Ahrefs finds stores lead the most mentioned brands in ChatGPT

What changed

Stores hold six of the top 10 places in Ahrefs’ list of the 100 most mentioned brands in ChatGPT, published on 11 November 2026. Ahrefs counted 5,516,381 US ChatGPT answers in its Brand Radar index, and 95,605 of them name Walmart, almost twice the 52,096 that name Target. Ahrefs’ measure, share of answers, is the answers naming a brand as a percentage of all US ChatGPT answers in the index, across every topic, in November 2026.

Walmart’s share of answers is 1.73%, and each of the next nine brands sits under 1%:

Target follows at 0.94%, then Apple at 0.82%, Amazon at 0.70%, The Home Depot at 0.63%, Nike at 0.60%, Google at 0.56%, Toyota at 0.55%, Costco at 0.53% and Best Buy at 0.45%.

Ahrefs grouped the 100 brands by industry. Retailers fill 23 of the 100 places and take 35% of the mentions those 100 brands earn. Carmakers rank second with 14% from 15 brands, mostly on questions about reliability, resale value and which model to buy. Prada closes the list with 5,593 answers, or 0.10%.

Ahrefs read a sample of the answers behind each top 10 brand. ChatGPT names a store when someone asks where to buy a product, and a product brand when someone asks what to buy or how to use what they own. Walmart is “ChatGPT’s default answer to ‘where can I buy this cheaply?’”, wrote Si Quan Ong, SEO & Marketing Educator at Ahrefs.

Why it happened

Brand Radar’s questions come from search demand. Ahrefs’ Brand Radar methodology, updated on 26 February 2026, says Ahrefs expands real queries from its keyword database through Google’s People Also Ask and semantic fan-out. About 14.5 million a month run through ChatGPT’s free web interface, refreshed monthly. The base covers recipes and health questions, so even Walmart sits under 2% of answers.

The stores ChatGPT names are also websites ChatGPT cites. In Ahrefs’ list of the 50 most-cited websites in ChatGPT, updated on 3 November 2026, walmart.com ranks fourth with 4.1% of citations among the top sources, homedepot.com 10th with 2.2% and target.com 13th with 2.0%.

OpenAI’s merchant page says, as of 12 November 2026, ChatGPT shopping is open to US users, with Shopify and Etsy catalogs needing no extra setup. Walmart announced a partnership with OpenAI on 14 October 2025 to let customers shop Walmart through ChatGPT using Instant Checkout.

What it changes for GEO

Ahrefs’ list counts how often a name comes up across every topic, which shows how widely ChatGPT knows a brand and leaves open whether ChatGPT recommends it. Nike’s count includes ownership questions such as “Is Converse made by Nike?”, and ChatGPT names Google mostly for help with Translate or Google Flights. A visibility number is only as honest as its frame, so a mid-size brand needs how often AI answers mention it on its own category’s buying questions.

Big stores gain the answer worth the most to them. Ahrefs found that questions about affordable black dresses or matching Christmas pajamas usually get answers naming Walmart and Target together. The recommendation is the most valuable moment in a purchase, so a mid-size online shop missing from that answer loses the sale. Store answers matter first to US e-commerce brands, whose products can be bought from the answer, while B2B manufacturers and service firms come later.

Known product brands gain on buying questions. Toyota anchors ChatGPT’s answers on the most reliable car to buy. ChatGPT mostly names Best Buy as where to buy a product it recommends, so the maker holds the recommendation. AI engines judge a brand by how many trusted sources mention it and how widely, so household names lead an all-topics count. A mid-size brand moves up by getting cited in ChatGPT on the sites its category’s answers cite.

US shops on Shopify or Etsy gain a direct path into ChatGPT shopping, because OpenAI says their catalogs are already integrated. Other merchants apply to share a product feed and join a waitlist, so a mid-size shop selling elsewhere gets in later.

What to do

The head of marketing should have the team list the buying questions in the brand’s own category this month. Ahrefs found three kinds behind the top 10: where to buy, what to buy and how to use something. The team runs them in ChatGPT through a tracker, building the set as a prompt set for AI visibility tracking describes, and records which brands and stores each answer names.

The team then reads the answers, as Ahrefs did, to see whether ChatGPT recommends the brand or only mentions it. US shops outside Shopify and Etsy apply through OpenAI’s merchant page to share a product feed. The check is the brand’s share of those category answers against the stores and brands named beside it, reread monthly, since Ahrefs refreshes Brand Radar’s ChatGPT data monthly.