AI search citation likelihood — direct evidence is thin; indirect evidence (overlap with organic top 10) is moderate. Speed is not a known direct lever.

Direct evidence:

• Dan Taylor (SALT.agency), Search Engine Land (Jan 13, 2026), n=107,352 webpages in AI Overviews / AI Mode. Spearman correlation: LCP r = -0.12 to -0.18 (weak negative); CLS r = -0.05 to -0.09. Verbatim conclusion: "Core Web Vitals do not act as a growth lever for AI visibility. They act as a constraint. Good performance does not create an advantage. Severe failure creates disadvantage… Core Web Vitals are therefore best understood as a gate, not a signal of excellence." See Dan Taylor (SE Land, Jan 13 2026, n=107,352): CWV is a gate for AI citation, not a growth lever (existing). Confidence: LOW — no methodology disclosure, no published dataset, single-contributor analysis on a Semrush-owned property.

Indirect evidence (moderate):

• seoClarity: "a whopping 99.5% of the time one or more of the top 10 web results was included in the AI Overview's sources."
• Ahrefs (July 2025): "76.1% of URLs cited in AI Overviews also rank in the top 10 of Google search results."
• Semrush AI Mode Comparison (2025, n=5,000 keywords): Perplexity has "over 91% domain overlap and 82% URL overlap" with Google's top 10; ChatGPT has the weakest overlap. A separate Semrush study found ChatGPT cites pages ranking at position 21+ in related Google queries ~90% of the time.
• BrightEdge (Oct 2025): 54.5% of citations in AI Overviews match top organic URLs (up from 32% in 2024); overlap >75% in YMYL sectors.

Honest answer for clients: optimize performance for your customers and conversion, not for hypothetical AI citation gains. Citation behaviour is driven by content quality, domain authority, freshness, structured BLUF formatting, and platform-specific source preferences (Reddit-heavy for Perplexity, Wikipedia-heavy for ChatGPT, Bing-aligned for Microsoft Copilot). Speed is not a known direct lever; it is at most an indirect floor via organic rank.