{
  "measured_by": "GetIntel",
  "measured_on": "2026-08-11",
  "question": "Does querying ChatGPT's API instead of the real chatgpt.com interface change what you would report as AI visibility?",
  "method": "The same tracked buyer prompts were sent twice: once through OpenAI's Responses API with the built-in web_search tool, and once through the real chatgpt.com UI via a managed browser. Both calls were made back to back on 2026-08-11. Cited URLs were reduced to hostnames and compared per prompt. No ProbeRun rows were written; this experiment did not touch the tracked measurement history.",
  "scope": {
    "pairs_attempted": 12,
    "pairs_clean": 11,
    "pairs_dropped": 1,
    "drop_reason": "one UI call hit its deadline and returned nothing; it is excluded rather than counted as zero citations"
  },
  "citation_count": {
    "api_mean": 2.18,
    "ui_mean": 2.18,
    "ui_returned_more_in": 4,
    "api_returned_more_in": 6,
    "equal_in": 1,
    "finding": "No difference in how many sources each path returns."
  },
  "citation_identity": {
    "mean_jaccard_api_vs_ui": 0.136,
    "comparison_ui_vs_ui_one_day_apart": 0.236,
    "source": "the 0.236 figure is from chatgpt-answer-churn-2026-08-10.json, measured over 4,220 consecutive run pairs",
    "finding": "The two paths share LESS of their source list than two interface runs a day apart do."
  },
  "brand_presence": {
    "api_named_us": 1,
    "ui_named_us": 0,
    "disagreed_on_whether_we_were_cited": 1,
    "of_pairs": 11
  },
  "what_we_got_wrong": "Our first batch was 5 pairs, 4 clean. On those the UI averaged 3.50 cited sources against the API's 1.25, a 2.8x gap, and every clean pair pointed the same way. We ran 7 more pairs and the gap disappeared entirely: 2.18 versus 2.18 across 11. The first result was noise and we nearly published it.",
  "limits": "11 pairs, one engine, one day, one run each. Given that this same UI returns a different source set on 99.7% of consecutive runs, a single pair cannot separate a path difference from ordinary churn. The count result is a null finding, not proof of equivalence.",
  "rows": [
    {
      "i": 1,
      "api_n": 1,
      "ui_n": 2,
      "overlap": 1,
      "union": 2,
      "api_us": false,
      "ui_us": false,
      "api_doms": [
        "help.openai.com"
      ],
      "ui_doms": [
        "help.openai.com",
        "techradar.com"
      ]
    },
    {
      "i": 3,
      "api_n": 2,
      "ui_n": 5,
      "overlap": 1,
      "union": 6,
      "api_us": false,
      "ui_us": false,
      "api_doms": [
        "ahrefs.com",
        "arxiv.org"
      ],
      "ui_doms": [
        "linksii.com",
        "searchprism.io",
        "allmond.app",
        "no7software.co.uk",
        "arxiv.org"
      ]
    },
    {
      "i": 4,
      "api_n": 1,
      "ui_n": 3,
      "overlap": 1,
      "union": 3,
      "api_us": false,
      "ui_us": false,
      "api_doms": [
        "help.openai.com"
      ],
      "ui_doms": [
        "help.openai.com",
        "openai.com",
        "reuters.com"
      ]
    },
    {
      "i": 5,
      "api_n": 1,
      "ui_n": 4,
      "overlap": 0,
      "union": 5,
      "api_us": false,
      "ui_us": false,
      "api_doms": [
        "llmstxtgenerator.org"
      ],
      "ui_doms": [
        "llmstxt.org",
        "docs.github.com",
        "github.com",
        "example.com"
      ]
    },
    {
      "i": 1,
      "api_n": 6,
      "ui_n": 6,
      "overlap": 1,
      "union": 11,
      "api_us": true,
      "ui_us": false,
      "api_doms": [
        "getintel.ai",
        "learn.g2.com",
        "ahrefs.com",
        "ranksurf.com",
        "growwithreddit.com",
        "g2.com"
      ],
      "ui_doms": [
        "tryprofound.com",
        "g2.com",
        "partnerhub.g2.com",
        "reddit.com",
        "techradar.com",
        "arxiv.org"
      ]
    },
    {
      "i": 2,
      "api_n": 1,
      "ui_n": 0,
      "overlap": 0,
      "union": 1,
      "api_us": false,
      "ui_us": false,
      "api_doms": [
        "searchenginejournal.com"
      ],
      "ui_doms": []
    },
    {
      "i": 3,
      "api_n": 4,
      "ui_n": 3,
      "overlap": 2,
      "union": 5,
      "api_us": false,
      "ui_us": false,
      "api_doms": [
        "developers.google.com",
        "arxiv.org",
        "ahrefs.com",
        "support.google.com"
      ],
      "ui_doms": [
        "ahrefs.com",
        "cognizo.ai",
        "developers.google.com"
      ]
    },
    {
      "i": 4,
      "api_n": 1,
      "ui_n": 0,
      "overlap": 0,
      "union": 1,
      "api_us": false,
      "ui_us": false,
      "api_doms": [
        "help.openai.com"
      ],
      "ui_doms": []
    },
    {
      "i": 5,
      "api_n": 2,
      "ui_n": 0,
      "overlap": 0,
      "union": 2,
      "api_us": false,
      "ui_us": false,
      "api_doms": [
        "developers.google.com",
        "docs.cursor.com"
      ],
      "ui_doms": []
    },
    {
      "i": 6,
      "api_n": 2,
      "ui_n": 0,
      "overlap": 0,
      "union": 2,
      "api_us": false,
      "ui_us": false,
      "api_doms": [
        "parse.gl",
        "arxiv.org"
      ],
      "ui_doms": []
    },
    {
      "i": 7,
      "api_n": 3,
      "ui_n": 1,
      "overlap": 0,
      "union": 4,
      "api_us": false,
      "ui_us": false,
      "api_doms": [
        "help.openai.com",
        "arxiv.org",
        "openai.com"
      ],
      "ui_doms": [
        "developers.google.com"
      ]
    }
  ]
}