The Leading Brands & Domains in AI Search Across 10 Business Categories
With the rapid growth of AI search, marketers are beginning to look beyond traditional SEO metrics like clicks, click-through-rates, and traffic. New AI-focused KPIs are emerging that track how often – and how prominently – brands are cited and linked to within large language model (LLM) answers, across answer engines such as ChatGPT, Google AI Mode, Microsoft Copilot, Perplexity and more.
But measuring visibility inside LLM outputs is challenging for several reasons:
LLM answers are non-deterministic and increasingly personalized by chat history, location, device, and preferences.
Each LLM is built differently, so citations and answer styles vary across tools. Answers also evolve over time as new models are announced.
Chat interfaces are inconsistent: some LLMs add footnote sources, others provide in-line links, some paraphrase information without a link, and many rotate sources between refreshes.
Luckily, new AI tracking tools can help with collecting directional data about how different LLMs answer targeted questions in different categories. We partnered with Profound – our AEO (Answer Engine Optimization) partner – to capture, analyze and visualize the most commonly mentioned brands and most frequently cited domains across 10 business categories.
Our Methodology
Using Profound’s pre-defined prompts for each business category, we measured which brands and domains LLMs mention and cite the most across ten business categories:
Auto insurance
Automobiles
Beauty & personal skincare
Health insurance
Makeup
Media & entertainment
Online travel
Payment processing
Personal care
Travel booking
Within each category, we collected the most mentioned brands and most cited domains across 6 prominent large language models:
ChatGPT
Google Gemini
Google AI Overviews
Google AI Mode
Perplexity
Microsoft Copilot
The answers were collected within a time period of just under 1 month: between July 15, 2025 and August 11, 2025. The data was collected for the U.S. only.
In order to track prompts across categories, Profound collects conversation data from “multiple, double–opt-in consumer panels of real answer engineer users. Data is anonymized, aggregated, scrubbed of PII, and compliant with GDPR and CCPA.” Profound then conducts the prompts daily across multiple LLMs, collects the responses, and aggregates the most mentioned brands, domains, pages, and the surrounding brand sentiment across different topics. These prompts emulate what LLM users are likely searching for when investigating brands, products, and services within each business category.
According to Profound, the scale of this data collection “is in the hundreds of millions of prompts per month from millions of active users.” While LLM prompts are, by definition, unique from user to user (with increasingly personalized responses across LLMs), these ‘generic’ prompts help provide a directional view of which brands, domains, and pages are most frequently mentioned and cited.
In our analysis, we pulled the 10 most visible brands based on this core set of prompts for each of the 10 analyzed business categories. Next, for brand mentions, we collected the % Visibility Score, a Profound metric which reflects the percentage of times a brand is mentioned in AI-generated responses out of the total number of responses tracked. It is calculated by dividing the number of mentions by the total number of responses and converting that fraction into a percentage.
Top domains show which domains are most frequently cited across the analyzed LLM responses. Top domains are ranked by ‘Domain % share’ – the percentage of all citations in a business category (for the selected period and filters) that reference a given domain.
Formula: Domain % share = (citations from the domain) ÷ (total citations in that category) × 100.
Shares are calculated per LLM and are not aggregated across models. To see which domains are most visible for a specific model, filter the LLM column to a single model.
Other screenshots shown in the below analysis come directly from Profound. To see the overall greatest visibility leaders across AI search, visit the Profound leaderboard.
Auto Insurance
Most Mentioned Brands: Auto Insurance
In the Auto Insurance category, USAA is the most mentioned brand in LLM responses, followed by State Farm, Geico, then Progressive. USAA is consistently recognized in various LLMs as one of the “top car insurance providers” and appears prominently for related searches.
USAA has the strongest visibility for topics related to ‘coverage options,’ ‘customer service,’ ‘financial stability and reputation,’ and ‘trust and transparency.’ State Farm leads in visibility for topics related to the ‘claims process,’ ‘discounts and savings,’ and ‘speed of service.’
Most Mentioned Brands: Automobiles
Within the “Automobiles” category, Hyundai was the most frequently mentioned brand, followed by BMW, Mercedes, then Kia. In terms of topic coverage, Toyota dominates across several categories: affordability, hybrid lineup, reliability, sedan lineup, and sustainability. Hyundai leads in fuel efficiency and scores highly for affordability, crossovers, safety and sedans.
Hyundai is frequently mentioned in the context of fuel efficiency, consistently earning the top mention for prompts like “best electric cars for fuel efficiency” and “best hybrid cars for fuel efficiency.”
Beauty & Personal Skincare
Most Mentioned Brands: Beauty & Personal Skincare
In the “Beauty & Personal Skincare” category, the most mentioned brands are Summer Fridays, Laneige, SkinCeuticals, Keihl’s, and Paula’s Choice. Summer Fridays leads in topics related to ‘jet lag masks’ (their flagship hero product) and ‘lip butter balm.’
However, Summer Fridays has room to improve in other skincare topics like ‘brightening skincare,’ ‘cruelty-free sunscreen’ and ‘hydrating masks.’ Brands like Kiehl’s, Neutrogena, The Ordinary, Youth to the People and Paula’s Choice consistently dominate across these broader skincare categories.
In terms of citations from Byrdie.com, several articles ranking the best skincare products are heavily cited across LLMs. It’s worth noting that Byrdie is part of the Dotdash Meredith network, which signed a strategic licensing partnership with OpenAI in May 2024 – which likely lends to increased citations in ChatGPT responses.
The domain with the highest average share of citations in this category is blog.google.com (9.7%), followed by reddit.com (7.1%), and then ulta.com (6.7%). Blog.google.com represent citations that are pulled directly from Google’s Shopping Graph.
Health Insurance
Most Mentioned Brands: Health Insurance
The most cited brands in the “Health Insurance” category are UnitedHealthOne, Cigna, Aetna, and Blue Cross Blue Shield. UnitedHealthOne is a recognized leader in topics related to ‘fixed indemnity insurance,’ ‘health and wellness,’ ‘health insurance,’ and ‘short term health insurance.’
In terms of averages, the domains with the highest average share of citations are usatoday.com (8.6%), followed closely by forbes.com (8.4%) and then reddit.com (6.3%).
Interestingly, many of the most frequently cited pages in this category stem from Forbes Advisor (forbes.com/advisor/), a subfolder that was penalized last year due to Google’s new “Site Reputation Abuse” policy.
However, according to Ahrefs, affected pages on Forbes Advisor have since come surging back in organic visibility – as shown by the dip and recovery in late 2024 in the below chart, showing projected organic traffic:
This organic search visibility might help Forbes to be cited in LLMs, as we now know that ChatGPT (and other LLMs) rely on Google’s search results to answer prompts with web search enabled.
Makeup
Most Mentioned Brands: Makeup
Maybelline is the most frequently cited brand in the “makeup” category, followed by L’Oreal, Charlotte Tilbury, e.l.f. and NARS. Maybelline sees the most visibility for ‘mascara,’ ‘concealer,’ and ‘foundation makeup,’ which all align with its real-world consumer perception. Urban Decay leads in eyeshadow palettes, which shows how its popular product (Naked palettes) helps influence how it appears in LLM responses. YouTube sees the most visibility for ‘eye makeup tutorials,’ which shows how content and UGC platforms can earn LLM visibility through instructional and educational content.
Media & Entertainment
Most Mentioned Brands: Media & Entertainment
The most frequently cited brands in the “Media & Entertainment” category are HBO, followed closely by Netflix, Apple TV+, Hulu, and Amazon Prime Video. Netflix is the leader in various ‘best’ topics, such as ‘best drama series,’ ‘best new TV shows,’ ‘best shows to binge,’ ‘must-watch TV shows’ and more. HBO dominates for branded prompts, plus ‘post-apocalyptic show’ searches. Apple TV+ is also an up-and-comer, with strong visibility for ‘best shows to binge,’ ‘best drama series,’ and ‘top TV series.’
Online Travel
Most Mentioned Brands: Online Travel
In the “Online Travel” category, Google Maps is the most frequently cited brand, followed by TripAdvisor, Expedia, Kayak and Booking.
Unsurprisingly, when looking at the LLMs that cite ‘Google Maps’ the most frequently in AI responses, Google’s own LLMs – Gemini, AI Overviews, and AI Mode – most heavily cite the product. Tripadvisor is also heavily cited in AI Mode, AI overviews, Grok, and Perplexity.
Payment Processing
Most Mentioned Brands: Payment Processing
Stripe is the most frequently cited brand in the “Payment Processing” category, followed by PayPal, Square, and Helcim. Stripe sees the most visibility on topics related to ‘e-commerce payment integration,’ ‘online payment gateways,’ and ‘payment processing solutions’. Square is the leader in topics related to ‘merchant payment services.’
Personal Care
Most Mentioned Brands: Personal Care
The most cited brands in the “Personal Care” category are Dove, CeraVe, Aveeno, Vanicream and Cetaphil. Dove has the most visibility for topics related to ‘dermatologist-recommended body wash,’ ‘moisturizing body wash,’ ‘soap for sensitive skin,’ and ‘spray deodorant.’
Travel Booking
Most Mentioned Brands: Travel Booking
The most mentioned brands in the “Travel Booking” category are Kayak, Expedia, Skyscanner, Google and Priceline. Enterprise leads in topics related to ‘car rentals,’ whereas Skyscanner, Kayak, and Google lead in topics related to ‘flights.’ Expedia is the most visible brand for ‘trip booking’ prompts.
Kayak is highly cited across various LLMs, with the greatest prominence in Google Gemini and Perplexity. Expedia and Skyscanner also see strong visibility in Google Gemini, Perplexity and ChatGPT.
Analysis
Analyzing Profound brand & domain citation data across ten business categories, several key trends emerge regarding how large language models (LLMs) cite sources and which domains are most prominent:
Overarching Trends
Across all categories, a few domains consistently stand out due to their high visibility. The two most notable are Wikipedia and Reddit.
Wikipedia frequently ranks as a top source for % Share of Category in multiple categories like Online Travel, Payment Processing, and Media & Entertainment. This suggests that various LLMs often rely on it for broad, encyclopedic knowledge and foundational information across multiple topics. LLMs might also preference Wikipedia due to the fact that it is notoriously hard to edit.
Reddit is another powerhouse in LLM domain citations, appearing as both a top-cited domain and a leader in average share in categories like Automobiles, Beauty & Skincare, Makeup, and Travel Booking. Reddit’s prominence also shows that LLMs highly value the community-driven discussions and user-generated content found on the platform. Like Wikipedia, Reddit is effective because its strong community moderation aggressively works to reduce commercial influence and spam.
Product review and affiliate sites like Forbes, Nerdwallet, Investopedia, Value Penguin, and others are heavily cited in LLM responses, making ‘digital PR’ and ‘affiliate marketing’ essential for visibility within AI Search.
Takeaways
The rise of AI search is creating a parallel layer of visibility that extends beyond traditional organic search rankings and traffic. Our analysis with Profound data highlights which brands and domains are surfacing most often across LLMs, with categories like auto insurance and health insurance showing consistent leaders, while sectors such as beauty, makeup, and travel remain more fragmented.
The findings also underscore how answer engines are drawing on both authoritative sources like Wikipedia and community-driven platforms like Reddit, where heavy moderation makes it harder for brands to directly influence authentic conversations. Marketers should find new ways to treat AI search visibility as a core metric: adapting strategies to strengthen brand mentions, diversify content sources, and build authority that resonates across both search engines and AI search platforms.
The search landscape is rapidly evolving. Explore how you can stay ahead of the curve with our complete Answer Engine Optimization guide, or let’s talk about how to achieve more for your marketing—and your business.