ChatGPT prose format: what changed June 3 and what to do now
OpenAI upgraded GPT-5.5 Instant on June 3 to reduce bullet-heavy formatting. Brand website citations dropped 55% after GPT-5.5. Here is what the format shift means and how to fix your citation rate.
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Stephan Charles
11 min read
June 4, 2026
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By Stephan Charles | Last fact-checked: <time datetime="2026-06-04">June 4, 2026</time>
On June 3, 2026, OpenAI upgraded GPT-5.5 Instant with a response style update that reduces bullet-heavy formatting across all ChatGPT tiers: Free, Plus, Pro, Business, Enterprise, and Edu. For brands tracking AI citations, the format change has a concrete mechanism: when an AI model generates prose instead of a bullet list, it selects one or two primary sources rather than distributing citations across five to eight list items. Writesonic's citation study found brand website citations dropped 55% from GPT-5.3 to GPT-5.5 Instant, and Reddit citations grew 6x over the same period. BrandCited monitors citation rates across nine AI engines and shows which content changes improve citation rates on which platform.
BrandCited's free scan checks your citation rate across ChatGPT and eight other AI engines in 30 seconds. Run it at brandcited.ai.
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What did OpenAI change in GPT-5.5 Instant on June 3?#
OpenAI upgraded GPT-5.5 Instant on June 3, 2026, with improvements to response style and quality: answers are now easier to read, more natural in everyday conversations, and better paced for practical tasks, with fewer bullet-heavy responses. The update confirmed two model retirements: GPT-4.5 leaves ChatGPT on June 27, 2026 and o3 leaves on August 26, 2026.
The move from bullets to prose in GPT-5.5 Instant's style represents a deliberate choice about how the model presents information. Bullet lists enumerate options; prose narratives select and synthesize. The two formats retrieve different sources.
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Why does GPT-5.5 Instant's prose format change which brands ChatGPT cites?#
Prose responses select one or two authoritative sources to build a narrative around; bullet lists enumerate multiple options with supporting citations for each. When ChatGPT produces a prose answer, the model chooses sources that match the register and voice of natural language, sources that read like a knowledgeable person explaining something.
Writesonic's citation study found brand website citations dropped from 13% of responses under GPT-5.3 Instant to 6% under GPT-5.5 Instant, a 55% relative drop. Reddit citations grew 6x over the same period, becoming ChatGPT's top cited source. SISTRIX's German-language ChatGPT analysis confirms the direction: Reddit gained 7,007 citations per 10,000 responses after GPT-5.5, a 59% increase.
Reddit threads match the prose register. A Reddit post is written conversationally, answers a specific question from first-person experience, and uses varied sentence lengths. Brand website pages built around product bullets, feature comparisons, and CTA copy do not match that register. The format of the content on your site predicts whether GPT-5.5 Instant's prose responses will cite it.
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See how your brand's citation rate breaks down across ChatGPT and eight other AI engines. BrandCited's free scan returns your score in 30 seconds. Run it at brandcited.ai.
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What content does ChatGPT's prose format actually cite?#
ChatGPT's prose-first responses cite content that reads like a knowledgeable person explaining something, not content structured like a product page. 72.4% of pages ChatGPT cites include an identifiable answer capsule, a direct answer to the page's main question in the first paragraph, per Search Engine Land's analysis. A page that opens with the answer, then explains it, matches how prose responses work: the model needs a clear, citable claim in the first passage it reads.
Bing rank predicts 87% of ChatGPT citations per Seer Interactive, because ChatGPT Search retrieves from Bing's index. Bing weights conversational content from forums, review sites, and community platforms well. Reddit, Quora, and G2 review pages rank on Bing for conversational queries, and these are the sources GPT-5.5 Instant's prose format pulls from.
How do you restructure brand content for ChatGPT's prose citation format?#
Three changes shift brand content from bullet-optimized to prose-ready. First, restructure product and category pages to open with a direct, conversational answer to the question the page targets. Put the main claim in the first sentence, before any context, background, or feature list.
Second, add FAQ sections in natural language with FAQPage schema on every high-traffic page. FAQ content in question-and-answer format fits the prose register ChatGPT's format favors. Schema markup lets ChatGPT identify those pairs without parsing the surrounding layout.
Third, build or expand presence on platforms Bing indexes for conversational queries: Reddit, G2, Quora, LinkedIn articles, and industry publications. 51% of B2B buyers start vendor research in AI chatbots per G2's 2026 B2B Buyer Report. A brand with no presence on the community platforms ChatGPT pulls from in prose mode is not competing in that channel.
SEO Clarity's analysis of ChatGPT citation trends shows brands that structure content around answer-first paragraphs and sub-topic clusters hold citation rates better as model behavior changes, compared to brands optimizing for single target keywords.
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Your content format affects your ChatGPT citation rate today. BrandCited's scan returns your citation rate across nine AI engines with every gap ranked by impact. Run your free scan at brandcited.ai.
OpenAI — GPT-5.5 Instant response style upgrade (June 3): OpenAI updated GPT-5.5 Instant to reduce bullet-heavy formatting and produce more natural, readable answers. GPT-4.5 retires from ChatGPT June 27; o3 retires August 26. (gHacks Tech News)
Perplexity — hybrid local/cloud AI system announced (June 2): Perplexity announced a hybrid reasoning system routing sensitive data (financial, medical) to on-device models and complex queries to cloud. CEO Aravind Srinivas told CNBC the winning AI company will deliver "most token value per watt per user." (Bloomberg)
OpenAI — Codex live on Amazon Bedrock: OpenAI Codex, used by 5 million people weekly, became available on Amazon Bedrock in June 2026. (OpenAI)
Gemini market share — 25.46% in March 2026: Gemini grew from 6% to 25.46% of AI chatbot market share between early 2025 and March 2026, the largest gain by any AI chatbot. ChatGPT holds approximately 57% market share. (First Page Sage)
AI search referrals — 5x year-over-year: AI search referrals reached 0.9% of total site visits in March 2026, up 5x from March 2025. ChatGPT search referrals grew 200%+ since mid-2025. (TechnologyChecker.io)
How does BrandCited audit ChatGPT citation rates across format changes?#
BrandCited's scan engine runs queries across commercial, informational, and comparative intent categories, the same intent types that trigger ChatGPT's prose format for research-oriented answers. Each scan returns a 0-100 AI Visibility Score per engine, tracking citation frequency across ChatGPT, Perplexity, Claude, Gemini, Copilot, Grok, Google AI Mode, Google AI Overviews, and DeepSeek.
When a model upgrade like the June 3 GPT-5.5 Instant response style update shifts citation behavior, BrandCited detects the change within one weekly scan cycle. You see which query categories changed, which engine's score moved, and what content change has the highest citation impact for that engine's current behavior.
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ChatGPT's format changed on June 3 and your citation rate shifted with it. Run a free BrandCited scan to see your score across nine AI engines with every gap ranked by impact. Run it at brandcited.ai.
1Rewrite your top five pages to open with a direct answer. GPT-5.5 Instant's prose format pulls content that answers first. Replace your current opening paragraph with a one-sentence direct answer to the question the page targets. Put the answer before context, background, or feature lists.
1Convert product bullets to prose paragraphs on category pages. A feature list is the content format least likely to appear in ChatGPT's prose responses. A paragraph that explains what your product does, for whom, and why it works reads like the content the model generates for user answers. Reformat your highest-traffic category pages.
1Add FAQ sections to every page with [FAQPage schema](https://schema.org/FAQPage). FAQ sections in natural question-and-answer format are prose-compatible by structure. Each Q&A pair gives ChatGPT a pre-formatted unit it can pull into a prose response. Schema markup lets ChatGPT identify those pairs without parsing surrounding layout.
1Build Reddit presence in your category. Reddit citations grew 6x after GPT-5.5 Instant and are now ChatGPT's top cited source. If your brand is not in relevant subreddit discussions, post specific, factual answers in your category. Name your brand where relevant.
1Submit refreshed pages to [Bing Webmaster Tools](https://www.bing.com/webmasters). ChatGPT retrieves from Bing's index, not Google's. Pages updated within 30 days earn a 3.2x citation multiplier per Lily Ray's analysis. Refreshed pages submitted to Bing get indexed faster and appear in ChatGPT responses sooner.
1Track your citation frequency weekly. Fewer than 1 in 100 AI searches return the same brand list twice. Weekly citation tracking across query types is the only way to catch format-driven shifts before they compound.
OpenAI updated GPT-5.5 Instant on June 3, 2026, to produce responses that are easier to read, more natural, and better paced with fewer bullet-heavy answers. For brands, the shift changes citation selection: prose format picks one or two primary authoritative sources, while bullet format distributes citations across more items.
Why does Reddit dominate ChatGPT citations after GPT-5.5?
Reddit's content structure matches GPT-5.5 Instant's prose format. Reddit posts are conversational, written from first-person experience, and use varied sentence lengths. ChatGPT's prose format retrieves content that reads like a knowledgeable person explaining something. Brand-owned pages built around product bullets do not match that register. SISTRIX data shows Reddit gained 7,007 citations per 10,000 responses after GPT-5.5, a 59% increase.
Does my Google ranking predict ChatGPT citations?
Google ranking does not predict ChatGPT citations. Bing rank predicts 87% of ChatGPT citations per Seer Interactive, because ChatGPT Search retrieves from Bing's index. A brand ranking #1 on Google but not indexed on Bing, or absent from Reddit and G2, has limited ChatGPT citation exposure. Bing index coverage and third-party presence on conversational platforms predict ChatGPT citations better than Google rank position.
What is an answer capsule and why does it affect AI citations?
An answer capsule is the complete answer to the page's main question, stated in the first paragraph without setup or context. 72.4% of pages ChatGPT cites include an identifiable answer capsule per Search Engine Land's analysis. GPT-5.5 Instant's prose format needs a clear, citable claim in the first passage it reads. A page that buries its answer after a context paragraph does not get pulled into prose responses. The answer capsule is the highest-impact structural change you can make to improve ChatGPT citation rate.
How do I check whether GPT-5.5 Instant cites my brand?
Open ChatGPT and run five queries your buyers ask when researching your category: comparisons, specific use cases, and "best [your category]" searches. Note whether your brand appears and whether it is cited with a link. For systematic monitoring across ChatGPT and eight other AI engines with weekly tracking, run a free BrandCited scan at brandcited.ai. BrandCited tracks citation frequency across commercial, informational, and comparative intent types.
