WASHINGTON – Approximately 89 percent of AI search demand categories currently lack a dominant brand owner, presenting a significant opportunity for companies to establish topical authority, according to new research.
An analysis of six months of ChatGPT answer data from Semrush, conducted by Kevin Indig, indicated that establishing topical authority was critical for long-term durability in AI search results.
The research, covering January through June 2026, found that only 15.2 percent of 1,094 U.S. categories had a clear brand owner. More than half, 53.7 percent, were identified as open fields with multiple contenders.
Categories with higher estimated AI search volume, which accounted for 98 percent of total demand, exhibited an even lower owner rate of 11.3 percent compared to 19 percent in lower-volume categories.
This means 89.3 percent of estimated AI search demand resided in categories without a clear owner, signaling a wide-open market for brands, Indig reported in his Growth Memo Substack and on LinkedIn.
Brands that established themselves as clear owners in AI search tended to maintain their position, retaining it 90.4 percent of the time, especially when their lead was substantial, with a median advantage of 2.9 percentage points.
The study also found a weak, slightly negative correlation (-0.229) between citations and brand mentions, suggesting that a high volume of citations did not automatically translate into brand mentions by ChatGPT.
Brands with higher branded search volume (55.7 percent), organic traffic (48.4 percent), and Semrush Authority Score (52.5 percent) were more likely to be identified as owners. However, Indig emphasized these were correlations and not a direct formula for ownership.
Source: Search Engine Journal
