Does ChatGPT give the same answer to everyone? We asked 10 times
No. Asked the same question 10 times, ChatGPT changed its first pick for 50 of 54 Singapore questions in our October 2026 study. Why the answer moves, and a ten-minute check for your own business.
In short
- ChatGPT does not give the same answer to everyone. OpenAI's help page says the same question "may yield different answers", and your location and saved memories can change what it searches for.
- In our study of 1,100 answers on 5 and 6 October 2026, ChatGPT's first pick changed at least once over 10 asks for 50 of 54 Singapore questions. Perplexity's changed for 35 of 55.
- Asked for a good aircon servicing company 10 times, ChatGPT put 6 different companies first, none more than twice.
- Check your own business: ask the question your customers ask 10 times, each in a new Temporary chat, count how often you are named, and read the sources.
ChatGPT does not give the same answer to everyone, and it often gives the same person a different answer the next time they ask. When we asked it 54 Singapore questions about which business to hire, 10 times each, its first pick changed at least once for 50 of them. At rankr, a Singapore SEO agency, we ran that study in October 2026 to see what customers are told.
OpenAI says as much about its own model. Its help page on how ChatGPT is developed, which we read on 6 November 2026, says there are several plausible ways to complete any sentence, so "there is an inherent element of randomness in how the model responds. As a result, the same question may yield different answers across different queries."
Why does ChatGPT give different answers to the same question?
Four things change the answer, and OpenAI's help pages describe each of them. The first two can change it every time you ask. The last two are why two people asking at the same moment can be shown different businesses.
| What changes the answer | What OpenAI's help pages say |
|---|---|
| How the model writes | Each response carries "an inherent element of randomness" |
| Web search | ChatGPT "typically rewrites your query into one or more targeted queries" for its search partners, then answers from what comes back |
| Your location | It "may use an approximate location based on your IP address" for local results |
| Memory and custom instructions | With memory on, it "may use relevant saved memories when rewriting a search query" |
A question such as "who should I hire for aircon servicing?" sets off all four. ChatGPT searches, the pages it reads can differ from one ask to the next, and it writes a new list each time.
Does ChatGPT give the same answer to everyone who asks for a recommendation?
No, and the business it names first is the part that moves most. On 5 and 6 October 2026 we sent 55 questions about 11 Singapore trades, from aircon servicing to lawyers, to ChatGPT and Perplexity 10 times each: 1,100 answers. Every question went in on its own, with no chat history, no location and no saved instructions. That takes out the last two causes in the table above, so what moved came from the model and its search.
One question shows the pattern. Asked "Can you recommend a good aircon servicing company in Singapore?" 10 times, ChatGPT put 6 different companies first, none of them more than twice.
Across all the questions, Perplexity was steadier than ChatGPT.
| Over 10 asks of the same question | ChatGPT | Perplexity |
|---|---|---|
| Questions where the first pick changed at least once | 50 of 54 | 35 of 55 |
| Questions with the same first pick all 10 times | 4 of 54 | 20 of 55 |
| How often the usual first pick came first, median | 5 of 10 | 9 of 10 |
| Different businesses named first, median per question | 4 | 2 |
ChatGPT has 54 questions here because in one, "maid agency singapore", only 3 of its 10 answers named a business, and a question counted only when at least 5 did.
The trade matters too. ChatGPT's usual first pick for tuition centre questions came first a median 7 times in 10. For aircon servicing and dental clinics it was 3 times in 10.
Does ChatGPT recommend the same business every time?
Rarely in first place, but a few businesses turn up in most answers. Move Move Movers was named in 38 of ChatGPT's 50 answers about movers, and in 40 of Perplexity's 50. Most names came and went. Counting each business once for each question it was named for, ChatGPT gave 1,030 business-and-question pairs: 789 of them came up in just 1 to 3 of that question's 10 answers, and 109 in 7 or more.
For a business owner, one answer that names you, or names a competitor, proves very little. The number worth tracking is how many of 10 answers name you.
What did the study not test?
"ChatGPT" in our study is OpenAI's gpt-5.6-luna model with OpenAI's own web search, asked through the API. The ChatGPT app adds its own instructions, your memory and your location, and may use another model, so answers in the app can move more or less than ours. All 1,100 answers came in over one night, in English, so they show how answers change from one ask to the next and say nothing about change over weeks. We did not compare two people's accounts side by side. Every answer, with the questions and the method, is on the study page.
How do you check what ChatGPT tells your customers?
Run a small version of the study on your own business. It takes about ten minutes.
- Ask what your customers ask. Type the question a customer would, such as "best aircon servicing near Tampines". Asking "is [my business] any good?" only shows that ChatGPT knows you exist.
- Start a new Temporary chat for every ask. Choose Unpersonalized before the first message. OpenAI says that setting does not use memory, custom instructions or plugins.
- Ask 10 times and count. Write down how many answers name you, and how many name you first.
- Read the sources under each answer. They are the pages ChatGPT read before it picked.
- Get onto those pages. Ask the writer of a "best of" list to add you, get listed on the review sites and directories it cites, and give your own website a page that answers the question.
- Repeat the check in Perplexity. In the first three rounds of our study, 42 of every 100 links in its answers went to "best X in Singapore" lists.
Write the count down with the date, then run the same questions each month. How to measure AI search visibility sets up the monthly version. To see what ChatGPT says when someone asks about your business by name, including wrong prices or opening hours, use our check of what ChatGPT says about your business.
How do you get named in more of the answers?
Give ChatGPT pages it can quote. In the first three rounds of our study, 57 of every 100 links in ChatGPT's answers went to businesses' own websites: price pages, branch pages, service pages. Perplexity leaned on "best of" lists instead. Where ChatGPT gets its information sorts all 3,912 links from those rounds.
Then make sure it can read those pages. Our free AI visibility checker fetches a page's HTML without running JavaScript, the way AI crawlers read it, and checks whether robots.txt lets the crawlers in.
Our GEO work starts with this same count. We put your buyers' questions to ChatGPT and Perplexity several times each, record who they name and which pages they read, and then work on getting you onto those pages.
Sources
- OpenAI: How ChatGPT and our foundation models are developed, read 6 November 2026
- OpenAI: Searching the web with ChatGPT, read 6 November 2026
- OpenAI: Temporary chat in ChatGPT, read 6 November 2026
- rankr: Who ChatGPT and Perplexity recommend in Singapore, answers collected 5 and 6 October 2026
Frequently asked questions
Does ChatGPT show the same results to everyone?
No. ChatGPT can use your approximate location from your IP address, and your saved memories if memory is on, when it searches, so two people asking the same question can be shown different businesses. With both taken out, its first pick in our study still changed at least once for 50 of 54 questions over 10 asks.
Can ChatGPT give you the exact same answer twice?
Rarely, for a question about which business to hire. Over 10 asks, ChatGPT named the same business first every time for 4 of our 54 questions. OpenAI says its model has "an inherent element of randomness", so the wording changes as well.
How do I get the same answer from ChatGPT every time?
You cannot fix it in the app. A Temporary chat set to Unpersonalized leaves out memory and custom instructions, but the model's randomness and its web search still change the answer. To see how often your business is named, ask 10 times and count.
Want this done on your site? Send us your website and we will tell you what we would fix first. The audit is free.