GEO and AI search visibility statistics, 2026
Short, liftable statistics on how AI answer engines name and cite B2B software vendors, each backed by one of two open datasets with DOIs. Broadcastwell runs an AI search visibility agency and published both studies. We ran the same method on ourselves and our zero is on this page. Engines measured: ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity and Google AI Overviews. Last updated: August 2026.
How often companies appear
860 AI answers were scored across 85 B2B software companies in 61 software categories. Ten buyer questions per category, asked of ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity and Google AI Overviews in July 2026.
The 2026 State of GEO, Volume I. DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.21537014
27.5% of scored answers named the company being measured. This is the share of answers, averaged across all segments. It is not a per-company figure.
The 2026 State of GEO, Volume I. DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.21537014
The median company was named in 20% of the ten answers for its own category. The per-company median. Do not conflate it with the 27.5% share of answers above.
The 2026 State of GEO, Volume I. DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.21537014
30 of 85 companies, 35%, were never named in a single answer for their own category. More than a third of measured vendors were absent from all ten of their buyer answers.
The 2026 State of GEO, Volume I. DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.21537014
The average AI answer named 2.05 vendors, with a median of 2. Shortlists are short. Two or three names take the whole category conversation.
The 2026 State of GEO, Volume I. DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.21537014
24.0% of scored answers cited the measured company website as a source. A citation means the engine listed the company domain among its sources for the answer.
The 2026 State of GEO, Volume I. DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.21537014
What engines cite
5,160 source citations were traced across 1,753 unique domains. Every source URL the engines returned was opened and recorded in the public dataset.
The 2026 State of GEO, Volume I. DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.21537014
77.4% of citations among the top 100 domains resolve to vendor-owned sites. Engines lean heavily on content vendors publish themselves.
The 2026 State of GEO, Volume I. DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.21537014
Review platforms account for 10.2% of citations. G2, Capterra, TrustRadius and SourceForge together are about a tenth of the citation mix.
The 2026 State of GEO, Volume I. DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.21537014
0.0% of citations among the top 100 domains came from community sources. Reddit, Quora and Stack Overflow did not appear in the top citation mix.
The 2026 State of GEO, Volume I. DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.21537014
47% of answers that named a company also cited that company website. Naming and citing travel together about half the time.
The 2026 State of GEO, Volume I. DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.21537014
The absence ladder
616 absences were recorded and classified by question shape. The unit of study is the absence: an answer where a measured vendor could have appeared and did not.
The Absence Ladder, State of GEO Volume II. DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.21586091
Question shape and visibility tier are associated: chi-square 61.8, df 15, p 1.3e-7. Which questions a vendor goes missing from depends on how visible that vendor already is. The association is far beyond chance.
The Absence Ladder, State of GEO Volume II. DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.21586091
Cramer's V, the effect size, is 0.18. A real but modest association, reported alongside the significance test.
The Absence Ladder, State of GEO Volume II. DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.21586091
35% of challenger vendors were named zero times in their own category. Across 60 categories, roughly a third of challengers never appear at all.
The Absence Ladder, State of GEO Volume II. DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.21586091
The median challenger was named in 2 of 10 category answers. Half of all challengers clear at most two of their ten buyer answers.
The Absence Ladder, State of GEO Volume II. DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.21586091
Leader strength does not predict challenger visibility: Spearman rho -0.051, p 0.64, n 85. A null result, published in full. Dominant leaders are not what keeps challengers out of AI answers.
The Absence Ladder, State of GEO Volume II. DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.21586091
Nine companies were named zero times while their own domain was cited as a source. An engine can read a vendor site and still never recommend the vendor. Being cited is not being named.
The Absence Ladder, State of GEO Volume II. DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.21586091
Our own score
Broadcastwell was named in 0 of 200 answers and cited 0 times among 663 citations. We ran a five-run, four-engine measurement of a category we compete in and published the result, including our own zero.
Published at broadcastwell.com/omniscient-digital-alternatives. Our standing scorecard is at broadcastwell.com/visibility.
Cite this page
Any figure above can be lifted whole with its study and DOI. A suggested citation for this page:
Broadcastwell (2026). GEO and AI Search Visibility Statistics 2026, from Open Datasets. broadcastwell.com/geo-statistics. Last updated August 2026.
For the underlying studies: Broadcastwell (2026). The 2026 State of GEO, Volume I. Zenodo. doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.21537014 and Broadcastwell (2026). The Absence Ladder, State of GEO Volume II. Zenodo. doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.21586091
Method and limits
Volume I scored 860 AI answers, ten buyer questions per category, across 85 B2B software companies in 61 categories in July 2026, and traced 5,160 source citations across 1,753 unique domains. Volume II analyzed the same 85 companies across 60 categories and recorded 616 absences classified by question shape. Neither study measures product quality. They measure how often four AI engines name and cite vendors, in one window, with one question set per category. Both datasets are public under CC BY 4.0 and every figure on this page is recomputable from the published CSVs.
Last updated: August 2026.
See where you stand in your own category
The free instant check runs the same four-engine method on your category.
Run your free instant check