an engine returns nothing — the call fails, Perplexity answers without searching, or Google shows no overview — it is asked again, up to 3 times in all. Whatever the last attempt gave is what is published, with the number of attempts beside it.

  • Perplexity — asked once on Sep 18, 2026
  • Google AI Overviews — asked once on Sep 18, 2026

We do not open the retrieved pages. Everything here comes from what the engines themselves handed back. Both engines are asked from the United States, in English.

These are not the leaderboard's engines. The leaderboard and the debate ask ChatGPT, Claude and Gemini. This page asks Perplexity and Google, because they are the two that disclose what they read. What an engine reads here does not explain a rank there.

Methodology version 1.0.0Read the full methodology →

Earlier checks

This is the first check for this category, so there are no earlier weeks to link to yet. From the next one, each week's check is kept on that week's archive page.