More than half of stores weren't in the answer.
We measured 40 online stores: we asked AI exactly the questions a shopper would use to find their products, and looked at who it cited. Our own measurement, September 2026. Details below.
stores measured: Woo, Shopify, Magento and BigCommerce, across categories and countries.
were not cited by AI for their own product queries.
of the stores where AI cited someone, the store itself was absent and a rival was cited instead.
A method you can repeat
We took 40 diverse stores (Woo, Shopify, Magento, BigCommerce; various categories, international) from real product pages.
For each product page we derived its own buyer queries — the questions a shopper would use to look for that kind of product from AI.
We ran the queries in ChatGPT (web search on) and collected which pages and domains it cited in its answer.
For each we checked: was the store's own domain among those cited for its own product queries.
The sample is small and limited to one engine, so the figure shows an order of magnitude, not a market share. The method is written out precisely so anyone can repeat it and check.
Run the same measurement
This is the same method we used on those 40 stores, condensed to a single product. Paste it into your own Claude or ChatGPT and keep web search on. Note that it only measures the one AI surface you run it in.
Keep web search on for the whole task. Product page: My domain: 1. Read the product page and derive five buyer queries from it: questions a shopper would use to look for this kind of product. Do not mention my brand in the queries. 2. Run each query separately, the way an ordinary shopper would ask. 3. From each answer, collect the pages and domains you cited. 4. For each one, check whether was among the cited. Report as a table: query, cited domains, was I included (yes/no). Then: how many out of five, and if I wasn't included, who was. Also state which AI surface this was run on — the result only covers that surface. Do not soften the result and do not favour me because I am the one asking.
If you're in none of the five, you're in that 52 per cent. The reason is usually not the product but that your page has no facts the AI could cite.
- This prompt
- One AI surface — the one you run it in. Five queries, one product, one moment. A good spot check, not a measurement.
- Our report
- Three surfaces: ChatGPT, Perplexity and Google AI. Buyer queries across the catalogue, not five. The same measurement repeated, so change becomes visible. And the technical layer alongside it: why you are cited or not.
- How to get it
- Run the free audit and book a call. We go through the report together.
40 diverse stores across platforms (WooCommerce, Shopify, Magento, BigCommerce) and categories, international. The product pages were drawn from our own audit dataset. We don't name individual stores.
For this run, ChatGPT with web search. AI answers vary across engines (ChatGPT, Perplexity, Google AI) and over time, so we treat the figure as a snapshot, not a final truth.
We derived each product page's own buyer queries and ran them. 'Not cited' means the store's own domain was not among the sources the AI named in its answer for its own product queries.
Yes. Outcite runs the same measurement on one of your product pages, shows who AI cites instead, and gives you the fixed page if you're not in the answer.
What does your store look like to AI?
A free audit. No signup, works on every platform.