What AI assistants answer when asked which brand to buy
AI Answers Atlas, edition 1, October 2026. Full edition in French.
We asked ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini and Perplexity 60 buying questions, in French, across three categories where French brands sell online: mattresses, clean beauty and comfort shoes. We then asked 12 of those questions four more times to each assistant, to see what holds and what changes from one answer to the next. 432 answers in total, each recorded, counted and coded. Every question was asked by hand in the consumer apps, so these are the answers a shopper actually sees, product cards and sources included.
Five findings
1. AI assistants almost always answer with brand names. 190 of the 192 repeated answers name at least one brand; the other two are generic advice and a refusal. A brand that is not in the answer is not left out of a neutral reply: its place goes to someone else.
2. The same question does not get the same answer twice. Asked four times in the same week, by the same assistant, fewer than one cited brand in five came back every time (128 of 690), and nearly half appeared only once (337 of 690). Checking a question once in ChatGPT says little; the only reliable measure is a frequency over several tries.
Run 4, 7 October 2026 · Open full size
Run 5, 8 October 2026 · Open full size
3. The four assistants do not recommend the same brands. In 23 of the 40 cases where a brand we track is cited consistently by one assistant (at least 3 answers out of 4), another assistant never cites it on the same question. Visibility in ChatGPT says nothing about Gemini or Perplexity.
4. Depending on the category, the assistants rely on different sources. Across the sources ChatGPT and Perplexity cite on buying questions, the press and specialist sites (reviews, buying guides, blogs) account for 378 of 706 classified citations. The mix changes completely by category: press and review sites make up 200 of 266 citations for mattresses, while shops and manufacturers' sites make up 133 of 206 for comfort shoes, where health sites also appear. Customer review platforms are almost never cited on a buying question.
5. In each category, one to three brands appear in more than half of the answers. Tediber, Emma and Hypnia for mattresses; Patyka and Typology for clean beauty; Podowell for comfort shoes. Behind them the field is wide open: between 43 and 111 different brands are cited per category.
Scope
Three categories and 60 questions, asked in French on logged-in accounts with memory turned off, on 25 September and from 5 to 8 October 2026. AI answers change with time and model updates. The method, the limits and the aggregated data are on the French pages.
Read the French edition · Method (French) · Download the data
Find out whether your brand is in the answer.
Give us your store’s address and your category. Within 3 working days you get a 3 to 4 page PDF: the 4 buying questions we asked ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity and Claude (5 times each), how often each one cites your brand, the brands cited instead of you, how you are described, and the three actions to start with. Free, and the document is yours.
- ✓4 real buying questions from your category, asked 5 times to 4 AI tools: a frequency, not a screenshot
- ✓The brands cited instead of you, and why
- ✓A 3 to 4 page PDF within 3 working days
- ✓No obligation: run the actions yourself, or we talk
Prefer to talk first? Book a 15-min call