Research

AI brand visibility research — how brands are winning (and losing) in AI-first discovery. Case studies, data, and what the evidence shows.

1 of 3 Predicted AI Shopping Carriers Arrived

Seven releases ago we named hubspot.com, zapier.com and adyen.com as the next vendors likely to hold a top-10 AI citation slot in two shopping question shapes. On the 2026-09-26 Machine Relations Index release hubspot.com does. The other two are unchanged to the single observed run, because their segments were never observed again — which means our own falsifier was untestable as written.

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AI Shopping Answers Draw on 233 Domains and Repeat 13: Source-Pool Depth Across 43 Segments

Measured against the Machine Relations Index, the 43 published shopping-shape segments of the 2026-09-25 release cite a median 233 distinct domains each — and in the median segment only 13 of them appear in at least one answer in ten, while 44.4 percent appear exactly once. The pool a brand joins and the pool a brand competes in are different sizes.

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Nature Made Holds Rank 9 in AI Comparison Answers and Rank 273 in AI Roundups: A Consumer-Health Shape Gap

Measured against the Machine Relations Index, six named wellness and supplement brands — Nature Made, Vitamin Shoppe, GNC, Nordic Naturals, Liquid I.V. and NOW Foods — hold sharply different citation ranks in AI head-to-head comparisons than in AI best-tools and top-list answers, in the same Consumer Health category, over the same window.

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The First HR Software AI Leaderboard Has a Six-Citation Gap Between Rank 1 and Rank 10

HR & Talent's first published buyer-choice leaderboard is mature enough to cite and too young to treat as a category verdict. Pin.com leads the how-buyers-choose shape with 14 of 101 observed runs; Lever.co holds rank 10 with 8. Seven domains sit at 8 or 9 cited runs, and the first editorial publication is rank 11 with the same cited-run count as rank 10.

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27 of 60: Nearly Half the Domains Leading AI Shopping Answers Haven't Cleared the Evidence Floor

Across the six published buyer-question shapes in the Machine Relations Index's Consumer Products category, 27 of the 60 top-ten citation slots belong to domains still graded 'collecting' overall — below the evidence floor that would make their rate stable. Most of the leaderboard is unclassified brand and retailer sites, not the household editorial or vendor names GEO advice assumes.

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Shopping-Shape Carriers, Re-Measured: 6 of 7 Vendors That Hold Two Shopping Shapes Also Hold a Top-10 Decision-Question Slot. 3 of 25 Single-Shape Vendors Do.

One release after the shopping-shape cross-section, the seven vendor–category pairs whose top-10 AI citation slot carries across two shopping shapes are the same seven. Engine count, confidence grade and overall citation volume do not separate them from the 25 single-shape pairs. Standing in the same category's how-buyers-choose, is-it-worth-it and problem-first answers does: 6 of 7 carriers hold a decision-shape top-10, against 3 of 25.

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Adobe Bought Semrush and the AI Visibility Citations Stayed on Semrush.com

Five months after Adobe completed the Semrush acquisition, the AI answers in Adobe's own category are still assembled from semrush.com. Measured against the Machine Relations Index release of 2026-10-01, semrush.com holds a top-10 standing in four of the six published buyer shapes of the AI Visibility and GEO category; adobe.com holds none of them, and stands sixth of 1,243 domains in the martech news segment instead.

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