Who gets cited when AI assistants answer buying questions
In our baseline of 3 November 2026, vendor sites made up 149 of 292 (51%) of the links cited in voiceover answers and 38 of 54 (70%) of the first links. For running shoes, 4 of 67 (6%) of the cited links came from sites that sell shoes.
Read the limits first
- Two command-line assistants, not the apps people use. We ran claude and codex with web search. ChatGPT, Claude.ai, Gemini, Google AI Overviews and Perplexity as people use them are not measured, and their answers may differ.
- One repetition on one date. Each question was asked once per assistant on . Answers change from week to week, so only large gaps mean anything.
- Our own site was cited in 0 of 80 answers. The baseline ran before this site was published, so zero is the starting point.
- Not measured: whether a cited fact is right, and visits to this site. One assistant loaded an instruction file that mentions this product; we did not measure its effect.
- Classes state who sells what. "Vendor site" means the site belongs to a company that sells the product the question asks about. "Independent" means we found no such product on it. Neither word says a site is paid, biased, accurate or inaccurate, and affiliate links on an independent site are not detected. A site we could not check is "not classified".
Voiceover questions
60 answers to 30 questions over five jobs: audiobook narration, Spanish ads, YouTube narration, voice agents and bulk or cheap generation, in English and Spanish. A citation is one distinct link in an answer. A first citation is the first link of an answer that has any. Each cell is a count out of the column total.
| Assistant | Answers | Links from vendor sites | Links from independent sites | Links not classified | First link: vendor sites | First link: independent | First link: not classified |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| claude | 30 | 88 of 225 (39%) | 49 of 225 (22%) | 88 of 225 (39%) | 16 of 30 (53%) | 2 of 30 (7%) | 12 of 30 (40%) |
| codex | 30 | 61 of 67 (91%) | 4 of 67 (6%) | 2 of 67 (3%) | 22 of 24 (92%) | 1 of 24 (4%) | 1 of 24 (4%) |
| both | 60 | 149 of 292 (51%) | 53 of 292 (18%) | 90 of 292 (31%) | 38 of 54 (70%) | 3 of 54 (6%) | 13 of 54 (24%) |
Most cited domains, voiceover
| Domain | Answers citing it | First citations | Cited links | Class |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| elevenlabs.io | 23 of 60 (38%) | 12 | 31 | vendor site |
| cloud.google.com | 22 of 60 (37%) | 9 | 23 | vendor site |
| smallest.ai | 11 of 60 (18%) | 5 | 12 | vendor site |
| costbench.com | 11 of 60 (18%) | 0 | 22 | independent |
| fish.audio | 10 of 60 (17%) | 4 | 16 | vendor site |
| aws.amazon.com | 10 of 60 (17%) | 3 | 14 | vendor site |
| fluxnote.io | 7 of 60 (12%) | 2 | 7 | not classified |
| inworld.ai | 7 of 60 (12%) | 0 | 7 | vendor site |
| camb.ai | 6 of 60 (10%) | 2 | 8 | vendor site |
| activepieces.com | 5 of 60 (8%) | 0 | 5 | independent |
Running-shoe questions
20 answers to 10 control questions, in English and Spanish. This is a small set. "Vendor site" here means a shop that sells running shoes or a shoe brand; testing and review sites are independent unless they sell shoes.
| Assistant | Answers | Links from vendor sites | Links from independent sites | Links not classified | First link: vendor sites | First link: independent | First link: not classified |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| claude | 10 | 3 of 47 (6%) | 34 of 47 (72%) | 10 of 47 (21%) | 0 of 8 (0%) | 6 of 8 (75%) | 2 of 8 (25%) |
| codex | 10 | 1 of 20 (5%) | 12 of 20 (60%) | 7 of 20 (35%) | 0 of 8 (0%) | 5 of 8 (63%) | 3 of 8 (38%) |
| both | 20 | 4 of 67 (6%) | 46 of 67 (69%) | 17 of 67 (25%) | 0 of 16 (0%) | 11 of 16 (69%) | 5 of 16 (31%) |
Most cited domains, running shoes
| Domain | Answers citing it | First citations | Cited links | Class |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| runrepeat.com | 6 of 20 (30%) | 5 | 7 | independent |
| correrjuntos.com | 3 of 20 (15%) | 1 | 5 | independent |
| runnersworld.com | 3 of 20 (15%) | 1 | 3 | not classified |
| tomsguide.com | 3 of 20 (15%) | 1 | 3 | not classified |
| runnerspicks.com | 3 of 20 (15%) | 0 | 4 | independent |
| hdsupply.com | 2 of 20 (10%) | 1 | 3 | independent |
| doctorsofrunning.com | 2 of 20 (10%) | 1 | 2 | independent |
| rtings.com | 2 of 20 (10%) | 1 | 2 | independent |
| michiganfootdoctors.com | 2 of 20 (10%) | 0 | 2 | independent |
| runningwarehouse.com | 2 of 20 (10%) | 0 | 2 | vendor site |
What happens next
The panel repeats on the same questions every week, with more repetitions. The question wording is held back during the test, so nobody can tune a page to it; it is published when the test ends. This page is the first step toward "who recommends what, and why". Our guides list the tests behind such recommendations.