X-RAY · 17 SEPTEMBER 2026
Eight AIs on a clean PC: which services each one looks up as soon as you open it
ChatGPT, Gemini, Copilot, Perplexity, Grok, DeepSeek, Meta AI and Mistral, opened one by one in a freshly installed Chrome on a Windows 11 PC, no account and nothing typed, 20 seconds each, with GUARDIANA recording every name their page made the machine ask for. Opening a landing page alone makes the machine talk to between four and nine services that are not that AI.
How to read this. GUARDIANA writes down every name the machine asks to resolve (DNS). It sees names, not content. Here each AI was opened alone, in a clean browser with no account, and measured from the inside; what is counted is the names its page asked for, and whatever other apps on the test PC resolved during that time is left out. This is the landing page: what happens in conversation, signed in, is in the signed-in x-ray.
Scoreboard
How many services that are not that AI its landing page makes the machine ask for, in 20 seconds, with no account and nothing typed. Beside it, how many of those names are on the open advertising and tracking lists: fewer, which is why the first figure is the one that counts.
| AI | Services besides the AI | Of those, advertising or tracking | Its own domains | Distinct names its page asked for | The fewest |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Copilot | 4 | 1 | 4 | 8 | yes |
| Perplexity | 4 | 2 | 6 | 10 | yes |
| Gemini | 4 | 4 | 9 | 13 | yes |
| Mistral | 5 | 1 | 1 | 6 | |
| Grok | 7 | 2 | 2 | 9 | |
| DeepSeek | 9 | 0 | 2 | 11 | |
| ChatGPT | not measured (see its section) | — | |||
| Meta AI | not measured (see its section) | — | |||
Tied on 4, the fewest third-party services: Copilot, Perplexity, Gemini, against 9 for the one loading most. Not being on those lists does not mean it does not track: it means the lists do not know that name. This is a result of these pages on this day, not a general verdict.
What it says
Opening an AI's landing page, with no account and without typing anything, makes the machine talk to between 4 and 9 services that are not that AI. From fewest to most: Copilot 4 (surveys, error reports and Microsoft's telemetry endpoint), Perplexity 4, Gemini 4, Mistral 5, Grok 7 and DeepSeek 9. If you look only at the open advertising and tracking lists, the picture changes and misleads: DeepSeek comes out at zero, Copilot and Mistral at one, Perplexity and Grok at two, and only Gemini at four, the only one loading advertising and audience measurement (DoubleClick, Google Analytics, Tag Manager) on its own landing page. But DeepSeek's nine names include ByteDance's measurement and device identification, and none of them is on any list: the machine looks them up all the same. That is why GUARDIANA counts names instead of trusting a list. ChatGPT and Meta AI could not be measured with this method: one did not load in three attempts and the other asks you to sign in before showing anything.
Copilot
Microsoft's. Besides its own names it looks up Sprig (in-product surveys), Sentry (error reports) and browser.events.data.microsoft.com, Microsoft's telemetry endpoint, which the open lists mark as telemetry.
Third parties in this run: microsoft.com, sprig.com, sentry.io.
Perplexity
It looks up Datadog (browser logging), Eppo (A/B testing), Cloudflare Insights (measurement) and the Google account, for signing in.
Third parties in this run: browser-intake-datadoghq.com, cloudflareinsights.com, google.com, eppo.cloud.
Gemini
It is Google's: almost every name it asks for is Google's, and here they count as its own. The ones that do not: Google Tag Manager, Google Analytics and DoubleClick, which are its measurement and advertising tools and count as tracking just as they would on any other site. It is the only one of the eight that loads advertising and audience measurement on its own landing page.
Third parties in this run: googletagmanager.com, google-analytics.com, doubleclick.net.
Mistral
It looks up Intercom (the support chat, three names), Sentry (error reports) and Cloudflare Insights (measurement).
Third parties in this run: sentry.io, intercomcdn.com, intercom.io, cloudflareinsights.com.
Grok
xAI's. It looks up OneTrust (the cookie notice and the geolocation that decides it), Stripe (payments, three names), Google Tag Manager and Cloudflare Insights.
Third parties in this run: cookielaw.org, stripe.com, stripe.network, cloudflareinsights.com.
DeepSeek
The one loading the most third-party services: ByteDance's Volcano Engine (apmplus.volces.com, gator.volces.com and two CDNs, performance and usage measurement), portal101.cn (two names, a device-identification and risk service), the AWS firewall, Cloudflare's check and sign-in with Apple. None of those names is on the open advertising and tracking lists yet, and that is exactly what a list cannot do for you.
Third parties in this run: volces.com, awswaf.com, cloudflare.com, portal101.cn.
ChatGPT
Not comparable: in three attempts of 45 seconds the page never loaded in an externally driven Chrome; it asked only for its own name. In my own browser, with my account, it does open (see the signed-in x-ray).
Meta AI
Not comparable: to an externally driven browser it answered with its own name and nothing else. Opened by hand it does load, and the first thing it shows is "Log in to start", so with no account there is no screen to measure.
What can be claimed
- The moment their page opens, with no account and nothing typed, six of the eight AIs make the machine talk to between 4 and 9 services that are not their own: anti-robot checks, error logging, usage measurement, payments and cookie notices.
- Gemini is the only one of the eight that loads advertising and audience-measurement tools (DoubleClick, Google Analytics, Google Tag Manager) on its landing page.
- The open advertising and tracking lists miss most of these services: DeepSeek loads nine third-party names and none of them is on those lists.
- ChatGPT did not load in three attempts in an externally driven browser, and Meta AI asks you to sign in before showing anything.
What cannot be claimed
- That the machine went on to connect to those services, or that it sent anything: what is seen here is that the machine asked for the name. A connection almost always follows, but a browser also looks names up ahead of time and sometimes never uses them.
- What is sent when there is a connection, or what is written in the conversation: GUARDIANA sees names, not content.
- That an AI is "spying": these are documented sign-in, measurement, support and payment services, and the owner of each name is identified above.
- That the one loading least is the best, nor that zero on the lists means zero tracking: they are names, not intentions.
- That this is what an agent working for you does: this is the web page, with no account and no task. The agent receipt, whose protocol is already published, measures that with a real task.
The record
- Date: 17 September 2026 (Bogotá time): 11:28 to 11:32 for the first ones and 14:13 to 14:19 for the rest.
- Machine: a Windows 11 test PC with its DNS pointing at GUARDIANA 0.2.3 on the machine itself (the fallback router). Only this machine's own queries and the names each page asked for are counted.
- Browser: Google Chrome 152.0.7977.84 with a profile created fresh for each AI, default settings, no account, no scrolling; measured from the inside (DevTools). Windows' name cache was emptied beforehand.
- Each page opened by itself: 20 seconds to load and 15 of waiting at the end. Nobody typed anything into any of the eight.
- When counting "third-party services", the names Chrome itself asks for are left out (updates, safety lists and its new-tab page); on Gemini, which is Google's, several of those would also be its own.
- Claude is not measured here. GUARDIANA is built with its help, and measuring whoever helps you is not an independent measurement: it is left out by rule, before the result is known, not because of what it gave.
- Made by GUARDIANA in Cartagena de Indias. None of the eight companies took part.
Data and method
Full data: ocho-ia-en-un-pc-limpio-2026-09-17.csv (name, category, whether it belongs to the maker and, per AI, queries and whether its page asked for it). Method: each AI opened alone with site/src/radiografia/navegar.mjs (Chrome on Windows, empty profile, no account, no scrolling, 20 s + 15 s); names taken from the PC's GUARDIANA ledger for each time window, this machine's queries only; the tables count the names the page asked for, and when counting "third-party services" the ones Chrome itself asks for are also left out. The tools are in the program's repository (site/src/radiografia/); anyone can repeat the test with Guardiana installed.
Brands named as the names of their owners. If you are the maker and something here is inaccurate, write to hola@guardianagroup.com: it is corrected, with the date.