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November 11, 20269 min read
Contents
- What ChatGPT says about the top 10 brands
- Stores get over a third of the mentions
- How this data is collected
- Track how often ChatGPT mentions your brand
When ChatGPT tells people where to shop or what to buy, a handful of brands get named again and again.
We counted how many of 5.5 million US ChatGPT answers mention each brand. Walmart comes first, named in 95,605 answers, almost twice as many as second-placed Target.
Stores take six of the top 10 spots. Carmakers make up 15 of the top 100.
Brand
Industry
Answers mentioning
Retail
95,605
1.73%
Retail
52,096
0.94%
45,297
0.82%
Retail
38,795
0.70%
Retail
34,876
0.63%
Fashion
33,327
0.60%
30,775
0.56%
Cars
30,261
0.55%
Retail
29,186
0.53%
Retail
24,746
0.45%
23,550
0.43%
Entertainment
21,829
0.40%
Retail
21,359
0.39%
Cars
21,129
0.38%
TikTok
Online platforms
20,504
0.37%
Cars
20,201
0.37%
YouTube
Online platforms
20,042
0.36%
Retail
19,275
0.35%
17,703
0.32%
Fashion
17,246
0.31%
Cars
16,510
0.30%
Entertainment
16,166
0.29%
Retail
16,040
0.29%
15,334
0.28%
Online platforms
13,771
0.25%
Retail
13,171
0.24%
Online platforms
12,086
0.22%
Cars
11,849
0.21%
Telecom
11,813
0.21%
Travel
11,639
0.21%
Retail
11,471
0.21%
Retail
10,791
0.20%
Retail
10,697
0.19%
Telecom
10,407
0.19%
Telecom
10,391
0.19%
Cars
10,337
0.19%
Cars
9,922
0.18%
Cars
9,771
0.18%
Entertainment
9,656
0.18%
Retail
9,526
0.17%
Online platforms
9,470
0.17%
9,427
0.17%
Entertainment
9,023
0.16%
Retail
9,007
0.16%
Cars
8,962
0.16%
8,616
0.16%
Food and delivery
8,550
0.15%
Online platforms
8,522
0.15%
Retail
8,442
0.15%
Online platforms
8,313
0.15%
Fashion
8,223
0.15%
Fashion
8,103
0.15%
8,053
0.15%
Retail
8,037
0.15%
Entertainment
8,037
0.15%
Fashion
8,013
0.15%
Cars
7,952
0.14%
Fashion
7,831
0.14%
7,780
0.14%
Entertainment
7,716
0.14%
Fashion
7,653
0.14%
Travel
7,487
0.14%
Entertainment
7,478
0.14%
Travel
7,457
0.14%
Online platforms
7,452
0.14%
Online platforms
7,425
0.13%
Fashion
7,201
0.13%
Fashion
7,155
0.13%
Cars
7,145
0.13%
7,070
0.13%
Food and delivery
7,038
0.13%
6,530
0.12%
Online platforms
6,504
0.12%
Retail
6,491
0.12%
6,436
0.12%
Cars
6,327
0.11%
Cars
6,307
0.11%
6,298
0.11%
Travel
6,271
0.11%
Online platforms
6,247
0.11%
Online platforms
6,231
0.11%
Entertainment
6,158
0.11%
Retail
6,155
0.11%
Entertainment
6,095
0.11%
Fashion
6,059
0.11%
Fashion
6,044
0.11%
Tools
6,030
0.11%
Entertainment
5,984
0.11%
5,978
0.11%
Food and delivery
5,960
0.11%
Travel
5,926
0.11%
Cars
5,883
0.11%
Retail
5,880
0.11%
Retail
5,847
0.11%
Food and delivery
5,839
0.11%
Cars
5,819
0.11%
Retail
5,743
0.10%
5,631
0.10%
Retail
5,614
0.10%
100
Fashion
5,593
0.10%
What ChatGPT says about the top 10 brands
We read a sample of the answers behind each of the top 10 brands. Stores get named when people ask where to buy something. Product brands get named when people ask what to buy, or how to use something they already own.
1. Walmart: ChatGPT’s default answer to “where can I buy this cheaply?” It comes up for questions like “Where is the cheapest place to get Halloween candy?” and “Where can I get a cheap full size mattress?”, and for streaming deals bundled with Walmart+, like “What is the cheapest way to get Peacock?”
2. Target: The second stop in the same shopping answers. Questions like “Where can I find affordable black dresses?” and “Where is the best place to get matching Christmas pajamas?” usually list Walmart and Target side by side.
3. Apple: Named for its products more than its stores. Most mentions come from questions about iPhones, iPads and AirPods (“Is the iPhone 17 Pro actually good?”, “Is an iPhone 13 still worth getting?”) and how-to questions like “How can I locate my phone?”
4. Amazon: Shows up in two kinds of answers: where to buy something online (“What is the cheapest site to buy books?”) and where to stream a film or show on Prime Video (“Where can I watch Happy Gilmore?”). AWS, Kindle and Amazon Flex jobs add the rest.
5. The Home Depot: The go-to answer for home improvement and DIY shopping, from “What is a good sink to buy?” to “Does Home Depot rent a stump grinder?” It’s often compared with Lowe’s on price.
6. Nike: Mentioned in product questions about running shoes, Jordans and Air Max (“Which is better, Pegasus or Vomero?”), and in a surprising number of ownership questions such as “Is Converse made by Nike?”
7. Google: Almost never part of a shopping answer. ChatGPT names Google when people ask how to use its tools: Translate, Gemini, Google Flights, Pixel phones and Google Account help.
8. Toyota: The reference point for car advice. It’s named in answers to “What is the most reliable car to buy right now?” and “What cars hold their value well?”, and as the comparison in questions about other carmakers.
9. Costco: Comes up in price comparisons (“Is it better to get tires from Costco or Discount Tire?”) and in “does Costco sell…” questions, plus its services: gas, glasses, tires and travel.
10. Best Buy: Mostly named as the place to buy the product ChatGPT recommends. Answers to “Which is the best iPad model to buy?” or “What is the best home-use coffee maker?” often list its Best Buy price.
Stores get over a third of the mentions
Retailers hold 23 of the 100 spots and 35% of the mentions. Carmakers come second with 14%, mostly from questions about reliability, resale value and which model to buy.
How this data is collected
The numbers come from Ahrefs’ Brand Radar, which tracks the answers AI assistants give to a large set of real, search-backed questions. For this article we took every US ChatGPT answer in the index, 5,516,381 of them across all topics, and counted the answers that name each company or brand.
For each brand we report:
- Answers mentioning: the number of answers that name the brand at least once. An answer that names Walmart three times counts once.
We cleaned the list in four ways:
- Commercial brands only. We left out government agencies and regulators (like the FDA), nonprofits, and review or ratings organizations (like Consumer Reports and Kelley Blue Book). We kept the NFL, NBA and MLB as commercial businesses.
- Different names for the same brand are counted together. The Home Depot and Home Depot, Chevrolet and Chevy, Walmart and walmart.com. Each answer is counted once, even if it uses both names.
- Sub-brands stay separate when they have their own name. Disney+ isn’t counted in Disney, and Facebook Marketplace isn’t counted in Facebook.
- Names that usually mean something else are left out. We read real answers for brands that share a name with a common word or another company. GE, United and Ram didn’t make the cut because too many mentions meant something else. Milwaukee isn’t included either: only answers that say “Milwaukee Tool” count, and that’s too few for the top 100. Answers that just say “Delta” are counted in Delta Air Lines, because 86% of the ones we checked meant the airline.
Track how often ChatGPT mentions your brand
Most brands have no idea how often ChatGPT recommends them, or what it says when it does. Ahrefs’ Brand Radar shows you, using the same data behind this article.
1. Add your brand and your competitors
Enter your brand name and website, then add the competitors you want to compare against. Brand Radar finds every answer that mentions each one.
2. See your share of voice on ChatGPT
The Overview shows your AI share of voice, total mentions and cited pages, with a breakdown for ChatGPT and every other AI platform. The chart shows whether your mentions are rising or falling over time, next to your competitors’.
3. Read the answers that mention you (and the ones that don’t)
Go to AI responses and set the platform to ChatGPT to see the exact questions where your brand comes up, what ChatGPT says, and which competitors it names alongside you. Switch to answers that mention only your competitors to find the questions you’re missing from.
4. Find the pages ChatGPT cites
Cited pages shows which of your pages ChatGPT uses as sources, how often, and the pages it cites for your competitors instead. That’s where to focus if you want to be named more often.
Try it yourself
Click around this interactive demo. It uses real Brand Radar data for Ahrefs and three competitors across ChatGPT, Google AI Overviews, AI Mode, Gemini, Perplexity and Copilot. It opens on ChatGPT, and you can click any platform’s column to read its answers.
Si Quan is a content marketer at Ahrefs. He has been involved in digital and content marketing for the past 5 years. Before he joined Ahrefs, he was content marketer at ReferralCandy, a 7-figure ARR SaaS company.
Si Quan has spoken at some of the industry’s largest conferences in the Asia region, which includes TIECon and Digital Marketing Skill Share. He has also written for some of the industry’s most popular blogs like Sumo and SmartBlogger.
His earliest work was marketing a product on Kickstarter, which eventually raised $150,000, more than double the original funding goal. The product was also featured on prominent tech websites, including Engadget, CNET and Digital Trends.
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