Developing
A vendor study from June 2026 that remains a key reference. Semrush notes model updates can shift rankings between months.
In 60 seconds
- The index covers 126 million US AI search prompts collected January to April 2026 across more than 1,200 brands in 22 verticals.
- Only 36 brands (the "Universal 36") were in the top 100 most-mentioned list on every platform in every month.
- Average sources cited per response: ChatGPT 15.4, AI Mode 11.4, AI Overviews 9.2 and Gemini 3.3.
- In a survey of 481 marketers, 45% said they cannot properly measure AI answer visibility; 81% of teams with integrated SEO and AI search execution reported more AI-driven traffic or leads, against 36% of teams with separate workflows.
Impact Layer
- What changed
- A large dataset quantifies how differently each AI platform names and cites brands.
- Why it matters
- Visibility on one platform does not carry over to another, so a single AI-visibility score can mislead.
- Who is affected
- SEO, content and brand teams working on AI search.
- Martech stack area
- SEO & Search, Content
- Stack impact
- Track mentions and citations separately by platform, and check how concentrated your category is.
- Business impact
- Moderate Semrush (an Adobe company) is a vendor of AI visibility tools. The leaderboard covers only the top 30 brands per platform, vertical and month, and brand entities are not consolidated.
- Related technologies
- What to watch
- The next index release and how model updates shift rankings.
Semrush published its AI Visibility Index 2026 in late June 2026, covered by PPC Land on June 30. It analyses 126 million US AI search prompts collected between January and April 2026, tracking more than 1,200 brands across 22 industry verticals on ChatGPT, Google Gemini, Google AI Mode and Google AI Overviews.
Findings
- The “Universal 36”: only 36 brands ranked in the top 100 most-mentioned list on every platform in every month, from YouTube (47.9 million mentions) to Nintendo (1.5 million).
- Mentions are not citations. A mention is when an AI names a brand; a citation is when it quotes the brand’s site. Mention-source overlap ranges from 64% on AI Overviews to 30% on Gemini.
- Platform differences: sources cited per response average 15.4 on ChatGPT, 11.4 on AI Mode, 9.2 on AI Overviews and 3.3 on Gemini; brands named per response average 5.2 on AI Mode, 4.7 on Gemini, 3.7 on AI Overviews and 3.3 on ChatGPT.
- Concentration: the top three brands hold 82.9% of top-10 mention volume in News & Media but 41.4% in Finance.
- Marketer survey (481): 45% cannot properly measure AI answer visibility and 9% say they can measure all relevant metrics.
Caveats
Semrush sells AI visibility tools. The leaderboard covers only the top 30 brands per platform, vertical and month; brand entities such as Google and YouTube are not consolidated; and model updates can shift rankings.
Our read
The practical lesson is to measure per platform. A brand can look strong on AI Overviews and be nearly absent from ChatGPT, so one blended score hides the gap.
Sources
- PPC Land: Semrush, 36 brands win AI visibility everywhere, 1,200 vanish on one (opens in a new tab)
Source of all figures and caveats; the index itself was not read directly.