███╗   ███╗ ██╗   ██╗  ██████╗ ███████╗ ██╗
████╗ ████║ ╚██╗ ██╔╝ ██╔════╝ ██╔════╝ ██║
██╔████╔██║  ╚████╔╝  ██║      █████╗   ██║
██║╚██╔╝██║   ╚██╔╝   ██║      ██╔══╝   ██║
██║ ╚═╝ ██║    ██║    ╚██████╗ ███████╗ ███████╗
╚═╝     ╚═╝    ╚═╝     ╚═════╝ ╚══════╝ ╚══════╝
DemoAcademyPricing
Sign inBook a meeting

Glossary · Research

Selection and absorption

Absorption is a model knowing your brand from training data; selection is a retrieval system picking your page as a source for one specific answer. They are different phenomena with different causes and different fixes.

What we can add

This is our distinction and almost nobody separates the two, which is why so much AI-visibility advice contradicts itself. Absorption responds to being talked about over years; selection responds to a single page being the most checkable answer to one question today. Advice that conflates them tells you to do brand marketing to fix a retrieval problem.

Go deeper

  • The full argument →

Related vocabulary

  • AI visibility →
  • Surface →
  • Share of voice →
  • Generative engine optimisation →

Take the client you turned down last month.

Describe what you deliver and the first draft exists before you have finished your coffee.

Start 7 days free

The first AI delivery firm. You sign.

All systems operational

Ask an AI about us

  • Claude
  • ChatGPT
  • Perplexity

It reads the site and answers on its own. We do not get to edit what it says.

Product

  • What you get
  • Pricing
  • Changelog
  • What it runs
  • Free reports
  • Product map
  • Team
  • Blog
  • Glossary
  • AI Visibility Index
  • Sign in
  • Docs

Compare

  • vs ChatGPT, Claude, or whichever tab is already open
  • vs Grok Bot and the AI-employee platforms
  • vs Hiring an account manager
  • vs Profound
  • vs Otterly
  • vs Building it yourself
  • vs Zapier & n8n
  • vs Temporal
  • vs LangGraph
  • vs CrewAI & AutoGen
  • All comparisons

Legal

  • Privacy
  • Sub-processors
  • Terms
  • DPA
  • Security
███╗   ███╗ ██╗   ██╗  ██████╗ ███████╗ ██╗
████╗ ████║ ╚██╗ ██╔╝ ██╔════╝ ██╔════╝ ██║
██╔████╔██║  ╚████╔╝  ██║      █████╗   ██║
██║╚██╔╝██║   ╚██╔╝   ██║      ██╔══╝   ██║
██║ ╚═╝ ██║    ██║    ╚██████╗ ███████╗ ███████╗
╚═╝     ╚═╝    ╚═╝     ╚═════╝ ╚══════╝ ╚══════╝