Analysis: most AI search demand still has no clear ChatGPT category leader

Kevin Indig analyzed six months of ChatGPT citation data from Semrush — 1,094 U.S. categories, five prompts each, over 50,000 brands and 600,000-plus citations — and found only 15.2% of categories have a single brand clearly leading, defined as appearing in at least four of five prompts with a 5-point-plus edge over the runner-up. By estimated search demand, 89.3% of AI search volume sits in categories with no such clear owner, and the domain cited most often matched the brand mentioned most often just 20.8% of the time, per Search Engine Journal.