A Semrush study found only about 15% of ChatGPT categories have a consistent brand leader, and 53.7% have none at all. For challengers, the AI answer is wide open, but only if you move now.
A Semrush study of how brands show up in ChatGPT landed on a number every marketer should sit with. Across 1,094 US categories, only about 15% had a consistent brand leader in ChatGPT's answers. In more than half of all categories, 53.7%, no brand led at all.
To count as a category leader, a brand had to appear in at least four of five common buyer prompts and beat the next competitor by a clear margin. Most brands could not do it. AI visibility, it turns out, is fragile even for the companies that dominate everywhere else.
Why it matters
Read this two ways. If you are a market leader, your position in the old world does not carry into the AI answer automatically. The authority you built on Google does not transfer for free. But read it the other way and it is the best news a challenger has had in years. More than half of categories have no AI leader. The ground is open. Whoever works out how to earn the citation gets to own the answer before the incumbents wake up.
In 53.7% of categories, ChatGPT names no consistent brand leader at all, leaving the space wide open. Source: Semrush AI Visibility study.
What to do about it
The AI answer is being decided right now, category by category. Most are still up for grabs.