What AI actually cites: the first 30%, and a table
Two findings shape whether an engine lifts your answer or someone else's — where the citable passage sits on the page, and whether it's a table. Here's what the research shows, and what it means for how you write.
Steen Stones · Reviewed 1 Jul 2026
An AI engine doesn't recommend a page. It lifts a passage — a self-contained answer it can quote and cite. So the question that decides whether you're the source isn't “is my content good?” It's “can an engine find a clean answer, quickly, and is it mine?” Two findings from the public research change how you should write for that.
1. The first 30% of the page does the work
Princeton GEO research (2024)
Front-loading isn't a style preference; it's where the citations are. If your answer is buried after four paragraphs of preamble — the way most firm content is written for a human skim — an engine is more likely to quote a competitor who put the answer up top. Lead with the plain answer, in a passage that stands on its own, then put the evidence beneath it.
2. Tables get lifted more than prose
Nectiv analysis of 25,000+ pages (2025)
Where information is genuinely comparable — fees, timelines, options, criteria — a clean table is far more liftable than the same facts in a paragraph. Nectiv's analysis found 33% of ChatGPT citations included a table, against 13% of Google results. The lesson isn't “add tables everywhere”; it's “when the content is comparable, structure it so a machine can lift it whole.”
What it means for a regulated firm
- Lead every page with the answer, in the first passage — not after a warm-up.
- Use a real table wherever the information is comparable, never as decoration.
- Write the passage to stand alone: an engine should be able to quote it without the surrounding page.
- Keep it compliant at the passage level — the sentence that gets lifted has to clear the rules on its own.
“The unit of work isn't the article. It's the extractable answer.”
Common questions
- Does this mean long content is dead?
- No — depth still matters for credibility. It means the answer belongs at the top, in a passage an engine can lift, with the depth beneath it. Front-loaded, not shallow.
- Are these your numbers?
- No. The 44% figure is Princeton GEO research; the 2.3× table finding is Nectiv's analysis of 25,000+ pages. We've attributed both — this piece explains what the public research means for how you write, not a claim about our own results.
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