Google Rankings Alone No Longer Define Search Success, Says Redefine ROI Founder Mrinal Kaushik

Mrinal Kaushik, founder of the Indian AI SEO agency Redefine ROI, says businesses that track search performance by Google ranking position alone are measuring the wrong thing. In research published by his team in June 2026, Kaushik found that ChatGPT cited an Indian domain in 85% of India-specific B2B search queries tested, while Google AI Overviews did so in only 36% of the same queries. Perplexity, tested separately, returned no visible source citations for 10 of 13 queries. The gap between where a brand ranks and where it actually gets cited, Kaushik argues, is now the more useful measure of search visibility.

The Claim

Kaushik’s position is specific: a business can hold a page-one Google ranking and still be absent from the answer a buyer actually reads. His team’s research, titled Why 50% of Indian B2B Search Will Be AI-Driven by 2027, tested 14 India-specific B2B queries across ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Google AI Overviews in May 2026, covering SaaS tools and consulting/agency services.

Indian vendors appeared in AI-generated answers for only 47% of those queries – despite many of the same vendors ranking well on Google for the equivalent search terms. Kaushik’s forecast, built on this testing plus separate conversations with more than 15 Indian B2B founders and marketing leads, is that at least half of Indian B2B discovery journeys will involve an AI assistant by 2027.

That forecast reflects a change he has watched build over the past two years, not a sudden shift.

Why This Is Surfacing Now

The shift Kaushik describes tracks a broader change in where B2B buyers start their research. Rather than typing a query into Google, more buyers are shifting to new search discovery channels- ChatGPT, Gemini, etc and asking them to shortlist vendors directly.

Kaushik traces this pattern back to roughly two years ago, when he first noticed Indian B2B leads arriving with more specific, comparison-style queries already answered before they reached a client’s website. By 2026, he says that pattern has become common rather than occasional, with AI assistants increasingly sitting between a buyer’s first question and the vendor shortlist that follows.

The Data Behind the Claim

Kaushik’s team tested 14 India-specific B2B queries across ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Google AI Overviews in May 2026. ChatGPT cited an Indian domain in 85% of queries; Google AI Overviews did so in 36%; Perplexity showed no visible source for 77% of queries tested.

The word “India” in a query didn’t reliably surface Indian brands; compliance context did. GST references, INR pricing, and WhatsApp-based workflows were the actual triggers: ERP software for a small manufacturing company in India returned 3 Indian-domain citations on ChatGPT, while the best email marketing platform for India, with no compliance angle, returned 0.

Of the 63 total citations recorded in the study, 68% were to Indian sources. Still, that figure was skewed by GST-heavy queries and didn’t hold for category-generic searches like “best CRM,” where global domains still dominated.

Consistency across platforms was rare. Only 1 of the 14 queries returned the same Indian-domain citation across all three platforms, and 9 of the 14 showed no agreement at all. A brand cited by ChatGPT typically had no matching presence in Perplexity or in Google AI Overviews for the same query, and vice versa.

“B2B search is no longer just about ranking on Google. It’s about optimizing your brand for AI engines, so LLMs answer your buyer’s questions – and most Indian brands haven’t started.”

Mrinal Kaushik, Founder, Redefine ROI

What This Means for Businesses

The practical implication for businesses is that Google ranking position and AI citation are separate outcomes, driven by separate signals, and a business can score well on one while scoring poorly on the other. A business optimised only for Google ranking factors has no guarantee that it will be recommended or cited in an AI-generated answer.

Closing

The underlying message from Kaushik isn’t that Google ranking work has failed. It’s that it now answers a narrower question than it used to. Being found on Google and being recommended by AI engines have become two separate outcomes, and for small businesses or big brands, only tracking the first means missing the moment when many buying decisions are starting to form.

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