PAN Communications Research Finds AI Answers to C-Suite Questions Change 50% to 60% of the Time

C-Suite Signals: AI Citation Index tracked 31,500 AI responses and 155,000+ citations over four weeks; authoritative sources held their place in AI answers far longer than high-volume platforms

BOSTON--(BUSINESS WIRE)--PAN Communications, the global brand-to-demand agency, today released the full C-Suite Signals: AI Citation Index, a longitudinal study of how ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, and Perplexity answer the questions B2B C-Suite executives ask about their work. Across 31,500 AI responses collected from late August to late September, answers to the same question changed substantially 50% to 60% of the time.

For marketing and communications teams, a single check of how AI describes a brand captures one single moment. The C-Suite Signals research points toward measuring AI visibility as a rate, continuously, and toward building presence in the sources AI returns to.

“Leaders want to know whether their brand shows up when an executive asks AI for advice, and our data shows that answer can change from one week to the next. The brands that hold their place are cited by sources AI already relies on, like analysts, trade outlets, and professional associations,” said Mark Nardone, CMO of PAN. “But that visibility work extends beyond just citations. Not all links are created equal; and that’s where reputation-building and credibility take priority. The best way of nailing both — credibility and visibility — is via omnichannel efforts that start with human creativity.”

What the Data Shows

• Authority outlasts volume. Of the sources cited in week one, 42% were still cited in week four. Authoritative sources held on far longer. The National Institutes of Health (NIH), for instance, kept 76% of its citation spots. Deloitte and SHRM kept 68% and 67%, respectively. Compare that with “community hubs”: 27% for Medium and 21% for Reddit.
• Each executive sees a different level of change. Variance averaged 54% across the nine personas, from 39% for CHROs to 70% for Chief Medical Officers.
• ChatGPT was the most consistent platform. The powerhouse LLM’s answers varied far less than those of Claude, Gemini, and Perplexity, making it a practical starting point for brands auditing what AI says about them.
• AI draws on a far wider pool of sources than brands plan for. There were 16,503 different domains across 154,944 citations. LinkedIn was the top source, and it still only made up 5% of all citations.
• The right sources depend on the role. For Chief Medical Officers, NIH and PubMed made up 23% of citations. CHROs leaned on SHRM, CIOs and CTOs on CIO.com, and CMOs and CROs on Gartner.

From Research to Client Results

PAN Communications builds this insight into client programs that track how brands appear across AI platforms and grow the earned and owned sources those platforms cite. Take payments technology company Nuvei as an example. PAN paired a market launch in Mexico with original consumer research and thought leadership from seven executives. Nuvei’s AI Visibility Score rose 4.8 points to 14.4%, and its earned coverage generated 59,598 AI citations, nearly three times the citations its own website produced.

PAN Communications further boosted AI presence, this time for DynaMed, by running an integrated paid, earned, shared, and owned program, backed by an executive LinkedIn presence. The program secured high-impact placements in TIME and grew organic keyword rankings 1,500% quarter over quarter, all while building the brand’s market authority as a leader in AI-powered clinical decision support. That growth included 450+ page-one and AI Overview keyword placements, meaning that DynaMed’s content regularly appeared in the answers AI generated. Organic search sessions rose 60% over the same period, so the visibility gains came with traffic to match.

For Tungsten Automation, PAN Communications built a US and UK media program grounded in the company’s “right AI for the right reason” philosophy that moved it beyond legacy document processing and into current conversations about how AI works inside real enterprise workflows. Through executive interviews, bylines, podcasts, product news, and vertical outreach, the program secured coverage in outlets such as CIO.com, InformationWeek, Quartz, TechTarget, and City AM, across topics from AI ROI and agentic automation to workforce change and responsible AI adoption.

“Our AI Citation Index offers an unvarnished view into where AI looks for answers and how often that changes,” said Zareen Fidlon, EVP, Integrated Marketing and Head of AI Innovation, PAN. “This surplus of data and AI fluency is already informing how we plan and measure brand-to-demand programs, and we’ll have more on these intelligence efforts soon.”

The full report, persona profiles, and data are available here.

About PAN and PANBlast

PAN Communications is the brand-to-demand agency forged from PR. Independent and global, we help B2B tech and healthcare brands get seen, believed, and chosen. Trusted by mid-market and enterprise leaders, we bring 30+ years of experience and award-winning work across earned, owned, and paid media. PANBlast (formerly BLASTmedia) is a wholly owned division of PAN dedicated to serving emerging to high-growth B2B SaaS and AI brands like Cordial, Model N, and PolyAI. To learn more, visit pancommunications.com and panblastpr.com.