When a B2B founder asks Google AI Mode for a LinkedIn ghostwriter, a founder branding agency or go-to-market help, the answer is built from a small set of agency websites plus LinkedIn itself, and the names change almost completely between those three kinds of question. Across 92 questions run on 9 and 10 November 2026, linkedin.com was cited in 62 answers (67%), 233 different firms were highlighted by name, and 169 of those firms (73%) were highlighted only once. Ghostwriting answers kept returning to the same handful of agencies: Windmill Growth was highlighted in 12 of 35 answers and Understory Agency in 11. GTM answers drew on a different set, led by GrowthSpree and TripleDart (7 of 31 each). Founder branding answers leaned heavily on Indian agencies: 23 of 26 answers cited at least one .in domain.
I also run Wise Mango, a LinkedIn ghostwriting business, so I checked for it in every answer and report it plainly below. wisemango.io was cited in 12 of the 35 ghostwriting answers, and Wise Mango was a highlighted name in 4 of them. It did not appear in any founder branding or GTM answer. Klype, the other company I run, appeared in none of the 92.
The raw data is free to reuse: get ai-names-ghostwriters-gtm-2026-11.csv by email. It holds every question, the date it ran, every highlighted name and every cited domain.
Get the data: ai-names-ghostwriters-gtm-2026-11.csv
Every question run in Google AI Mode on 9 and 10 November 2026, with the date, every highlighted name and every cited domain. Free to reuse with a link to this page. I email you the download link.
Or
See where your company stands in these answers
A free check of whether ChatGPT, Perplexity and Google AI Mode name your company when buyers ask about your category.
#How the study worked
- Engine: Google AI Mode (the
udm=50search mode), one fresh query per question, no follow-up prompts. - Dates: queries 1 to 6 ran on 9 November 2026; the other 86 ran on 10 November 2026.
- Coverage: 92 of 100 planned questions. The run stopped at query 97 when Google AI Mode returned "You've reached the request limit for AI responses at the moment." Queries 62 to 65 and 97 to 100 were not collected. Details are in the Methodology section.
- Location and account: a logged-in Chrome browser in India. Google says AI Mode can personalise answers using past searches and saved activity, so other people will see different answers.
- Questions: three groups written the way founders type: 35 about LinkedIn ghostwriting ("LinkedIn ghostwriter for SaaS CEO", "LinkedIn ghostwriting agency UK"), 30 about founder and executive branding ("founder personal branding agency", "CEO thought leadership agency"), and 35 about GTM help ("fractional CMO for B2B SaaS", "GEO agency for B2B SaaS"). 35, 26 and 31 were collected.
- What was recorded: every company or person the answer highlighted in bold, as a heading or as a table row label, and every external domain linked from the answer page. Google's own domains were excluded and LinkedIn country subdomains were merged into linkedin.com.
The full question list, including the 8 that were not collected, is in the CSV and in the Methodology section.
#The headline results
| Measure | Ghostwriting | Founder branding | GTM help | All |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Answers collected | 35 | 26 | 31 | 92 |
| Answers that highlighted named firms | 24 | 22 | 23 | 69 (75%) |
| Different firms highlighted | 70 | 92 | 95 | 233 |
| Total firm mentions | 141 | 130 | 133 | 404 |
| Average firms per answer (when listed) | 5.9 | 5.9 | 5.8 | 5.9 |
| Different domains cited | 82 | 108 | 160 | 306 |
| Total citations | 257 | 179 | 242 | 678 |
| Average domains per answer | 7.3 | 6.9 | 7.8 | 7.4 |
| Answers citing linkedin.com | 29 (83%) | 14 (54%) | 19 (61%) | 62 (67%) |
| Answers citing reddit.com | 4 | 4 | 8 | 16 (17%) |
Answers citing at least one .in domain |
22 | 23 | 7 | 52 (57%) |
Five things stand out.
- One answer in four names nobody. 23 of 92 answers (25%) gave advice, price ranges or a checklist without highlighting any firm. These were mostly "how", "what" and "is it worth it" questions, such as "how to choose a LinkedIn ghostwriter" (query 29) and "founder personal brand ROI" (query 55). For a founder, that means the comparison stage is where firms get named; the education stage is where sites get cited.
- LinkedIn is the most cited source by a wide margin. linkedin.com was cited in 62 answers. The next most cited domain, reddit.com, appeared in 16. LinkedIn posts, articles and profile pages are a source in their own right, not only a channel.
- The long tail is enormous. 213 of the 306 cited domains (70%) appeared in only one answer, and 169 of the 233 highlighted firms (73%) were named only once. A firm does not need to be large to be named; it needs a page that matches one specific question.
- The three groups barely overlap. The firms named for ghostwriting, for founder branding and for GTM are largely different sets. Understory Agency is the only firm in the top ten of more than one group.
- Geography shows through. 84 of the 678 citations (12.4%) went to
.indomains, and in the founder branding group the share was 47 of 179 (26%). Because the browser was in India, a US or UK run is likely to show fewer Indian firms.
#LinkedIn ghostwriting: who AI named
The 35 ghostwriting questions ranged from generic ("top LinkedIn ghostwriting agencies 2026") to narrow ("LinkedIn ghostwriting agency for cybersecurity founders", "best LinkedIn ghostwriter for VC partners"). 24 of them produced a list of named firms or people.
Most highlighted names, ghostwriting questions
| Rank | Name | Answers naming it (of 35) | Share |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Windmill Growth | 12 | 34% |
| 2 | Understory Agency | 11 | 31% |
| 3 | Lemniscate Growth | 7 | 20% |
| 4 | Stop The Scroll | 5 | 14% |
| 4 | BAMF | 5 | 14% |
| 4 | Rethoric | 5 | 14% |
| 4 | Concurate | 5 | 14% |
| 8 | RevenueZen | 4 | 11% |
| 8 | Wise Mango | 4 | 11% |
| 10 | Perceptric | 3 | 9% |
| 10 | Column Content | 3 | 9% |
| 10 | Moxie Digital | 3 | 9% |
| 10 | Cleverly | 3 | 9% |
| 10 | Postlit Media | 3 | 9% |
| 10 | Man Bites Dog | 3 | 9% |
70 different names were highlighted across the ghostwriting answers, and 46 of them only once. Several answers named individual writers rather than agencies. The answer to "LinkedIn ghostwriter for enterprise sales leaders" (query 26) highlighted five people and no agencies, and the answer to "best LinkedIn ghostwriter for VC partners" (query 13) mixed two agencies with named freelancers.
Narrow questions pulled in specialists that the broad questions never mentioned. "LinkedIn ghostwriter for healthcare tech founders" (query 15) named Postlit Media, ThoughtLeaders.ae and Iridis Writing. "LinkedIn ghostwriting agency UK" (query 17) named Nautilus Marketing, Claire Mason, Man Bites Dog, YellowInk and Reachly, none of which appeared in the generic "top agencies" answer. The practical reading for an agency is that a page targeting one niche question is a more realistic route into an answer than competing for "best LinkedIn ghostwriting agency".
Most cited domains, ghostwriting questions
| Rank | Domain | Answers citing it (of 35) | Share |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | linkedin.com | 29 | 83% |
| 2 | understoryagency.com | 13 | 37% |
| 2 | okara.ai | 13 | 37% |
| 4 | wisemango.io | 12 | 34% |
| 5 | getaob.com | 10 | 29% |
| 5 | lemniscategrowth.com | 10 | 29% |
| 5 | magicpost.in | 10 | 29% |
| 8 | foundera.co | 8 | 23% |
| 9 | nathanojaokomo.com | 7 | 20% |
| 10 | yoursocialstrategy.co | 6 | 17% |
| 10 | executivepresence.io | 6 | 17% |
| 10 | demandbird.com | 6 | 17% |
| 10 | thoughtleaders.ae | 6 | 17% |
Two patterns are visible here. First, being cited and being named are different things. okara.ai and magicpost.in were each cited in 10 or more ghostwriting answers, but neither was highlighted as a recommended agency in any of them; their pages were used as sources for advice and prices. Second, some firms appear in both lists. Understory Agency and Lemniscate Growth are among the most cited domains and among the most named firms, which suggests their own pages are feeding the answers that recommend them.
Reddit, which is often described as a major source for AI answers, was cited in only 4 of the 35 ghostwriting answers.
#Founder and executive branding: a different market
The 26 founder branding answers that were collected named 92 different firms, more than the ghostwriting group despite fewer questions, and 75 of them only once. No firm was highlighted in more than 5 answers.
Most highlighted names, founder branding questions
| Rank | Name | Answers naming it (of 26) | Share |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Moris Media | 5 | 19% |
| 1 | Ohh My Brand | 5 | 19% |
| 1 | Boldface | 5 | 19% |
| 1 | LexiConn | 5 | 19% |
| 5 | ROI Hunt | 4 | 15% |
| 5 | FableSquare | 4 | 15% |
| 7 | NPR Design | 3 | 12% |
| 7 | Montaz Medias | 3 | 12% |
| 7 | Digitaltheory | 3 | 12% |
| 7 | Sculpt | 3 | 12% |
| 7 | Shake Content | 3 | 12% |
Most cited domains, founder branding questions
| Rank | Domain | Answers citing it (of 26) | Share |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | linkedin.com | 14 | 54% |
| 2 | lexiconn.in | 6 | 23% |
| 3 | nprdesign.com | 5 | 19% |
| 3 | roihunt.in | 5 | 19% |
| 3 | digitaltheory.co.in | 5 | 19% |
| 3 | empyrealinfotech.com | 5 | 19% |
| 3 | instagram.com | 5 | 19% |
| 8 | reddit.com | 4 | 15% |
| 8 | morismedia.in | 4 | 15% |
| 8 | ohhmybrand.com | 4 | 15% |
| 8 | shakecontent.com | 4 | 15% |
This group was the most local. 23 of 26 answers cited at least one .in domain, and 47 of its 179 citations (26%) went to .in sites, including lexiconn.in, roihunt.in, digitaltheory.co.in and morismedia.in. Instagram was cited in 5 founder branding answers but only once in each of the other two groups, which fits the way these questions drift towards video, reels and personal media rather than written LinkedIn content.
Only six firms were highlighted in both groups: Boldface, LexiConn, Shake Content, Stop The Scroll, Lemniscate Growth and BAMF, and each of them was clearly stronger in one group than the other (Boldface 5 branding answers against 1 ghostwriting answer, Lemniscate Growth 7 ghostwriting against 1 branding). Most of the ghostwriting leaders, including Windmill Growth and Understory Agency, were not highlighted in any founder branding answer that was collected. A firm that sells both ghostwriting and founder branding cannot assume that ranking for one carries over to the other.
One answer, "founder personal brand ROI" (query 55), cited no external domains at all and named no firms. It was the only answer of the 92 with zero citations.
#GTM help: the widest spread of sources
The 31 GTM answers cited 160 different domains, the most of any group, and 128 of those domains (80%) appeared only once. This is the least concentrated of the three groups: the questions covered fractional CMOs, demand generation, ABM, GTM engineering with Clay, Reddit marketing, AI search and GEO, and each pulled in its own specialists.
Most highlighted names, GTM questions
| Rank | Name | Answers naming it (of 31) | Share |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | GrowthSpree | 7 | 23% |
| 1 | TripleDart | 7 | 23% |
| 3 | Kalungi | 4 | 13% |
| 3 | Refine Labs | 4 | 13% |
| 5 | growth.cx | 3 | 10% |
| 5 | Infrasity | 3 | 10% |
| 5 | Omniscient Digital | 3 | 10% |
| 8 | Understory Agency | 2 | 6% |
| 8 | Winning by Design | 2 | 6% |
| 8 | ColdIQ | 2 | 6% |
| 8 | Directive | 2 | 6% |
| 8 | Animalz | 2 | 6% |
| 8 | Ten Speed | 2 | 6% |
Most cited domains, GTM questions
| Rank | Domain | Answers citing it (of 31) | Share |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | linkedin.com | 19 | 61% |
| 2 | growthspreeofficial.com | 9 | 29% |
| 3 | growth.cx | 8 | 26% |
| 3 | reddit.com | 8 | 26% |
| 5 | metaflow.life | 5 | 16% |
| 6 | purplepath.io | 4 | 13% |
| 6 | tripledart.com | 4 | 13% |
| 6 | infrasity.com | 4 | 13% |
Reddit mattered more here than anywhere else: it was cited in 8 of 31 GTM answers (26%), against 4 of 35 for ghostwriting and 4 of 26 for founder branding. Questions such as "founder-led GTM consultant" (query 67) and "GTM consultant for Series A SaaS" (query 79) cited Reddit threads alongside agency pages.
GTM answers were also the least local of the three groups. Only 7 of 31 cited a .in domain, and .in sites took 9 of 242 GTM citations (3.7%).
The AI search questions are worth a separate note. "AI search visibility agency for B2B" (query 81), "GEO agency for B2B SaaS" (query 82), "agency to get my startup mentioned by ChatGPT" (query 83) and "answer engine optimization agency" (query 89) produced four almost completely different lists. Across those four answers, 22 firms were highlighted and only TripleDart, PROHED, Arobis AI and iPullRank were highlighted more than once. This category is new enough that no firm owns it in AI Mode yet.
#Where Wise Mango and Shruti Kaushik appeared
I run Wise Mango, so every answer was checked for "Wise Mango", "wisemango", "Shruti Kaushik", "Klype" and "Kurattor". Here is every appearance.
| Group | Answers | wisemango.io cited | Wise Mango highlighted as a named firm | Klype appeared |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ghostwriting | 35 | 12 (34%) | 4 (11%) | 0 |
| Founder branding | 26 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| GTM help | 31 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| All | 92 | 12 (13%) | 4 (4%) | 0 |
The four answers where Wise Mango was highlighted as a named firm:
| Query | Question | Position among highlighted names |
|---|---|---|
| 2 | LinkedIn ghostwriter for SaaS CEO | 1st of 7 |
| 18 | LinkedIn ghostwriting agency India for US founders | 1st of 5 |
| 20 | best LinkedIn ghostwriting agencies for startups | 5th of 7 |
| 28 | LinkedIn ghostwriting agency for martech founders | 4th of 5 |
Position is the order in which the names appeared on the page. The answer to query 18 also mentioned Shruti Kaushik by name, as did the answer to query 28.
In the other 8 ghostwriting answers that cited wisemango.io, Wise Mango was used as a source rather than recommended: the page was linked for advice or prices, but the firm was not in the highlighted list. Those were queries 4 ("how much does a LinkedIn ghostwriter cost"), 5 (fintech founders), 6 (AI startup founders), 10 (cybersecurity founders), 15 (healthcare tech founders), 21 (dev tools founders), 33 (Series A startups) and 34 (HR tech founders).
Wise Mango was absent from:
- All 26 founder branding answers, including "LinkedIn personal branding agency for B2B founders" (query 39) and "personal branding agency for SaaS founders" (query 47), which are close to what Wise Mango sells.
- All 31 GTM answers, including "founder-led GTM consultant" (query 67) and "LinkedIn-led GTM agency" (query 80).
- The two broadest ghostwriting questions, "best LinkedIn ghostwriting agency for B2B founders" (query 1) and "top LinkedIn ghostwriting agencies 2026" (query 3).
The honest summary is that the site is a regular source for ghostwriting questions, occasionally a recommended firm, and invisible outside ghostwriting. The data does not show why. One possible reading, which this study cannot confirm, is that wisemango.io has pages that match ghostwriting questions closely and few that match "personal branding" or "GTM" wording.
#What this means for B2B founders and agencies
These points follow from the numbers above. They are observations from one sample, not rules.
Match the exact question. The firms that appeared in narrow answers (healthcare, UK, VC partners, cybersecurity) were mostly not the firms that appeared in broad answers. With 73% of firms named only once, a page built around one specific buyer question is the realistic way in.
Treat LinkedIn as a source, not only a channel. linkedin.com was cited in 67% of all answers and 83% of ghostwriting answers. Posts and articles that answer buyer questions directly can be cited by the engine, which matters for founders who already publish there.
Being cited is not the same as being recommended. Several domains were cited often without the firm ever being highlighted, wisemango.io in 8 answers among them. A page that explains prices or process can feed the answer without putting the firm on the shortlist. Pages that state plainly who the firm is for, what it does and how it compares give the engine something to name.
Each service is a separate visibility problem. Ghostwriting, founder branding and GTM answers named largely different firms. An agency that offers all three needs pages that answer each kind of question in that kind of wording.
Check your own category. These results are for one engine, one location and two days. If you want to see what AI Mode says for your own buyer questions, the AI answer audit runs that check, and the earlier 50-question study of who AI cites covers a wider set of B2B topics.
#Methodology
Engine and mode. Google AI Mode, opened as google.com/search?udm=50&q=<question> in a fresh page for each question. No follow-up prompts were sent. For queries 7 to 96, each answer was read only after its text had stopped changing for three seconds.
Dates and coverage. 100 questions were planned. 92 were collected: queries 1 to 6 on 9 November 2026 and queries 7 to 61 and 66 to 96 on 10 November 2026. When query 97 was sent, AI Mode returned "You've reached the request limit for AI responses at the moment" instead of an answer, and the run stopped. The 8 questions not collected were: "personal branding agency for consultants and coaches" (62), "founder storytelling agency" (63), "LinkedIn creator agency for B2B" (64), "how founders get inbound leads from LinkedIn" (65), "LinkedIn ads agency for B2B SaaS" (97), "fractional head of growth B2B" (98), "B2B brand and GTM agency" (99) and "top go-to-market consultancies for startups 2026" (100). Queries 62 to 65 were skipped so that the GTM group would be covered before the rate limit; they were not attempted. By group, coverage was 35 of 35 ghostwriting questions, 26 of 30 founder branding questions and 31 of 35 GTM questions.
Personalisation caveat. The questions were run in a logged-in Chrome browser in India. Google's help page on Personal Intelligence in AI Mode says it uses past searches and activity saved in Search history, and that users can opt in or out of personalisation. The browser is the author's own, so its history may include searches on LinkedIn, B2B marketing and AI search topics, and that could make Wise Mango more likely to appear than it would for a stranger. AI answers vary by user, location and day; another person running the same questions will get different lists.
What counts as a highlighted name. A company or person shown in bold, as a heading, or as the first cell of a table row in the answer. Labels that were not firms (for example "monthly budget", "Pipeline attribution", price ranges and section titles) were removed by hand. Minor spelling variants were merged ("Understory" and "Understory Agency"). The order of names follows their order on the page.
What counts as a citation. Every distinct external domain linked from the answer page, with Google's own domains removed and LinkedIn country subdomains (such as in.linkedin.com) merged into linkedin.com. Counts are the number of answers that cited a domain at least once, not the number of links.
Brand checks. Each answer page's text was searched for "Wise Mango", "wisemango", "Shruti Kaushik", "Klype" and "Kurattor", case-insensitive. A match can come from the answer text or from the source cards shown beside it, so the table above separates citations of wisemango.io and appearances in the highlighted list. For queries 1 to 6, only a combined yes or no was stored, so the count of answers that mention Shruti Kaushik by name (2) covers queries 7 to 96.
Limits. One engine, one browser, one location, two days, one run per question. The extraction of names depends on how the answer was formatted, so a firm mentioned only in plain sentence text without bold or a table row is not counted as highlighted. No answers were collected from ChatGPT, Perplexity, Claude or Gemini in this study.
Conflict of interest. The author runs Wise Mango, one of the firms measured. The question list was written before the run and is published in full in the CSV, including the questions where Wise Mango did not appear.
Data. ai-names-ghostwriters-gtm-2026-11.csv (sent by email from the form on this page), one row per collected question, with the query number, group, question text, date, engine, highlighted names, cited domains and the three brand checks.
#Sources
- Original data: ai-names-ghostwriters-gtm-2026-11.csv, Google AI Mode answers collected on 9 and 10 November 2026.
- Google Search Help, Personal Intelligence: How AI Mode in Search personalizes responses for you.
- Search Engine Land, Google Personal Intelligence in AI Mode, Gemini and Chrome.
- Search Engine Roundtable, Google's AI Mode checking for personalized information.
- Earlier study on this site: Who does AI cite for B2B buyer questions? 50-query study, Google AI Mode, 17 October 2026.