A famous name does not put you on the AI shortlist
Found by Flux asked three AI assistants the same shopping questions every week. The median brand appeared in 1.9% of answers. Some well-known names sat low in their categories.
Flux is a Shopify Plus agency that also sells AI search services. Its Found by Flux tracker published "The State of AI Visibility in Ecommerce: October 2026" on Oct 26. Flux has a stake in the topic, so treat it as an agency study. It states that every number on its page comes from its own data.
How Found by Flux measures
Every week, Found asks ChatGPT, Perplexity and Google AI Overviews the same 150 shopping questions for each category and records every answer. A brand’s AI visibility is the share of collected answers that name it. The study covers 66 lists in Australia, the United States and the United Kingdom, 2,541 brands and 313,600 answers. The latest scan window is 16 to 25 October 2026.
Flux notes that a mention can be a recommendation, a comparison or a qualification, and that visibility does not measure sales or product quality.
Most brands are close to invisible
Of 2,541 brands, 1,845 (72.6%) appear in fewer than 5% of the answers for their category, and 956 (37.6%) in fewer than 1%. And 219 (8.6%) were never named once. The median brand showed up in 1.9% of answers. The average category leader showed up in 26.6%.
A well-known name is not enough
Flux says brand size helps but does not decide the answer. In its US beauty list, Glossier appears in 2.7% of answers and ranks 41st of 66 brands. In the same list, CeraVe leads at 34.0%.
Flux gives more examples. Charlotte Tilbury ranks 5th in UK beauty at 9.4% but 33rd in US beauty at 2.9%. Gymshark leads UK activewear at 47.4% and ranks 7th in the US at 16.9%. Flux’s likely reason is coverage: AI answers draw on what is written about a brand in each market.
The assistants disagree
In 35 of 56 categories, ChatGPT, Perplexity and Google AI Overviews name a different number one brand. Of the brands named at all, 14% (260 of 1,863) appear on only one assistant. Google AI Overviews names brands least often, at 4.3% of answers on average against 5.4% for ChatGPT and 5.1% for Perplexity.
One look is not a measurement
The top 10 brands in each list swing an average of 4.2 points between their best and worst weekly scan. A brand that checks once may have caught a good week. Flux also finds the top 3 brands take 37.7% of all mentions in a category, so the shortlist is short.
What to do this week
Tick these off as you go.
How Shopthru.ai helps
Shopthru.ai is an AI agents team for consumer brands. It asks ChatGPT, Gemini, Google AI, Perplexity and Copilot what your shoppers ask, finds where AI gets your products, prices or policies wrong, and drafts each fix into an approval inbox. It ships only on your yes, then checks again. Instagram and Amazon are next.