AI Tools Cite Third-Party Sites Over Brands, Study Finds

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AI tools frequently recommend specific brands but predominantly cite third-party websites rather than the brands’ own official pages, a new global analysis by Shero Commerce reported Tuesday.

The study found that only 2.8 percent of the 1,851 sources referenced by Google AI Mode, ChatGPT, and Perplexity across various product categories were directly owned by the brands themselves, potentially affecting e-commerce visibility.

Third-party sites, including publications like Good Housekeeping and Reviewed.com, accounted for 59 percent of all citations made by these artificial intelligence systems.

When AI tools explicitly recommended brands by name, which occurred in 159 instances during the analysis, the brand’s own website was cited in only 31 percent of those cases, according to Shero Commerce.

Google AI Mode specifically cited or recommended brands in 9.5 percent of relevant store checks conducted across 60 product categories. The analysis noted that no sampled brands were present in approximately one-third of these categories.

The e-commerce firm Shero Commerce, which provides services for platforms like Shopify, conducted the analysis to understand AI’s citation patterns.

Shero’s broader review of product content on Shopify also revealed that 20 percent of product descriptions were either identical or very similar to content found on other websites. This similarity was primarily observed among resellers, the report stated.

The analysis did not offer conclusions on the specific reasons why AI systems favor certain sources over others. It also did not confirm whether recent changes in content strategies by brands or third parties might influence AI citation behavior.

Companies mentioned in the research included popular brands such as Gymshark, Alo, and Beyond Yoga, alongside various third-party reviewers.

Source: Search Engine Journal