AI Search Visibility Benchmark: Commercial Queries (2026)

Short answer: We tracked 16 commercial queries across AI consulting, data platforms, and product analytics on Google AI Overviews and ChatGPT in October 2026. Brainforge was not among the top 25 cited domains on any of them, but so were most named consultancies. On Google AI Overviews the cited sources were social and video platforms (LinkedIn, YouTube, Reddit), not vendor sites. On ChatGPT, several commercial queries returned no brand at all — a generic answer with an open slot a well-structured page can win.

The headline numbers

Those totals look encouraging until you split them by query type. The 169 Google AI Overview citations come almost entirely from informational blog and resource content. On the 16 commercial queries — the ones a buyer asking about cost, services, or a specific platform would use — Brainforge was not among the top 25 cited domains in any of the 32 platform checks (16 queries on 2 platforms).

What we measured

Using the DataForSEO LLM Mentions API (top_mentioned_domains, sources scope, partial-match keyword target, United States / English), we checked which domains AI answers cite as sources for each priority query on both platforms. Selected results:

Three findings that change the plan

1. The commercial gap is total, not partial. Brainforge wins informational AI visibility on Google but is not among the top cited domains for any commercial query. If a buyer asks an AI assistant where to get AI consulting, we are not in the answer.
2. Social and video platforms own the citations, not vendor sites. Across the commercial queries, LinkedIn, YouTube, and Reddit were the most-cited sources. A vendor page alone does not enter the citation set; the same insight has to exist where the models already pull from.
3. Several queries have no incumbent at all. 'How much does AI consulting cost', 'amplitude consultant', and 'posthog consulting' returned generic answers with no named brand. These are the cheapest wins: an answer-first page with real data can become the only cited source.

Method

• Source: DataForSEO LLM Mentions API, top_mentioned_domains endpoint, links_scope: sources, partial-match keyword target, location United States, language English.
• Query set: 16 priority commercial queries from the Brainforge marketing WBR configuration, spanning AI consulting, data platforms (Snowflake, data engineering), and product analytics (Amplitude, PostHog, Segment).
• Platforms: Google AI Overviews (google) and ChatGPT (chat_gpt). ChatGPT coverage is US/English only and its dataset is smaller than Google AI Overviews, so absolute counts are not comparable across platforms.
• Window: October 2026. A citation means the domain is linked as a source in an AI answer. Each check aggregates every AI answer whose question or answer contains the query terms (not a single exact prompt) and returns the top 25 cited domains, so a brand outside that set may still be cited less often.

What this means for buyers and for us

For buyers: an AI assistant may confidently answer a commercial question with no named provider, which means its answer is only as good as the generic sources behind it. Ask for specifics — methodology, data readiness, and fixed scope — because the models will not.

For Brainforge: the fix is a shift from informational content to answer-first commercial pages backed by first-party data, plus the off-site signals these models actually cite. This benchmark is the first of those first-party data points, and we will rerun it and publish the movement.

Related Brainforge resources

• What AI consulting really costs
• AI automation consulting services
• How to choose a gen-AI consulting firm
• AI consulting services