Which brands do AI engines actually cite?
When Australians ask AI engines who to use, a handful of brands get named. The Australian AI Search Report will measure which ones, category by category and engine by engine.
Every buying decision now has an AI answer. Almost nobody measures who is in it.
When an Australian asks an AI engine who to use, whether that is a lender, a firm, a retailer or a trade, the engine replies with a short synthesised answer naming a handful of brands. Those brands are the shortlist. In most categories, nobody can say with evidence which brands the engines are naming, how consistently, or from what sources, so the question gets answered with opinion.
The Australian AI Search Report exists to replace that opinion with measurement. The first edition is in preparation: systematic testing of commercially meaningful Australian queries across Google AI Overviews, ChatGPT and Perplexity, recording which brands each engine cites for each category. The result will be a league table of AI citation share, published with the method behind it.
The report comes out of an AI search practice built on measurement. The same discipline already operates at brand level as the AI search visibility audit, which covers one organisation, its queries, its competitors and its gaps. The report applies that discipline at category level, across the market, as a public baseline.
It is written for marketing leaders who owe a board an answer on AI exposure. Directors have started asking whether the brand appears when customers ask AI engines who to use, and today most executive teams can only answer with anecdote. Once the report exists, the question has a reference point.
What the first edition will do.
Measure citation share
Commercially meaningful Australian queries, meaning the questions buyers put to an engine before they spend, tested systematically across Google AI Overviews, ChatGPT and Perplexity. Every brand citation is recorded and attributed to its engine.
Publish a league table
Findings are presented as a league table of brand citation share, category by category. There are no sponsored placements and no pay-for-position. A brand appears in the table because an engine named it.
Show the working
The methodology is published alongside the findings: how queries were constructed, which engines were tested, how citations were collected and counted, and where the limits of the data are. A baseline is only useful if it can be scrutinised and retested.
Be part of the baseline.
Category coverage for the first edition is being scoped now. Organisations that want their sector measured, and a clear read on where they stand when the results land, can enquire.
sam@sampark.com.au