Citation Destination Audit · 2026

AI is sending your customers somewhere.
It's probably not your website.

Across 12 brands and 2,400+ AI citation events, we tracked where AI-generated links and recommendations actually route when your brand is mentioned — and what happens as the conversation moves closer to purchase.

0%
Brand own-site citations at Final Prompt Across 19 of 20 brands tested, the brand's own website appeared zero times when AI generated product links and citations. Traffic routes to third-party retailers, competitor sites, marketplaces and secondhand platforms — not to brand.com.
20 brands tested
9 categories
4 AI platforms
4 conversation turns

OWN SITE
CITATION RATE
Where AI routes citations at this turn
Destination drift — how routing changes across the conversation

Where is AI routing traffic
when your brand is mentioned?

We run your brand through our decision-path analysis across ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity and Grok — and show you exactly where the links go at every turn.

Get Your Free Citation Audit

Or book a briefing to walk through your category data

Methodology: Primary research conducted across ChatGPT, Gemini, Grok and Perplexity. Each brand tested across 4-turn decision-path sequences (First Prompt / Follow Up 1 / Follow Up 2 / Final Prompt) with 5 replicate runs per model. Citation destinations extracted from inline product cards, hyperlink annotations, image URL domains and named competitor recommendations. 3,700+ citation events recorded across 20 brands, 9 sectors. Research conducted Q1 2026. AIVO Edge measures decision-stage AI outcomes — not first-prompt visibility.