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The E-E-A-T score for AI assistants

ContentAuthority Score

Composite score of authority signals in a piece of content - byline credentials, source quality, citation density and factual anchoring.

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# The 2026 state of AI search visibility

By Dr. Sarah Chen, PhD, Data Science. Reviewed by Professor Michael Torres. Published March 12, 2026.

Dr. Chen is a data scientist who covers AI search and has 8 years of experience researching retrieval systems.

According to Gartner (2026), 21% of informational queries now happen on AI assistants, up from 8% in 2024 [1]. The 2026 Stanford HAI Report found that assistants lift sourced content 3.2x more than unsourced claims [2]. In our 2026 analysis of 10,000 citations across ChatGPT, Claude and Perplexity, we measured a 4.3x lift for brands with strong entity signals [3].

The cost of inaction is rising. Forrester projects $2.4 billion in AI search revenue by 2026, with 68% of B2B informational traffic moving to AI assistants. McKinsey (2026) estimated that brands invisible to AI assistants lose 12-18% of category share within 18 months.

Sources:
[1] https://gartner.com/ai-search-2026
[2] https://hai.stanford.edu/report-2026
[3] https://geolify.com/research/citation-study

153 words

Authority score

Byline credentials

×25%100

Who wrote it, and does the author carry expertise?

✓ Named author
✓ Credentials (PhD, MD, etc)
✓ Author bio / expertise
✓ Peer / editor review

Source quality

×30%75

Which external authorities back the claims?

✓ External URLs
○ 'According to' sourcing
✓ Named institutions cited
✓ Studies / reports referenced

Citation density

×20%100

How often are claims backed up?

✓ At least 3 citations
✓ At least 5 citations
✓ At least 1 citation per 500 words
✓ Mix of citation forms

Factual anchoring

×25%100

Are claims grounded in specific numbers?

✓ Fact density ≥ 3 per 100 words
✓ Fact density ≥ 5 per 100 words
✓ At least 3 percentages
✓ Specific year references
✓ Numerical ranges or dollar values

How it works

Paste your content. The scorer runs four authority pillars in parallel: byline credentials, source quality, citation density and factual anchoring. Each pillar has 4-5 specific checks; each check is pass/fail. The final score is weighted 25/30/20/25 across the four pillars.

The four pillars

Byline credentials (25%) - named author, credentials, bio, peer review.
Source quality (30%) - external URLs, named institutions, studies, "according to" patterns.
Citation density (20%) - citations per 500 words, mix of citation forms.
Factual anchoring (25%) - fact density, percentages, specific years, numerical ranges.

Pair with

For the full view, run the Trust Signal Analyzer (signal-level) and the Citation Probability Calculator (outcome-level). Authority is also wrapped in structured data - make sure your Article schema declares author and datePublished. Full scoring logic: how assistants choose citations.

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