Where AI Citations Come From: A Five-Category Panel (Sep 30 to Oct 4, 2026)
Thirty prompts across five categories over five days: 4,971 AI citations from 713 source domains. Platforms and publishers dominate, not brand websites. Method on the page.
Published October 12, 2026 · Adam Rock
The finding
Data re-extracted and frozen 16 October 2026.
Across five product categories, the sources AI cited most were platforms and publishers, not the brands' own websites. YouTube and Reddit together account for more citations than any other domain in the panel.
| Source domain | Citations |
|---|---|
| youtube.com | 251 |
| techradar.com | 180 |
| reddit.com | 173 |
| forbes.com | 160 |
| runnersworld.com | 143 |
| runrepeat.com | 131 |
| monday.com | 93 |
| zapier.com | 91 |
| clickup.com | 69 |
| rtings.com | 63 |
Engines disagree on breadth
The same prompts produced very different source footprints per engine. This is distinct domains cited, not total mentions.
| Engine | Cited-source records | Distinct domains |
|---|---|---|
| Perplexity | 2,453 | 349 |
| Gemini | 1,488 | 282 |
| ChatGPT | 662 | 190 |
| Grok | 159 | 79 |
| Google AI Overviews | 78 | 15 |
| Microsoft Copilot | 74 | 15 |
| Claude | 54 | 10 |
| Brave AI | 3 | 2 |
The running-shoes control
In a non-software category, review sites out-cited the market leader by more than ten to one.
| Source domain | Citations |
|---|---|
| runnersworld.com | 143 |
| runrepeat.com | 131 |
| nike.com | 11 |
Method
- Universe: a dedicated research tenant monitoring five categories, with 30 prompts (six per category).
- Engines: mainly ChatGPT, Gemini and Perplexity. One CRM prompt was also run across all eight monitored engines.
- Window: 30 September 2026 to 4 October 2026 (five days).
- Measure: citations the engines made to a publication (classified as info_site), grouped by registered domain.
- Sample: 4,971 citation records across 713 distinct source domains (frozen 16 Oct 2026).
- Excluded: each tracked brand's own domain (hubspot.com, asana.com, nike.com, tryprofound.com, shopify.com) and our own domains.
Limits
- Five days, not a long-term trend. Treat this as a first look, not a season.
- The all-eight-engine figures apply to one CRM prompt. The other four categories ran a three-engine panel.
- A citation is not an endorsement and not a recommendation.
- Counts are citations to a domain, not unique pages.
Data
The aggregate tables are on this page. The machine-readable dataset, the method box and the SQL we used are published at /data/ai-citation-sources-five-categories-2026-10/dataset.json.
Cite this
AEO Spotlight, Where AI Citations Come From: A Five-Category Panel (30 September to 4 October 2026). Retrieved from https://aeospotlight.com/data/ai-citation-sources-five-categories-2026-10
Frequently Asked Questions
What is this dataset?
It is a five-day, five-category panel of the sources cited in AI answers. It covers 30 prompts and 4,971 citation records from 30 September to 4 October 2026.
Which engines were measured?
The panel ran mainly on ChatGPT, Gemini and Perplexity. One CRM prompt was also run across all eight monitored engines.
Can I cite this data?
Yes. Please credit AEO Spotlight and link to this page. A suggested citation is at the bottom of the page.