Former agency boss launches Citations.io to show brands how AI engines mention, rank and cite them

Josh Tulip - AEO Specialist - Demand Generation Panel

Newcastle-founded AI Search intelligence platform sees 70% of current customers in the US as it prepares for international growth

NEWCASTLE UPON TYNE, TYNE AND WEAR, UNITED KINGDOM, October 13, 2026 /EINPresswire.com/ -- Former agency boss Josh Tulip has launched Citations.io, an AI Search intelligence platform designed to help brands understand how they are represented, recommended and cited across AI-generated answers.

The Newcastle-based SaaS company tracks how ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini and Claude mention, rank, recommend and cite brands when answering the questions customers ask while researching products, services and businesses.

Citations.io gives marketing teams visibility into whether their brand appears, which competitors are recommended instead, how prominently brands feature and which sources are influencing those responses.

Tulip, Founder of Citations.io, has spent around 15 years working across technical SEO, search intelligence, online reputation and digital growth.

“For years, businesses have had increasingly sophisticated ways of understanding their visibility in traditional search,” said Josh Tulip, Founder of Citations.io.

“AI Search has created a different discovery layer. Brands now need to understand what AI engines are saying about them, which competitors are being recommended instead and which sources are influencing those answers. Citations.io was built to make that measurable.”

FROM SEARCH RANKINGS TO AI-GENERATED ANSWERS
Unlike traditional search intelligence platforms, Citations.io analyses what happens inside AI-generated answers.

The platform tracks commercially relevant prompts and analyses visibility signals including brand mentions, recommendation status, answer position, competitors, citations, source URLs and source domains.

Rather than operating simply as a prompt tracker, Citations.io connects those observations with competitor intelligence, citation analysis, Source Influence and prioritised recommendations.

“One of the questions that matters most is not simply ‘Are we appearing?’ but ‘Why is another brand appearing instead?’” Tulip said. “If an AI engine repeatedly recommends a competitor and relies on a particular set of sources when doing so, that gives marketing teams something tangible to investigate and act on.”

TURNING AI VISIBILITY INTO ACTION
Citations.io also includes Implementation Packs, which turn identified visibility gaps into structured briefs for SEO, content, digital PR and brand teams.
Recommendations can include content to create or improve, influential third-party sources to target, internal linking, metadata, structured data and other authority-building activity.

“The last thing a marketing team needs is another dashboard containing numbers without a clear path to action,” Tulip said. “The value is in understanding why something is happening, where the opportunity is and what should be prioritised next.”

NEWCASTLE-BUILT WITH GLOBAL AMBITIONS
Citations.io is headquartered in Newcastle upon Tyne, and Tulip intends the city and wider North East to remain central to the company as it grows internationally.

Around 70% of Citations.io’s current customer base is in the United States, according to the company. The US and EMEA are expected to be key drivers of future growth, with Citations.io planning a stronger operational presence in New York during 2027.

“It has been great to see the product validation we are getting from global brands of all sizes,” Tulip said. “Around 70% of our current customers are already in the US, which gives us a clear indication of the opportunity there.”

“But Newcastle is home. I want Citations.io to become one of the largest SaaS companies to come out of the North East. The region has a huge amount to offer in terms of technology talent, universities and ambitious people. For us, international growth is expansion from Newcastle, not expansion away from Newcastle.”

BOOTSTRAPPED TO PRODUCT VALIDATION
Tulip has bootstrapped Citations.io to date, funding its development without external equity investment while establishing its initial customer base.

He is now putting the founding leadership team in place and preparing Citations.io for its first external funding round.

“I bootstrapped the business because I wanted to get the product into customers’ hands and demonstrate genuine demand before raising external capital,” Tulip said. “We are now getting that validation from real customers, and the purpose of raising will be to accelerate something we have already started to prove.”

Citations.io is available internationally at https://citations.io.

ABOUT CITATIONS.IO
Citations.io is an AI Search intelligence platform that helps brands track how AI engines mention, rank and cite them. The platform analyses answers across ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini and Claude and connects brand visibility with competitor intelligence, citation analysis, Source Influence, recommendations and Implementation Packs.

The company is headquartered in Newcastle upon Tyne, United Kingdom, and serves customers internationally.

Joshua Tulip
Citations.io
press@citations.io
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