2026 Predictions: The First Year Marketers Must Win Both Worlds — SEO and AI Search
A Visibility Outlook from the Semrush Leadership Team
December 19, 2025
AI search is rewriting the rules of brand discovery. To help marketers keep pace, Semrush Enterprise unveiled the AI Visibility Index — the definitive industry benchmark measuring brand performance across AI-powered search platforms. Built on Semrush Enterprise’s AI Optimization tool data, the Index offers marketers a transparent, actionable view of brand visibility in AI results.
With Semrush data projecting AI search traffic to surpass traditional search engines by 2028, the Index gives marketers what they’ve been missing: a clear, data-backed playbook for competing — and winning — in the new AI era.
A New Discipline Requires A New Playbook
AI visibility isn’t simply a byproduct of good SEO; it’s its own, emerging discipline. No matter what LLM a marketer is optimizing for, one of the biggest challenges remains: being cited as a trusted source doesn’t guarantee you’ll win the click or conversation. For example, the study finds that Zapier is cited most frequently, but other brands often win the brand-level mentions.
This reveals a critical split: marketers must fight and win on two separate fronts:
This reveals a critical split: marketers must fight and win on two separate fronts:
Top Sources: Digital Technology & Software AI Visibility Index Study by Semrush Enterprise
- The Sentiment Battle: The first stage is discoverability. AI models scrape reviews, community forums, and social discussions to understand who is being talked about. This user-generated content represents new currency: a brand’s community voice can be more powerful than its SEO ranking.
- The Authority Game: Once a brand is discovered, LLMs seek to validate the hype with authoritative sources like its official website or Wikipedia entries. To win this stage, content must be clear, factual and structured for easy LLM digestion. If AI can’t confirm your brand’s claims from an authoritative source, you run the risk of others telling your story for you.
This creates two distinct pathways to AI visibility: being talked about as a brand, and being cited as authoritative. For brands who want to win at both, consistency and repetition are key to building trust and shining through.
Inside the AI Visibility Index
The Index breaks down how brands show up in AI search — across platforms, industries, real-world prompts, and performance metrics — giving marketers a clear view of who’s winning and why.
- Multi-Platform Analysis, measuring visibility across two leading AI platforms: ChatGPT, which accounts for ~80% of AI assistant usage, and Google AI Mode, the first large-scale response from search’s long-time market leader.
- Key Industry Benchmarking, focusing on 100 top brands across five key industries: Finance, Digital Technology Software, Business, Fashion, and Consumer electronics. Spoiler: Not all industries are treated equally by the models.
- Data-Driven Prompts, using a carefully weighted set of ~2,500 real-world prompts designed for meaningful cross-vertical comparisons.
- Key Performance Metrics, ranking brands based on clearly defined metrics, including Share of Voice (SOV), total mentions, mention position, and website citations (sources).
This unique methodology lets marketers not only see who is winning in AI search — but why.
Some Key Findings
- Mentions ≠ authority: In most industries, fewer than 1 in 5 brands manage to be both frequently mentioned and consistently cited as a source.
- Verticals matter: Finance is highly concentrated (Fidelity 33.7% SOV; Vanguard 29.3%), while Fashion is fragmented, with Patagonia (21.9%) leading through sustainability narratives.
Brand Leaderboard: Fashion & Apparel AI Visibility Index Study by Semrush Enterprise
- Community voice dominates: Reddit is the #1 source for ChatGPT across several sectors, while Google AI Mode leans more on structured authorities like Bankrate, LinkedIn, and Amazon.
This combination reveals why some brands thrive — and others vanish — when AI rewrites the rules of discovery.
Getting Going On AI Visibility: A Microsite and Full Report
The Index is designed to enable marketers to take action immediately, with two core assets:
The AI Visibility Index Microsite: A live, interactive platform with data visualizations, competitor explorers, and trend analysis, with data updated bi-weekly. Marketers can use interactive charts to slice data and uncover insights that matter most to their needs.
The 2025 AI Visibility Index Study: A downloadable ~130-page PDF report featuring in-depth insights, an AI Visibility Playbook, a 90-day AI Visibility Roadmap, and Key Takeaways to Win in AI Search Next Quarter. Marketers can use this to start optimizing for AI visibility immediately.
The AI Visibility Index Microsite: A live, interactive platform with data visualizations, competitor explorers, and trend analysis, with data updated bi-weekly. Marketers can use interactive charts to slice data and uncover insights that matter most to their needs.
The 2025 AI Visibility Index Study: A downloadable ~130-page PDF report featuring in-depth insights, an AI Visibility Playbook, a 90-day AI Visibility Roadmap, and Key Takeaways to Win in AI Search Next Quarter. Marketers can use this to start optimizing for AI visibility immediately.
Availability
To help get all marketers off to the AI visibility races, the AI Visibility Index is publicly available via an interactive microsite and 130-page playbook.
