Leading Brands in the Race for AI Visibility

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Hey, Savvy Nation!

I’m seeing a huge shift in the AI search leaderboard.

Projections indicate AI search could match traditional search traffic by 2028.

Brands already boosting their AI visibility today as part of their brand discovery strategy are already way ahead of the game.

Curious how brands in your industry are doing? Let’s look at this year’s leaders and how they landed at the top of the charts.

Leading Brands in AI Search Today

I pulled the latest data from Semrush’s AI Visibility Index to show you who’s dominating AI search.

This study reports the top brands per industry based on:

• Share of voice: How often a brand is mentioned and how prominent it is in AI answers.

• Mentions: How often a brand is included in AI answers.

• Cited sources: Which websites an AI model references to support its answer.

1/ Tech and Software

Microsoft and Google currently dominate AI mentions, while everyone else fights for a small slice of visibility.

2/ Business and Services

Big names are dominating the industry, with Zoho leading both share of voice and mentions.

Google comes in at close second, while Microsoft and HubSpot trail behind at third and fourth places.

3/ Consumer Electronics

No surprises here. Apple and Samsung lead the chart, with Google a standalone third.

4/ Fashion and Apparel

Patagonia proves their marketing caliber, as they rank #1 for this sector.

Meanwhile, Uniqlo and Lululemon leverage their fame and come in at second and third places.

What’s interesting: Big sportswear brand Nike and high-fashion name Dior lag so far behind in the charts.

5/ Finance

Finance institutions Chase and Vanguard lead the charts, demonstrating the challenge for newer brands to disrupt the heavily trust-based industry.

American Express, Wells Fargo, and Citi hold the fort in the middle.

The results, though, bring a shocker: Well-known brands Bank of America and State Farm are left behind in the rear.

6/ Brand Diversity

This shows how many unique brands appear per industry.

An interesting find: We’re seeing that it’s easier for new brands to rank in the Fashion and Business sectors.

The other sectors are dominated by the usual big names.

7/ Top Sources

As expected, trusted sites Wikipedia, Forbes, and Amazon appear as the top sources dominating AI results.

Surprisingly, though, Reddit and Tomsguide follow closely behind, showing the increasing importance of brands appearing in conversations, reviews, and forums.

AI is Rewriting the Rules of Brand Discovery

Improving visibility in AI search is an emerging discipline that brands need to master to drive leads from AI—not as a replacement to traditional SEO, but as a distinct strategy that complements how people discover brands.

What Does This Mean for Brands Today?

SEO still matters. Ranking well in traditional search still influences what AI models cite.

At the same time, GEO (or optimizing for AI and LLMs) emerges as the way brands are discovered directly in conversation-style AI answers.

What Can Brands Do to Improve AI Visibility?

Based on these findings, there are five key things brands need to implement:

• Target brand mentions in AI answers: This means creating content that directly answers common AI user conversation-style questions.

• Build and reinforce trust signals: Ensure your content is factual and linked from authoritative sites.

• Leverage structured data: Use schema to help AI models understand and extract your content correctly.

• Keep track of your competition: Use tools like Semrush to monitor competitor presence in AI answers.

• Optimize for multiple sources: AI models cite from various sources, so diversify your content distribution, focusing on high-authority sites that AI cites most.

Now is the time to build your AI presence.

Semrush’s AI Visibility Index gives a comprehensive analysis per industry. Start there, then design an AI visibility strategy based on what works for your brand.

All the best,

Connor

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Connor Gillivan has been building six, seven, and eight-figure businesses for the past 10 years with SEO. It’s my personal mission to create a community and services that help you grow your business by finding more people who would benefit from what you. When I started out, I wanted to make the community an inclusive, welcoming table where everyone can come to get help using high-end SEO strategies to take their businesses to the next level. After several years, and over 3000 combined followers across Facebook and LinkedIn, I will always aim to get better at what I do every single day. In addition, my primary focus is on my relationship with you. This way every time you interact with me, you end up getting ideas that take your project to the next level. I particularly appreciate when my following provides feedback via testimonials, reviews, and comments left on my site or social media accounts. Because with that feedback, I can use it to make your next experience even better than the last. Since I put so much effort into my relationship with you, I hope that any investment in me is exactly the way you hoped it would be. Because by choosing to utilize my services, it’s my promise that I will provide an experience that you will love over and over again. Now, as much as I care about making the world a better and more efficient place for businesses like yours, I also care about your privacy. I’m committed to the right to your privacy and strive to provide a safe and secure user experience. My Privacy Policy, to which you can find a link at the bottom of my website homepage, explains how I collect, store and use personal information, provided by you on my website. It also explains important information that ensures I won’t abuse the information that you provide to me in good faith. By accessing and using my website, you can trust that what you want to be kept private, will be kept private. If at any time you would like to read the Privacy Policy and get a better understanding of your rights and liabilities under the law, feel free to visit my site, find the privacy policy in the footer, and read it. If there is something you are concerned about or wish to get more clarity on, please let me know by replying to this email. The Privacy Policy also informs you of how to notify me to stop using your personal information. If you wish to view my official policies, please visit my official website.

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