The Dubai companies writing the articles AI quotes about them

Bayzat, a Dubai HR software company, publishes an article called “10 Best SaaS Companies in Dubai”. Bayzat is number one on it. When we asked Perplexity for the best B2B SaaS companies in Dubai, it used that article as its main source and named Bayzat first. The same article ranks first on Google for the same search.

A company writing the list and then being quoted from it is still working in Dubai in September 2026, but only on some engines. ChatGPT has stopped citing companies about themselves. Perplexity hasn’t. And where the play does work, the bigger threat to the company running it isn’t the AI engines catching on. It’s a competitor publishing the same article and taking the slot.

This is the first of three pieces from our September test. Piece 2 measures how often the engines agree. Piece 3 looks at what each engine reads before it answers.

What did we test?

We asked ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini and Google Search the same question, “Best [category] in Dubai”, across seven categories: law firms, B2B SaaS, aesthetic clinics, boutique hotels, industrial manufacturers, universities and car dealerships. Every run was logged out, on the free tier, from a UAE location, 44 answers in all. For each business an engine named, we recorded the source it cited and whether that source was the business’s own website. Conditions and limits are in the methodology section.

Where does self-citation still work?

On Perplexity. It was the only AI engine in our test where a business’s own website grounded its own recommendation.

Surface	Self-citation in September
ChatGPT	None. Zero self-cited sources across all 11 answers.
Perplexity	Present. Bayzat’s own article grounds its SaaS answer; Al Tayer Motors’ own site grounds its dealership entry.

Perplexity’s B2B SaaS answer named 14 companies. Bayzat’s article was the cited source on 7 of those 14 entries and on the opening summary, and Bayzat was ranked first. A second self-published list, Penieltech’s “Best SaaS Companies in Dubai | Top 10 List (2026)”, sat in the same source set.

Perplexity, logged out, UAE. The sources panel leads with Bayzat’s own article.

On Google, Bayzat’s article ranks first organically, carrying a September 2026 title. Two more self-published lists rank on the same page: Tenet’s “10 SaaS Development Companies in Dubai You Can Trust” and Penieltech’s list. Three companies running the same play, all on page one.

Google Search, signed out, UAE. Bayzat’s list is the first organic result, under an AI Overview grounded on F6S, DXB Start and Wellfound — all three of which are page-one organic results for the same search.

It isn’t limited to software. In Perplexity’s car dealership answer, Al Tayer Motors was the recommendation for luxury new cars, and the cited source was Al Tayer Motors’ own website.

Where did it stop working?

On ChatGPT. Across all 11 ChatGPT answers we recorded zero self-cited sources. Every category was grounded on third parties.

Bayzat shows what that looks like in practice. In our August scan, ChatGPT’s Bayzat entry was grounded on Bayzat’s own article. In September, ChatGPT still named Bayzat first and called it the best overall Dubai SaaS company, but the citations were eChai Ventures, Analytics Insight and DXBStart. The position stayed. The source changed. Gemini, signed out, also named Bayzat first, with no citation at all (one run).

That’s the most useful thing in the data for anyone considering the play. The list got Bayzat into the category answer. Third-party coverage is what holds it there on ChatGPT now.

Category	What ChatGPT cited	Businesses with their own citation
Law firms	Legal 500, sole source	8 of 8
B2B SaaS	eChai Ventures, Analytics Insight, DXBStart	8 of 8
Aesthetic clinics	Doctify, Practo, for framing only	0 of 17 across three runs

Where a directory exists, ChatGPT uses it and nothing else. Where trade press exists, it spreads across it. Where neither exists, it ranks on ratings and review volume and cites nothing against individual businesses.

Does getting cited mean getting named?

No. Perplexity’s law firm answer drew on 10 sources. Four of them were local law firms’ own “top law firms in Dubai” articles. None of those four firms appeared in the answer. The answer named international firms grounded on Legal 500, and cited one of the four once, on a line noting that some directories and blogs compile top-firm lists.

The same thing happened with car dealerships. One of Perplexity’s sources, wheree, lists Expat Motors first. Expat Motors was ChatGPT’s top pick. It didn’t appear in Perplexity’s answer.

Publishing the list gets you into the reading pile. Whether the engine names you from it is a separate question, and on law firms in September the answer was no.

What happened to the law firm that ran the play first?

It lost the slot, and we can’t tell you exactly when. In our first August scan, one Dubai law firm had its own “10 best law firms in Dubai” article at number eight on Google’s first page, and that article was the source grounding Gemini’s entire law firm answer. By September it was gone from page one. The firm still ranked, with its homepage. A different firm’s own “top law firms in Dubai” page held the list slot.

The honest caveat: that first scan ran on a signed-in profile. When we re-ran the same search signed out four days later, the article was already off page one. So the displacement may have happened inside August, or it may never have been there for a signed-out searcher in the first place. What we can say is that the slot exists, it was held by a firm’s own list, and by September a different firm held it.

The engines didn’t filter out the self-interested source. Another firm published the same kind of page and took the position. That’s faster than waiting for a model update, and it means the slot has to be defended, not just taken once.

Google has started labelling the tactic, though not penalising it. In the law firm local pack, Google annotated one firm’s listing with a note that its website mentions best law firms. That firm’s own list was also one of the four in Perplexity’s source set.

Does this happen outside commercial categories?

Yes, in universities. Google’s AI Overview for “Best universities in Dubai” named the University of Birmingham Dubai and Canadian University Dubai. One of its three cited sources was the University of Birmingham’s own website, used to support the claim that Birmingham is “among the highest-ranked UK universities in the UAE”. A self-published superlative, grounding an AI Overview, in the category we expected to be anchored on independent rankings.

It doesn’t carry across engines. ChatGPT’s universities answer didn’t mention Birmingham at all.

What does this mean if you’re not doing it?

Someone else is writing your category’s list. In B2B SaaS and law firms, the page Google ranks for “best in Dubai” was written by a company in the category. On Perplexity, that page can become the answer.

Situation	What the data says
A competitor’s list ranks for your category	On Perplexity it can ground the answer. On ChatGPT it won’t be cited, but the position it built can outlast it.
You publish your own list	It can rank and be retrieved. Being named from it isn’t guaranteed; four law firms were retrieved and not named.
You already hold the slot	A competitor running the same play can take it. One law firm’s list lost its page-one spot to another firm’s.

The list is where the position starts. Third-party coverage keeps it on ChatGPT, and on Google the slot goes to whoever keeps publishing.

Methodology

• Prompt: “Best [category] in Dubai”, one prompt shape, English only.
• Categories: law firms, B2B SaaS, aesthetic clinics, boutique hotels, industrial manufacturers, universities, car dealerships.
• Surfaces: ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, Google Search.
• Conditions: data collected 10 September 2026. Four surfaces, logged out, clean profile, geo verified to the United Arab Emirates, free or default model tier. Fresh session per cell. Signed-out Gemini served Flash-Lite and returned no citations outside local categories, so it tells us little about self-citation on Gemini.
• Volume: 44 answers. Aesthetic clinics and industrial manufacturers were run three times per surface (n=3). The other five categories, including B2B SaaS and law firms, were run once per surface (n=1). The Bayzat, Al Tayer and law firm findings are single runs.
• Self-citation: counted when the cited source for a named business was that business’s own domain.
• Market: Dubai only.
• Date: re-run logged 10 September 2026.
• August comparisons: we ran two August scans. The ChatGPT and Perplexity cells were logged out and are directly comparable, so the Bayzat grounding change stands on like-for-like conditions. The Google Search cells in the first scan ran on a signed-in profile; we re-ran them signed out on 17 August. The law firm listing change is reported against both, and the caveat is stated where the claim is made.
• What this doesn’t cover: signed-in or paid tiers, other phrasings, Arabic queries, Claude and Copilot.
• Screenshots: recaptured after the logged run. Answers shift between runs, so every number here comes from the run log.

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Holding the slot is ongoing work. If a competitor’s article is currently defining your category, or you hold the position and want to keep it, book a 15-minute call and we’ll go through who is writing your category’s answer.