Pangram verdict · v3.3
We believe that this text is a mix of AI and human-written content.
AI likelihood · overall
MixedArticle text · 1,444 words · 29 segments analyzed
One number, followed.We asked ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, Claude and Google’s AI Overviews 200 questions that call for a number, the kind people ask every day.
Then we clicked the citations, and kept clicking.
Here is one trail, from the answer to the end.Google AI OverviewsWhat percentage of salespeople give up after one follow-up?44% of salespeople give up after just one follow-up attempt.44%44%44%44%44%A sales firm’s stats page202044% of salespeople give up after one follow-up attempt (source).A freelance writer’s sample articleby 201780 Percent of Sales Require 5 Follow-up Calls after Meeting; 44 Percent Salespeople Give Up After One Follow-upNo study behind itNo survey, no sample, no date.In the answerEvery assistant got the same question: “What percentage of salespeople give up after one follow-up?” All five assistants gave the same figure, and only ChatGPT said the evidence behind it was unclear.One click inGoogle AI Overviews cited a sales firm’s stats page, from 2020.
The number is right there.
Its “source” link goes to a writing sample.Two clicks inThat leads to a freelance writer’s sample article, online by 2017.
The number is in its headline.
It lists two slide decks, a blog list and two news stories. None is a study of follow-ups.The end of the trailThat’s where it ends.
No survey, no sample, no study: every other route to this number we tried stopped at a page that cites no research. It’s a number still walking around with nothing underneath it.
That’s a zombie stat.Most numbers aren’t zombies. But you can’t tell from the answer: a zombie arrives with the same confidence and the same citation, and here, with all five assistants agreeing. So we did the same for 1,285 statistics.Fewer than half get there.We took a random sample of the statistics each assistant cited, 1,285 in all, and walked every trail the same way: the cited page, then that page’s source, up to five pages deep.
Where a page named a source without a link, we searched for it.40% reached a study that says the same thing.
Another 8% reached the study, but the number or its context had changed on the way. The rest never got there: 40% stopped at a source we couldn’t check, because it was locked, gone or silent on the number, and 11% led nowhere at all.Four in ten trails reached a study that says the same thingEach square is one in a hundred of the 1,285 statistics we traced, sorted by where its trail ended.40%SourcedWe found the study, and it says the same thing.8%ChangedWe found the study, but the number, who was asked, where or when is different.40%Can’t checkA page names a real source, but the number isn’t in it, or the source is locked or gone.11%NowhereNo study anywhere on the trail.
Every page repeats the number and credits no one.The last 1%: trails whose pages wouldn’t load for us.Trakkr Research, five AI assistants asked 200 questions that call for a number, October 2026.
A random sample of each assistant’s cited statistics, weighted by how many each quoted, and corrected with 150 trails checked by hand.
Sourced: 40%, 95% range 34% to 46%.ChatGPT did best, and quoted the fewest numbers: 1.3 per answer, against 6.8 for Claude.
The other four landed between 38% and 46%, too close to rank.ChatGPT quoted the fewest numbers, and sourced the mostThe same hundred squares for each assistant, from its own sample of cited statistics.ChatGPT57% sourced1.3 statistics per answerPerplexity46% sourced2.2 statistics per answerAI Overviews39% sourced4.8 statistics per answerGemini38% sourced6.2 statistics per answerClaude38% sourced6.8 statistics per answerTrakkr Research, five AI assistants asked 200 questions that call for a number, October 2026.
Traced per assistant: ChatGPT 108, Perplexity 277, Google AI Overviews 300, Gemini 300, Claude 300.
The four after ChatGPT sit inside each other’s ranges, so they aren’t ranked.It isn’t a quirk of our questions. Of 300 statistics in Google AI Overviews answers to real everyday searches, 40% were sourced, the same share.AI cites the copy, not the study.Most of the time, the AI wasn’t making numbers up: the page it cited had the figure 82% of the time.
The trouble is which page.
Only 21% of the pages cited for a number were the research itself.More than half were company blogs. Add news stories and statistics roundups, and most citations land on pages built to collect figures from elsewhere, often without a link back.Where the trail starts decides where it endsEvery page an assistant cited first for a number, by kind.
Each column’s width is its share of those citations.
Green is how often its trails reached a study that says the same thing.62%Research firm13% of citationsResearch firm or survey: 13% of first citations, 62% of them sourced.61%Government7% of citationsGovernment or official body: 7% of first citations, 61% of them sourced.37%Company blog54% of citationsCompany blog: 54% of first citations, 37% of them sourced.37%News10% of citationsNews or magazine: 10% of first citations, 37% of them sourced.35%Stats roundup8% of citationsStats roundup: 8% of first citations, 35% of them sourced.41%Other8% of citationsOther: 8% of first citations, 41% of them sourced.Trakkr Research, five AI assistants asked 200 questions that call for a number, October 2026.
1,268 traced statistics with a readable first page. Page types judged from the page itself.
Outcomes corrected with 150 trails checked by hand.Where the trail starts decides where it ends. From a research firm or a government page, it reached a matching study 61% of the time. From a company blog, 37%; from a statistics roundup, 35%. Even research firms fell short 38% of the time, often because the full report sat behind a form.A citation tells you where the AI found a number, not where the number came from.Numbers change on the way.Reaching the study didn’t always mean the number held. Of the statistics that got there, 17% had changed on the way. The digits moved only about one time in four.
Usually it was the context: what was measured, the year, the source, or who was asked.What changed, across every change we loggedThe number changed26%What was measured changed20%The year changed17%The source changed16%Who was asked changed14%The place changed4%Fifteen women judging health websites become every website’s first impression. Three companies become a rule of business.
Here are the clearest trails we followed, each one checked by hand.Watch a number lose its contextEach trail runs from the original study to an answer an assistant gave in October 2026.
Step along it: the number stays, and the words around it change.AskedWhat percentage of first impressions of a website are design-related?The study · Sillence and colleagues, CHI, 2004Of the comments 15 women made about rejecting or mistrusting health websites, 94% were about design.A 2004 study watched 15 British women judge health websites, and 94% of their comments about rejecting a site were about design.
Twenty years of retelling made it “94% of first impressions are design-related”, and Google AI Overviews states it as fact.Step 1 of 4Every step checked by hand on the open web, with archived copies kept. We name the original studies; the pages that repeated them are described by type, not named.The zombies.Ask five assistants the same question and you’ll often get five different numbers.
On 28 of the 71 questions where all five gave a percentage, we got four or five different figures.One question, five answers, from 49% to 96%Asked “What percentage of marketers use marketing automation tools?”, word for word, on the same day.49–51%AI Overviews62%ChatGPT70–79%Gemini81%Perplexity96%ClaudeChatGPTThere isn’t one universal figure, it varies by survey and what counts as “marketing automation.” One commonly cited survey found 62% of U.S. digital marketers used automation software, but that data is from 2020, so it may not reflect current adoption.PerplexityApproximately 81% of marketing organizations use marketing automation.GeminiAcross major industry benchmarks, between 70% and 79% of marketers and companies use marketing automation tools in some capacityClaude96% of marketers have used a marketing automation platform or plan to use oneAI OverviewsRoughly 49% to 51% of companies and marketing teams currently use marketing automation tools, according to industry benchmarks from Moosend and related research studies.Trakkr Research, five AI assistants asked 200 questions that call for a number, October 2026. Answers collected on 25 October 2026. A range is drawn from its low to its high.It wasn’t one odd question. The typical gap between the highest figure and the lowest was 16 points.On 31 of 71 questions, the five figures were 20 points or more apartEvery question where all five gave a percentage, one line each, from the lowest figure to the highest. Closest at the top.What percentage of searches include local intent such as nearby or near me? 46% to 46%How many social media users follow at least one brand?
90% to 90%What percentage of online shopping carts are abandoned?